squirreling it away #3: morning smoothie prep

start your day SMOOTHLY, squirrels 🐿️

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I’ll just say it: smoothies are the best. 

Smoothies get our days off to a great start. They are the epitome of fresh, flavorful, and nutritious if balanced right. Plus, they make mornings super easy with young eaters. They are actually what got my son to start even being interested in using a straw. I’ll never forget the first smoothie he drank with a straw — I took a video and I was in awe and maybe happy crying a little. I guess this is what happens after going through infant feeding therapy for a year. And then, in the blink of an eye, he’s off to Montessori school in under two weeks, just shy of his 3rd birthday. (cue the waterworks 😭😭) So I thought ahead, as I usually do, and decided to make a TON of smoothies to make those early school mornings that much easier. And yours too, because I’m here to spread the smoothie gospel 🙌

Smoothies are an incredible tool for your toddler-feeding toolbox. They satisfy so many needs: they are fun to make together in the kitchen (a learning / teaching opportunity for both parties - their need for time spent with mom / dad - your need to get a task checked off your to-do list), they make for an easy meal (your need to not overthink every meal you feed your child), and they provide great whole-food nutrition (everyone’s needs for a healthful way of eating). When your goal as a parent is to expose your child to a variety of tastes and their colors while also keeping everything healthful and nutritious, nothing really beats watching the excitement take over your kid’s face when they get a smoothie. Especially when you know that you’ve put a bunch of stuff in there that they might have given the stink eye on its own. I mean, they’re not wrong, I don’t really want to dive in to a block of silken tofu with a spoon either.

Enter the Daily Dozen: a concept that I learned about when I did my Holistic Nutrition and Health Coaching certification during the pandemic. Just like politics (unfortunately), there are many divisive and polarizing stances in the world of nutrition that are taken when it comes to what is the “right” dietary approach. The certification that I got was pretty biased towards plant-based eating, which is not really how I roll. However, I learned a ton of great things about plant-based diets and their benefits for those with varying health challenges. We tried eating in this style for an extended period of time, but it didn’t serve me very well. I wasn’t the target market for this way of eating. Since this isn’t really the point of this issue, I can save my 5-paragraph essay for a future post. 

BUT it was through this program that I learned about the Daily Dozen. Dr. Michael Greger, the author of How Not To Die (this is probably the most scare-tactic-y book title I think I’ve ever come across), has a list of 12 things to aim to include in your day for optimal overall health:

• 3 servings beans / legumes 🫘 (½ cup cooked beans, ¼ cup hummus)

• 1 serving berries 🫐 (½ cup fresh / frozen, ¼ cup dried)

• 3 servings fruits 🍎 (1 medium fruit, ¼ cup dried)

• 1 serving cruciferous vegetables 🥦 (1 cup raw, ½ cup cooked)

• 2 servings greens 🥬 (1 cup raw, ½ cup cooked)

• 2 servings vegetables 🥕 (½ cup non-leafy vegetables)

• 1 serving flaxseed (1 tablespoon ground)

• 1 serving nuts 🥜 (¼ cup nuts, 2 tablespoons nut butter)

• 3 servings grains 🍞(½ cup hot cereal, 1 slice bread)

• 1 serving spices 🥄 (¼ teaspoon turmeric)

• 60 oz beverages 🫖 (water, tea)

• exercise 1x 🏋️‍♀️ (90 min moderate or 40 min vigorous)

When trying to practice the Daily Dozen way of eating, I found it easiest to just throw a bunch of them in the blender and go a little ✅ crazy on my DD checklist. Smoothies are like the perfect vessel for up to 10 or 11 of the Daily Dozen. The obvious ones: berries, fruits, greens, vegetables. The less obvious: beans, cruciferous vegetables, flaxseed, nuts, grains, spices, beverages. And don’t think that they have to be covered in full all in one smoothie — if you’re getting 1/3 servings of ground flaxseed, that’s still a step forward to the goal of 1 Tablespoon per day.

How do we check these boxes in one smoothie? And how do we do it conveniently?

I will say that it is ambitious to try and include servings of the 11 food items from the Daily Dozen in one smoothie. I’d probably be able to come up with something that involves cocoa powder, cherries, blueberries, almond butter, kale, spinach, avocado, carrots, flaxseed, oats, honey, turmeric, cinnamon, and tofu. Probably delicious, but that seems excessive and expensive. (And a bit of a pain to get the right ratio of ingredients — flaxseed + oats = usually an unappetizing sludge.) Although, if I had to add anything to the Daily Dozen (it would become the Daily Baker’s Dozen), it would be something fermented to get a daily dose of probiotics. Since kimchi, sauerkraut, and pickles sound like terrible smoothie ingredients, we’ll go ahead and use stuff like skyr, Greek yogurt, and kefir. 

And I’m not here to offer you just a single smoothie recipe. The 4 (FOUR) recipes that I have below will cover the spectrum of Daily Dozen candidates, give you some ideas and tips for how to expedite your smoothie-making process, and make even the greenest of smoothies a delightfully tasty treat. The ingredient lists are even organized in the order you should add the ingredients into the blender. Softer whole ingredients at the bottom, even softer items and dried goods in the middle, frozen items at the top, and liquid last. This order of operations helps your blender work most efficiently, putting the least amount of stress on the blades and the machine. Think about it: the blender doesn’t know the difference between fresh and frozen, so if you put all the frozen stuff at the bottom, they are likely still sticking together momentarily from adding the “warmer” liquid, like how ice cubes make a big mass in a glass of water. The machine is still making the blades try to spin just as fast trying to break down a big frozen glob of blueberries or whatever, and you end up making quite the ruckus, scaring everyone around you. 

Smoothies are clearly something that I do not take lightly, so you can also trust that these recipes have been tested to what I consider near-perfection. And that’s saying something, coming from a perfectionist-in-denial. 

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the various stages of zen smoothie-making