Life can be tough for those of us who are partial to a smoothie but guided more by what's stuck to the bottom of the crisper drawer than any recipe.
One day, you pile your blender with fruits of every colour but get a sugar high like you've drunk a Frappuccino. The next, you mix up kale, spinach, and celery, and pinch your nose to drink down the sludge that tastes like nothing but also dirt.
Megan Rossi, a gut health scientist, dietitian, and regular smoothie-drinker, has a simple rule that takes the guesswork out of creating a balanced smoothie: She simply adds two vegetables for every one type of fruit.
"Instead of it being too fruit-focused, I make it balanced with the veg," Rossi, a postdoctoral research fellow at King's College London, told Business Insider.
Rossi likes to have a smoothie in the afternoon as a snack and a quick way to eat around 10 extra grams of fiber a day. Rossi eats around 50 grams of the hearty stuff daily because research suggests it can lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, and cardiovascular disease.
"Fiber is beneficial because it doesn't feed the human part of us. It feeds the bacterial part of us. And when the bacteria eat the fiber, they produce all these amazing chemicals which help things like our mental health, keep our gut lining strong, regulate our appetite, our hormone balance," Rossi said.
For her daily smoothies, she leans heavily on frozen produce, often using cauliflower for creaminess, as well as berries, kale, mango, or pineapple. She always includes fresh cucumber and carrot, and adds yogurt or kefir, which both contain protein.
Rossi's typical smoothie recipe:
- Frozen cauliflower
- Frozen kale
- Frozen berries or mango
- Carrot
- Cucumber
- Kefir
- A splash of cow's milk
- A splash of oat milk
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Kim Schewitz is a health reporter who covers our growing obsession with health optimization and -maxxing, and how it influences pop culture and Big Business.Since 2023, she has interviewed dozens of doctors, researchers, and dietitians about their science-backed health advice, often focusing on the gut microbiome and the Mediterranean diet, and reported on the rise of young colon cancer and how its impacting the lives of patiens in their 20s, 30, and 40s. She has previously written for VICE, The i paper, and GLAMOUR UK.
