The key to success with smoothies begins at the fruit and vegetable counter—learning to find, choose, store, and use the right seasonal raw ingredients is the secret to success for a smoothie enthusiast. The most important thing in finding the best possible ingredients is to use your eyes, nose, and fingers, and as far as possible to buy organic local produce. For the best results, choose fruit and vegetables according to the season. Fresh and freshly picked fruit produces a wonderful, intense flavor, while fruit that has been picked before it is ripe and then transported for miles often produces a very watery and dull result.
Local markets and farm shops are the best places if you want to find really fresh fruit and vegetables. What they sell has not been harvested unripe in order to survive a long journey. What is more, this produce is often cheaper than in food stores.
Take your time when you are choosing. Only buy fruit and vegetables that you are going to use within a few days. Don’t stock up, unless you are thinking of freezing them; fresh raw produce is spoiled by being kept.
Try to find highly colored, bright, firm, aromatic specimens with no soft spots or discoloration. It is better to pick them out for yourself than to buy them ready packed because it can be difficult to judge the quality of the latter. It is also important to store fruit and vegetables correctly so that they stay fresh at home. Don’t forget that some kinds of fruit should not be stored close to others.
Tests have shown that a lot of fruit and vegetables that are sold in shops contain traces of pesticides—so choose primarily the organic alternative. Organically grown fruit is completely without additives, unsprayed, and has a softer skin and much more flavor. In the shop organic produce is a little more expensive than the conventionally grown but it is worth the difference in price. It is a good idea to try different kinds, both organic and conventionally grown, and learn by tasting. It is fun to compare and find your own favorites. I make a note of taste impressions and log comments in a notebook, which has helped me a lot in finding my own favorite varieties.
Unfortunately the name of the variety of, for instance, the mango or the orange on sale in the shop is not always shown, which makes it harder to know what you are buying. Be prepared to make a nuisance of yourself and ask! If the person you ask can’t answer all your questions, ask to speak to someone who can—someone in the shop should know since all deliveries should be marked with that kind of information.
There are also many helpful companies that deliver fruit and vegetables directly to your door. They usually reveal where the fruit comes from, what variety it is, and sometimes even give details of the grower.
In order to ensure that your smoothie has a good flavor and consistency, it is important to choose fruit that is just right. Unripe fruit is both more sour and harder, and it lacks that little extra something. Overripe fruit is often too sweet—sometimes it has even gone off—and then the smoothie becomes nauseating since the flavors become concentrated when the fruit is pulped. Overripe bananas, peaches, and mangos do not produce a pleasant flavor. Choose fruit that feels heavy for its size and has a strong aroma—usually a sign that it is ripe. Most fruit continues to ripen at room temperature after it has been picked. Some become both sweeter and juicier with time; some become juicier but not sweeter.
Whenever fruit and vegetables are not picked in your own garden, you don’t know how they have been treated, where they have been stored, or who has touched them—nor do you know about spraying and waxing. Most fruit and vegetables, especially imported produce, are sprayed to give them a longer shelf-life. Therefore it is extremely important to wash and brush them properly. The ones that are not organic should also be peeled—otherwise everything that is on the skin will end up in your body.
The easiest way is to wash all hard fruit and vegetables thoroughly in tepid water, using a soft vegetable brush. Do not use the brush for any other purpose and wash it thoroughly each time you have used it. You can wash soft fruit in warm or tepid water and rub it with your hands or the soft side of a dishwashing sponge (which must also be used only for washing fruit). Citrus fruit and fruit that has a very hard waxed surface can be washed with a little unperfumed, organic dishwashing liquid and a soft sponge. Don’t forget to rinse the fruit well always after you have used dishwashing liquid.
There are also special organic fruit washing liquids that ensure that the wax and dirt is removed from the surface of the skin. An alternative is to squeeze half a lemon into tepid water and leave the fruit to soak in it for a few minutes before you brush it.
It is safest to peel nonorganic fruit as well. Even fruit with peel that is not eaten—such as bananas, oranges, mandarins, melons, mangos, and so on—should be washed since pesticides and wax stick to the hands and are then transmitted when you handle the flesh of the fruit.
