The Lazy Person’s Breakfast (aka, the smoothie I’ve had everyday for two years)

Mar 7, 2012

Becky is much more motivated in the morning than I; I have a hard time carving out time to cook in the AM.  Her breakfast post from last week gave me hunger pangs, but alas, my go to breakfast over the past couple of years has been a lowly smoothie, with ingredients chosen to maximize your nutrient intake. I really like being able to knock out breakfast in 3-5 minutes, cleanup with just hot water, then carry it with me to have at my desk at work.

Note: If you have a body composition goal that involves losing weight, you might want to avoid smoothies for breakfast and stick with a whole food alternative**

OK, without further ado, my smoothie:

(1) Cup Whole Milk Yogurt  –OR- for those who want to reduce the carb load and/or do a paleo version: (1) Cup Unsweetened Coconut Milk

(1) Cup mixed frozen berries, I use half strawberries and the other half a blend of blueberries, blackberries and raspberries.  Berries are packed with nutrients and especially nice because of lower fructose content. I buy both in bulk at Costco, VERY cost effective.

(2) Organic Free Range eggs… the great thing is you can’t taste the eggs but it adds a wallop of healthy protein and fat!  Quality eggs are key for food safety. I’ve done this five days a week for two years and never gotten sick 🙂

(2) Handfuls of Baby Spinach.. for the nutrients!

(1) Half a Banana or a small amount of raw honey… this is the sweetener.  If you left this out and went with the coconut milk you would have a VERY low glycemic smoothie, but it might not taste that great. I would just try to keep the sugar content as low as possible while retaining palatability.

And if you are adventurous: (1) Tbsp of Cocoa powder.  I keep reading about all the health benefits of chocolate, so I figured this would be an easy way to add it to my diet.  I would try the smoothie without this first because I still haven’t decided if I like how it tastes.

Hit puree and you are done.

I usually double this and save one for the next day; I’ve found it keeps fine in the fridge.

A couple of tips:  I find it easiest to put the yogurt/coconut milk  in first to measure, then push the berries down into the yogurt to then measure up to the 2 cup line in the blender.  Then add the eggs and start blending. Once it gets going then I start dropping in the spinach and whatever else.

Smoothies are like DJing, the more you mix things up, the more interesting it gets. I developed this over the course of three years, if anyone improves on it, please let me know.

**The prevailing wisdom is that liquid food is a slippery slope for those trying to shed body fat.  Even a comparatively protein rich and low glycemic smoothie like this will cause a much more pronounced insulin response than the same food eaten whole.

And we should all know from reading the insulin article on Wikipedia that (oh, of course you have!) insulin causes “Decreased lipolysis – forces reduction in conversion of fat cell lipid stores into blood fatty acids; lack of insulin causes the reverse.” That sentence is borderline over my head, but I am 90% sure it says that insulin makes you store fat, and that the lack of it makes you release fat for energy.  A bit of a digression from my smoothie recipe but it’s something that I think is worth getting out there.