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 Smoothies Detoxify Your System. Healthy fruit smoothies retain the fiber from the fruits and the vegetables you use. The fiber works to improve 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

Many smoothie recipes call for the use of milk or yogurt. I personally don't recommend the use of dairy products, but I will leave this up to you. I suggest using a nut milk instead, and that's what you'll find in the banana smoothie recipes below. Substitute regular milk or yogurt if you prefer.

Here's my universal recipe for a healthy smoothie starter. This takes just a few minutes and it's ready to go!

Almond Milk Smoothie Starter

Combine the following in your blender:
• 12 oz of water
• 1/3 cup soaked, raw almonds
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• stevia — sweeten to taste

Blend until smooth and strain through a nylon-mesh nut bag to remove the almond meal.

You can use this as a substitute for milk for all healthy smoothie recipes — or drink it as is. It will only keep for a couple of days, but it's so quick to make, it hardly matters.

About Stevia. If you want to add some type of sweetener to your smoothie recipe, I recommend using stevia.

Stevia is an herbal extract that's 300 times as sweet as sugar. It comes in powder, liquid or tablet form and has no calories. Stevia also does not raise blood sugar levels and is safe for diabetics.

If you need a good source for stevia products, iHerb.com has over 70 to choose from! And at iHerb, you'll get $5 off your first purchase!

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

Optional ingredients for any healthy smoothie recipe that will increase the nutritional value, protein and fiber content of your smoothie include:

Superfoods such as chlorella, spirulina, acai, goji berry and others give your smoothies extraordinary antioxidant content and other nutritional benefits.

Hemp Protein Powder adds protein, healthy omega-3 fats and fiber to your smoothie.

Raw Organic Eggs give your smoothies nature's purest form of complete protein.

Coconut Oil contains about 50 percent lauric acid, a rare medium-chain fatty acid found in mother's milk that has many health-protecting properties. It also gives your healthy smoothie a richer, creamier taste.

Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Cloves have higher concentrations of antioxidants than any fruit or vegetable, and add their warm spiciness 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

YOU Can Have a Website Just Like this One!

Do you have a
favorite healthy smoothie recipe?

If you do, would you like to share it with my readers? Your recipe will appear on its own page right here on this website! If your smoothie has some not-so-healthy ingredients, that's OK; submit it anyway and I'll substitute healthier ones.