The Balanced Smoothie Bowl
I love a good smoothie bowl. The texture, the taste, the toppings… did I mention the toppings?! You literally can’t go wrong. If you, like me, are more of a sweet vs. savoury brekkie kinda gal, smoothie bowls are/will be your best friend, trust me.
In my early twenties I initially turned to smoothie bowls because I was vegan at the time and every vegan blogger I followed was making the most beautiful and colourful smoothie bowls. Bright blues, pastel pinks, vibrant greens, topped with bananas, berries, granola — I was totally drooling over every picture. After I made my first smoothie bowl I was sold. It was like having dessert for breakfast, and as someone who has a major sweet tooth this really appealed to me. And while having smoothie bowls for breakfast every day worked for awhile, I soon started to find that I was hungry 2 hours after eating it. I couldn’t understand why since I had loaded it with tons of bananas, mango, pineapple, strawberries — how could I still be hungry? Instead of trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, I just kept on enjoying my big bowls of sweet deliciousness and then smashing down some bread or dried dates a couple hours later to calm the hunger demon inside of me — she can get pretty vicious!
It wasn’t until years later, in my first year of nutrition school, that I finally understood the mistakes I had been making when whipping up my go-to breakfast. I had unknowingly been sending my body on a blood sugar rollercoaster because I was only putting fruit (carbohydrates) in my smoothies and nothing else.
While it’s totally fine to include fruit in your smoothie bowls (please don’t fear fruit!), it is also equally important to include a protein, a fat, and a fibre source as well, to help keep your blood sugar balanced and your sugar demon tamed.
While those all-fruit smoothie bowls look incredibly delicious, they unfortunately cause your body to release a lot of insulin to deal with the spike in glucose from eating a big bowl of carbohydrates.
Insulin is a hormone made in your pancreas that helps to move glucose out of your bloodstream and into your liver, muscles, and fat cells, thereby lowering your blood sugar. Once insulin has finished its job shuttling glucose into your cells, it remains in the bloodstream for up to eight hours, shutting down your body’s fat burning potential during this time — not cool! To add insult to injury, you will start to crave more carbohydrates about 3 hours later in an effort to bring your blood sugar back up. As you can see, this can quickly become a vicious cycle of spiking and crashing your blood sugar — a.k.a blood sugar rollercoaster.
To avoid all of this, all you have to do is include a protein, a fat and and a fibre at every meal. Doing this will help to elongate your blood sugar curve, which means that you will be able to easily go four or more hours without being hungry. This is really important because when your body gets a solid break from digestion between meals your human growth hormone and testosterone surge, encouraging your body to hold on to lean muscle mass while also keeping your metabolism high. It will also help eliminate your cravings, increase your energy and nourish your cells.
So what exactly does this balanced smoothie bowl look like?
Well in addition to the fruit you would put into your smoothie (berries are best as they are lower in sugar), you will also need to add in 1 scoop of protein powder (vegan blend, grass-fed whey, or collagen), 1-2 tablespoons of fat (avocado, nut butter or coconut oil), and finally 1-2 tablespoons of fibre (flaxseeds or chia seeds). And if you are really feeling a little extra, why not throw in some greens like spinach or kale, or other frozen veg like cauliflower or zucchini, to really amp of the nutrition of your smoothie! Including each of these components in your morning smoothie bowl will leave you in blood sugar bliss and ready to crush your day.
The Balanced Smoothie Bowl
— serves 1 —
Ingredients
- 1 cup frozen blueberries
- 1/2 cup frozen cauliflower (first steamed then frozen)
- 1 scoop vanilla protein powder (vegan blend or grass-fed whey)
- 2 tbsp peanut butter (or almond butter)
- 1 tbsp flaxseeds
- 1/3 - 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
Method
Add all ingredients to a high speed blender and blend together until very smooth.
Notes
Start with the lesser amount of almond milk and only add more if needed to get to your desired consistency. If you have a Vitamix, it may be helpful to use the tamper instead of adding more almond milk, to keep it nice and thick.
