Breakfast gives you the sustenance to get through the rest of your day and prevents snacking throughout the morning. Instead of eating a breakfast high in fat and empty calories, a healthy breakfast smoothie, made with a wide vareity of ingredients, is a better way to get the energy and nutrients you need.
Breakfast Benefits
Breakfast is a great time to get more fruits and vegetables into your diet. They reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. A breakfast smoothie is an easy way to accomplish this goal. Consuming breakfast in any form also helps you maintain or lose weight and it boosts alertness and productivity for the rest of your day.
Smoothie Advantages
One advantage of a breakfast smoothie over other breakfast options is that you can drink it on the go instead of sitting down to eat it. They are also easy to prepare and low-fat. The versatility of smoothies is another advantage since you can prepare them with different ingredients every day. Not only does this give you the convenience of using whatever produce you have on hand, but it also ensures you won't get tired of eating the same breakfast every day. Smoothies also contain the fiber portion of fruits and vegetables, giving them a nutritional edge over fruit or vegetable juices.
Ingredient Options
A healthy breakfast smoothie should contain fiber, vitamins and calcium to provide the most benefit. For most breakfast smoothies, yogurt, low-fat milk or a combination of these two dairy products act as the base. Berries and bananas are two popular fruit options to include in a healthy smoothie, but almost any fruit can be used. Vegetables, including cucumber, avocado, pumpkin and kale, are other possible ingredients and when added in small doses, they usually do not affect the flavor very much. Nut butters and flax meal can also add nutrients and flavor to your smoothie.
Preparation
Making a healthy breakfast smoothie begins by assembling the ingredients. Fruit can be chopped and frozen the night before or bought frozen to make preparation more convenient. All ingredients can be combined the next morning in a home blender and served immediately. Another option is to toss all of the ingredients into the blender jar the night before and refrigerate the entire thing so all you have to do in the morning is blend it for a few minutes.
Tips
Adding ice or frozen cubes of fruit juice makes your breakfast smoothie extra frothy. You can sneak in some extra nutrients by tossing a handful of spinach into the blender while making a smoothie. The taste of the spinach disappears in the drink, making this a healthy way to get more veggies into a reluctant child or even into your own diet.
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