Healthy Banana Smoothie
Recipe Guide

Benefits of a Healthy Fruit Smoothie. A healthy banana smoothie recipe will make you one of the most nutritious — and delicious — meals on earth. Healthy fruit smoothies are loaded with phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals and enzymes that come in a whole-food form.

The fruits and vegetable blended together in healthy smoothie recipes provide vitamins, minerals, enzymes and fiber that will do wonders for your health — and build up your body’s defenses against disease.

In addition, when fruits and vegetables are blended, the plant fibers are broken down just like when you chew them; the blender literally does most of the “chewing” for you. And chewing food more thoroughly means that you'll absorb more of the nutrients.

Healthy fruit smoothies retain the fiber from the fruits and the vegetables you use. This improves digestion and helps your body naturally rid itself of toxins. Fiber also helps you feel more satisfied, and maintains that feeling longer.

Bananas Make Great Healthy Smoothie Ingredients. Bananas are America's favorite tropical fruit. Finding a good banana smoothie recipe is easy — there's no other fruit so well suited for smoothie-making. A banana's soft texture is easy to blend into a rich, creamy consistency. A fully ripe banana also adds just the right amount of sweetness to any smoothie recipe.

It's also very easy to keep a supply of bananas handy in your freezer, ready anytime you feel like a smoothie. Just peel them and store in a ziplock freezer bag. Using frozen bananas will chill your smoothie and make it even more refreshing.

Bananas are rich in vitamin B6 and C, potassium and fiber. Even though they're relatively sweet, bananas are not excessively high on the glycemic index, even when fully ripe.

Recommended Starter
for Your Banana Smoothie Recipe

Most smoothie recipes call for some liquid to allow the solid ingredients to move around inside the blender and give your smoothie the right thickness. This base liquid can be plain water, milk, yogurt, soy milk, nut milks, or fruit juice. If you want your smoothie to provide optimum health benefits, you'll want to pick the right one. I share all the best tips at my page on How to Make a Smoothie the Healthy Way.

Chilling Your Banana Smoothies

Is there's anything more refreshing than a cold, creamy smoothie? There are two ways of chilling your healthy smoothie recipes:

• Ice Cubes — a good way of thinning down a smoothie that's too thick and chilling it at the same time.

• Frozen Fruit — has the advantage of not diluting the taste, and also giving your smoothie a creamier texture. It's very easy and convenient to create a stash of frozen cut-up fruit, so you always have some on hand.

Optional Ingredients
for Your Banana Smoothie Recipe

Protein Additives

Adding a quality source of protein turns your smoothie into a complete meal. I recommend raw organic eggs or a protein powder made from hemp, rice, peas or whey.

Hemp protein powder is a great way to add healthy omega 3 fats and fiber to your smoothie as well.

Undenatured whey is another excellent source of protein for your smoothies. Both whey and hemp protein are very mild tasting; the hemp powder is not as concentrated and will thicken up your smoothie quite a bit more than the whey protein will.

I don't recommend using cheap protein powders, especially any with artificial ingredients. The whey protein should be cold-processed (undenatured) and derived from grass-fed cows, free of hormones and chemicals. Cold-processing whey protects the nutrients in their natural state.

Antioxidant Superfoods

Green superfood powders like chlorella and spirulina make any smoothie a super-nutritious green smoothie. They give you the equivalent of several full-size servings of dark green leafy vegetables in just one tablespoon.

Superfood supplements like maca root, raw cacao, hemp, flax, chia seeds and others increase the antioxidant content and nutritional benefits of your smoothie in their own unique ways.

Antioxidant superfruits like acai, goji, mangosteen and noni, available as concentrated juices or powders, add lots more antioxidants and a natural fruit sweetness to your smoothies.

Other Great Additions for Your Healthy Smoothie

Coconut Oil is the healthiest fat there is. It contains lauric acid, a rare medium-chain fatty acid (also found in mother's milk) that has many health-protecting properties. Coconut oil gives your healthy smoothie a richer, creamier texture. Because coconut oil is solid below a temperature of 76 degrees F, it doesn't work as well in cold smoothies.

Herbs and spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves have higher concentrations of antioxidants than any fruit or vegetable, and add a warm flavor to your healthy smoothie recipe.

Banana Smoothie Recipes

Start by pouring the liquid ingredients for each smoothie recipe into your blender. Use fresh fruit or frozen.

Add any of the optional ingredients recommended above, if you like — then blend until smooth.

Add more liquid to reduce the thickness, ice to chill it, or more fruit to thicken your banana smoothie.

Substitute ingredients at your whim — it's fun to experiment!

Blueberry Banana Smoothie
1 cup of strawberries
1 cup of raspberries
1/2 cup of pineapple juice
1 cup of yogurt

Banana Cantaloupe Smoothie
1/2 sliced cantaloupe
1 frozen banana
1 cup nut milk

Kiwi Banana Smoothie
1 cup nut milk
1 frozen banana
2 Kiwi fruit, peeled

Banana Cashew Date Smoothie
1/4 cup cashews
1/2 frozen banana
4 dates, pitted
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup ice cubes

Orange Apple Banana
1/2 orange, peeled
2 green apples, seeded
1 frozen banana
1 tablespoon brewers yeast

Banana Kiwi Canteloupe
1 firm kiwi fruit, peeled
1/4 cantaloupe
1 frozen banana

Orange Papaya Banana
1/2 orange, peeled
1/2 papaya, peeled
1 frozen banana