Smoothies are a great way to get a lot of goodness and nutrients in and can bulk out a meal that’s otherwise not nutrient-dense enough or not big enough. I often advise my clients in my health coaching sessions to add a nutrient-dense smoothie to their breakfast to stretch them out until lunchtime to avoid the need to snack a couple of hours after breakfast and to give our digestive system a good long break in between meals. It works every time. Smoothies can also be a convenient “breakfast on the go” when time for a sit-down meal is not an option.
I have been making and drinking smoothies as part of or as my family’s breakfast almost every day for a couple of decades. But not all smoothies are created equal. In my health coaching sessions I see many well-meaning people put some things into their smoothies that are not the best option or downright No-Nos and today I want to share with you 4 things that should never go into a smoothie:
1. the whole egg
Eggs are one of the most nutritious foods on the planet. Egg yolks can be eaten raw and are a powerhouse of nutrients. I call them nature’s multivitamin pill. Throw in as many as you want in your smoothies especially if you are not eating eggs separately and especially if you want to sneak in some eggy goodness into your kids if they are not otherwise keen on eggs. Egg whites on the other hand MUST BE COOKED and must not be eaten raw as a general rule. To find out why, and the consequences of regularly eating raw egg whites, refer to one of my earlier blog posts here.
2. raw leafy greens
Green smoothies and green juices have been all the rage for a long time now and are viewed as the ultimate holy grail of healthiness in the wellness industry. I’m not a huge fan of them for regular consumption. Firstly I’m a wholefoods advocate so I prefer to consume the whole of a piece of produce rather than just the juice of it as you lose the pulp (which contains fibre) and often antioxidants in the juicing process. As Anthia Koullouros in her book “I am Food” so eloquently puts “your digestive system is a first-class juicer, extractor and blender”. Well said!! Giving up juicing a few decades ago saved me a heck of a lot of time, money, and washing up, not to mention reducing fructose intake that wreaked total havoc on my digestive health.
If you are consuming the whole of a piece of fruit or vegetable (as you do when making a smoothie as everything is blended up and consumed together) you are consuming all necessary component parts of it as nature intended BUT you need to make sure that certain foods are properly prepared to maximise nutrient-density and minimise anti-nutrients. Green leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, rainbow chard, collard greens, and silverbeet contain oxalates and other naturally occurring anti-nutrients that bind minerals in the body making them unavailable to be absorbed and properly digested. Cooking reduces these anti-nutrients! So if you want to add kale, spinach, rainbow chard, or silverbeet to your smoothies, you should cook them first eg steaming or sauteeing. This is why I crafted our small batch organic beef broth and spinach cubes - Made from cooked not raw spinach, infused with beef broth in easy-to-use frozen cubes. So if you are going to add leafy greens, throw one of these into your smoothie.
Raw leafy greens like raw kale and collard greens are also high in goitrogens. Goitrogens suppress the function of the thyroid and inhibit the uptake of iodine. For people with hypothyroidism, this can potentially worsen their condition. Pregnant women in particular should be careful to not overconsume raw leafy greens high in goitrogens because a developing baby needs adequate levels of thyroid hormone. For more info on raw veggies and thyroid read this post by Chris Kresser or the article “Cleansing Myths and Dangers” in Wise Traditions Journal Spring 2015 p23.
3. soy milk
“Are people still drinking soy milk?!?!?” one of my besties recently asked me. Stand in the queue for a coffee at any café (organic or otherwise) and you will find that the answer is a resounding yes. I consumed it for 10 years back in the day, thinking, once again, that it was a healthier option. The reasons why soy milk is not a healthy option are all set out in one of my earlier posts on soy here.
Healthier options are whole full-fat dairy milk, full-fat yogurt, or milk kefir (fermented milk ). These are all great options if you can tolerate dairy. If you can’t, opt for coconut yogurt, coconut milk or coconut water, or nut milks (though I tend to advise clients to go easy on the nut milks as it is very easy to overconsume nuts in this way with the consequences set out in one of my earlier posts here where the discussion was on nut butters but applies to nut milks too).
4. protein powders
There seems to be this belief among body builders, gym enthusiasts, and athletes that if you train or exercise (however intensely or otherwise) you need to consume a “protein” powder because it is a guaranteed way to enhance athletic performance or without it, your muscles will surely waste away into oblivion. Some people use protein powders as a meal replacement for fat loss. I think our society has become too protein powder obsessed truth be told.
Protein is certainly needed for the growth and repair of muscles and other osteo-skeletal tissue, but eating 3 square nutrient-dense meals a day with about a palm-size of protein from real (natural and wholefood) sources per meal should give you all the protein you really need regardless of what exercise or training you are doing. Grass-fed meat, pastured poultry, pastured organ meat, wild seafood, full-fat pastured dairy (if tolerated), bone broth from the bones of pastured or wild animals, and cooked pastured eggs- this is nature’s ultimate protein food!! This is the very protein that served us for millennium. If this was good enough for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to give them the sustenance needed to hunt down and kill a wild elk for dinner and to support their herculean displays of strength and stamina required to get through an ordinary day, then surely it would suffice the modern day homo sapien for a 1-hour cross fit training session at the local gym. Indeed I saw firsthand when I was nutrition coaching for the Sydney Roosters in 2012 that sporting legends like Anthony Minichiello at the very top of their game didn’t touch protein powders despite their gruelling 6-8 hours of training per day. They just ate real food!
Most protein powders do more harm than good because of all of the synthetic amino acids and other processed and artificial ingredients they contain. Ignore all of the marketing fluff on the container and just be solely interested in what comes after the word “Ingredients”. If there is stuff in there that your great-grandmother wouldn’t have eaten or wouldn’t have recognised, then as a general rule don’t touch it. Whey protein, pea protein, soy protein, hemp protein (and all the rest) are not wholefood sources of protein and are typically processed in such a way as to denature the protein and strip away natural goodness. Also, there’s a huge difference in terms of the bioavailability of animal versus plant proteins. Animal proteins are more bioavailable than plant proteins across the board, but even for protein powders derived from animal proteins, the source and processing of the product need careful attention to ensure that it is indeed a high-quality product. I have observed that most people - even people who seem to tolerate dairy well- do not tolerate whey protein powders well, even on the cleanest brands (grass-fed, non-denatured whey that comes from pasture-raised cattle that aren’t given antibiotics or hormones), leaving them feeling bloated afterward.
For clients who insist on having more protein pre and/or post-training, I recommend a cup of bone broth (aka stock) which is high in protein and is easily digested to provide instant energy. Glucosamine (part of the glycosaminoglycan family of collagen biomolecules found in broth) is somehow able to pass through the intestinal wall intact without going through all of the normal digestive processes therefore requiring little energy to digest. Once glucosamine gets into the bloodstream it targets cartilage and stimulates the growth of new healthy collagen which is found all throughout our osteo-skeletal system, thus building and repairing joints, cartilage, ligaments, tendons and muscles. Compared to homemade gelatinous broth, synthetic supplements are a poor substitute as they do not house the entire extended family of glycosaminoglycans which home-made stock house, are processed and much more expensive.
