Belly-Friendly Green Smoothie

Smoothies have become my comfort food.

Ayurveda is a healthy living guide, and it dictates that fruit should always be consumed separately. In addition, according to Ayurveda, fruit should not be combined with dairy and any other animal protein. Another extremely important tip is to use room-temperature ingredients. Ice-cold drinks can weaken agni, the digestive fire, interfering with healthy digestion.

However, I love to use fruit as a natural sweetener in smoothies so without further ado, here is what I used in my belly-friendly green smoothie:

- about a cup of vanilla-flavoured unsweetened almond milk

- one ripe chopped banana

- one large ripe mango

- a bowl full of baby spinach

- a small bit of grated ginger (I freeze the ginger root to make it easier to grate), to taste

Simply add all the ingredients into the blender in the order listed above, and blend to a smooth consistency.

The result is delicious and kid-approved.

Feel free to follow the above guidelines to custom-craft your own smoothie. For the liquid, in lieu of the almond milk, other good choices are organic soy milk, rice milk, hemp milk, or even distilled water.

I recommend using a ripe avocado, pear, or banana, in addition to another ripe fruit of your choice.

As for the greens, baby spinach or kale are the traditional options with which most people are familiar. However, collard greens or even beet greens are also excellent. If you are not accustomed to the taste of greens in your smoothie, feel free to start with smaller handfuls of greens and gradually train your taste buds to (hopefully) enjoy them.

The fruit is not enough to tempt your sweet tooth? Feel free to sweeten the smoothie with a few pitted dates or maple syrup until your taste buds become accustomed to the sweetness of the ripe fresh fruit.

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