I first noticed a discrepancy in my diet when my daughter came along 18 years ago. Fruit is her favorite food. So much so she is practically a Fruititarian and watching her gobble up every apple and berry that came her way got me thinking: why isn’t fruit part of my diet? We hear about the dietary recommendations asking us to eat at least 5 servings of fruit a day but I’ve never been much of a fruit fan. I really don’t know why exactly, maybe it’s the texture of the skins. That’s why whoever invented smoothies has my undying gratitude. I know eating whole fruit is better for you than grinding it up but, hey, at least I am eating (drinking) fruit. Smoothies can be made in many different ways with almost any fruit and a blender. For the liquid, there are smoothies that use Vanilla Soymilk, vanilla or other flavored yogurt, fruit juice or even Chai Tea which is wonderful with mixed berries. Occasionally I do use one of these fillers when I’m not eating anything else and I am hungry. Most of the time though, all I use is water! It’s makes the drink low in calories and still so good. This, with a half of a peanut butter sandwich is my typical lunch. The combination goes well together and keeps me until dinner. I vary the fruit for variety and use fresh fruit where I can in the summer and frozen in the winter. I even buy some quantity of the fresh, like strawberries, in the summer when they are cheap, freeze them on a tray and pop them into a large Ziplock for use over the winter months.I never use fresh Mango because it is so expensive, luckily there are bags of frozen mango pieces in almost all the grocery store’s freezers.
