Patrick Swayze had three rules to defend the Double Deuce against knife-wielding no-goodniks in the film “Roadhouse,” but blending a rich, creamy, bright-colored smoothie requires more than just three rules. I spoke to the experts at Be Well Juice Bar, The Mighty Bowl, Thatcher’s Coffee and Funky Fresh Juice Co. for assistance in my quest to make a better smoothie at home.
Use high-quality, real food. Steve Valenta, owner of The Mighty Bowl, said, “The secret is that real food tastes amazing.” Real food means whole, single-ingredient, unprocessed food — things that grow out of the soil, not created in a laboratory or factory. Valenta uses whole fruit such as dates to sweeten the smoothies at The Mighty Bowl.
Te’ana Conley of Thatcher’s Coffee sent an ingredient list for each of Thatcher’s plant-based smoothies and said, “This is literally everything that we add to each smoothie — no added ice, water, sugar or anything else!” The recipes simply contained fruit, vegetables, rice milk, nut butter, cacao powder and cinnamon.
Use frozen produce. Frozen fruit and vegetables create a thick, rich consistency without watering the smoothie down with ice. It’s also good to freeze produce while it’s at its peak. Fresh produce goes bad quickly. If you don’t want to waste it, freeze it before it goes bad and pop it into your smoothie.
