Not Consuming Enough Fruits and Veggies? Try Drinking Them!

Photo credit: Kari Sullivan CC-BY-2.0

If you are looking for a way to add more fruits and veggies to your diet, smoothies are one of the quickest and easiest ways to do it. And the great thing about them is that you can get as creative as you want – adding this and that – coming up with unique tastes to suit you and your family. But if you don’t feel comfortable just ‘winging’ it and creating your own, look online for recipes – you’ll find lots to choose from.

Using smoothies as a way to add more fruits and vegetables into your diet is also great because some people don’t like the texture or taste of certain vegetables, such as spinach or kale, but they find that mixing it in a smoothie is delicious.

Another benefit of smoothies is that if you have picky kids who make faces at just the mention of fruits and veggies, you can ensure that they’re getting more of them by ‘sneaking’ them into a smoothie. Because the flavors all blend together, they’ll never even know they drank something they didn’t like.

Now that we’ve touched on the benefits, let’s take a look at some of the fruits and vegetables you can use in a smoothie.

• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Kale
• Celery
• Strawberries
• Bananas
• Pineapple
• Plums
• Peaches
• Nectarines
• Kiwi
• Blueberries
• Swiss Chard

This is definitely not an exhaustive list of the fruits and vegetables you can use in smoothies. It’s just some of the basic ones to give you an idea of what you can use. You should also get creative and experiment with some exotic fruits and vegetables such as papaya, mango, and beets.

There are a few things you should keep in mind when creating smoothies. Let’s take a look at those now.

1. Avoid fruit juices – instead use things like water, milk, coconut water, etc. for your liquid. Fruit juices add a lot of unwanted calories.
2. Preparation of fruits and vegetables – if you want your smoothie to be a smoother consistency, chop/dice them as small as possible.
3. Choose organic fruits and veggies whenever possible to reduce exposure to toxins, such as pesticides.

And in case you need a recipe to help get you started, the one below is a nice combination of a fruit and vegetable combination smoothie.

Mixed Berry & Kale Smoothie Recipe

Couple handfuls of frozen or fresh mixed berries (such as strawberries, blueberry, raspberries, pomegranate & cherries)
1-2 cups chopped kale
1/2 cup soy (or almond) milk
1 tablespoon flax seeds

*Not a fan of kale? Try spinach instead.

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend on high until desired consistency is reached.

There you have it, an overview of how quickly and easily you can add more fruits and vegetables into your diet simply by adding them to a smoothie. Try drinking a smoothie every morning for breakfast or replace one snack a day with a smoothie to help guarantee you’ll get more of the fruits and vegetables you need in your daily diet.