Most of the vitamins, minerals, and enzymes are located just under the skin or in it. If you use organic produce you should therefore leave the skin on—but always wash fruit and vegetables thoroughly in warm water. Nonorganic fruit should be peeled as thinly as possible, even if it is only going to be squeezed. Always peel bananas, mangos, pineapple, papaya, and avocados. On the other hand kiwifruit do not always need to be peeled—if they are to be put through a juicer the peel can be left on, but if they are to be blended it is best to remove the peel first.
You can leave the skin on unwaxed citrus fruit provided they are not to be put through the juicer or the blender. For smoothies it is best to remove peel and pits that are too hard because small pieces of them may produce an uneven consistency.
Remove the big pits from mangos, avocados, nectarines, peaches, plums, apricots, and other drupes. Soft pits and seeds can perfectly well go in the juicer or blender, but I usually remove them because they give a certain taste and they affect the consistency.
Dark seeds, for example in watermelon and passion fruit, give the smoothie a rather grayish color but also contain some nutrients. A low powered blender or hand-held blender may have difficulty in pulverizing the seeds, and in that case they can be removed. Always remove the seeds from papaya since their seeds are peppery and impart a strong flavor to the smoothie.
Don’t cut the fruit and vegetables up too far ahead. In contact with the air a lot of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes begin to oxidize and decompose after a while.
If you make smoothies often and in large quantities, it is a good idea to buy masses of fruit when it is in season and freeze it. Even though fresh produce is always best, frozen fruit is preferable to fruit that is unripe or stale. For example fresh soft fruit such as strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries only keep for a day or two after they have been picked.
Wash, peel, and cut the fruit into pieces before you freeze it. Pack portions in freezer bags with one or more types of fruit in each. Sealable bags that are airtight are best. Try to squeeze as much air as possible out of the bags before you close them. Mark them with the date, the number of portions, and the contents. Fruit keeps for at least two to three months in a home freezer.
To avoid the fruit forming big lumps you can spread it out first on a small baking tray in the freezer, before you pack it in the freezer bags. That way the pieces stay separate and you don’t need to thaw a whole bag at a time or struggle to separate them before you blend them. It is particularly useful to freeze bananas, mangos, papaya, pineapple, pomegranate seeds, cherries, rhubarb, and small soft fruit in this way.
When you make smoothies fruit can either be thawed a little beforehand or—depending on the strength of the blender—blended directly. If you want to make juice, small berry fruit should be completely thawed, otherwise it can be difficult to get the liquid out of them.
Hard fruit and vegetables, for example apples and pears, benefit from being pressed in a juicer before they are blended. A powerful blender, like my Vitamix, can press and blend at the same time without losing any fiber or producing a stringy consistency. If you have a smaller blender on the other hand, it is best to use the juicer first and then blend the flesh and the juice of the fruit to make the smoothie. Note that you do not get any juice from bananas or avocados, instead they are blended to a purée. Soft fruit such as drupes, berries, and tropical fruit are perfect to put through a blender directly. They turn into smooth juicy purées while at the same time keeping all their nutritional value.
Always wash up the juicer and the blender immediately after you have used them. Clean them with a soft brush that is used only for fruit and vegetables (a brush is often supplied with the blender).
Organic fruit and vegetables are harvested when they are relatively ripe. That way they have a lower water content, smell stronger, taste better, and are juicier and more nutritious than conventionally grown fruit. On the other hand, they have a slightly shorter shelf-life, are more sensitive, and may have flaws. Blemishes occur because organic fruit do not contain any preservatives or artificial additives and are not sprayed with chemical fungicides, wax—or other substances—to make them keep longer, look shinier, and keep their color and shape.
Organic fruit can benefit from being stored in a cool dark place to give them a better shelf-life and flavor, and they should be eaten relatively soon after purchase.
Organic fruit and vegetables contain more vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other nutrients than conventionally grown ones. Among other things, they have higher levels of vitamin C and antioxidants (for example vitamin E and carotenoids) that protect us against a series of cardiac and vascular diseases.
Some fruit and vegetables produce ethylene gas, a substance that accelerates both their own and other fruit’s ripening process. Apples, pears, melons, bananas, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, and tomatoes give off a lot of ethylene gas, and should therefore not be stored together with other fruit and vegetables—which might otherwise shrivel, get a funny taste, or become overripe. Bananas, mangos, and avocados particularly can ripen far too quickly if they are placed close to other fruit that gives off ethylene gas.
On the other hand, you can take advantage of the ethylene gas if you want unripe fruit and vegetables to ripen more quickly. In that case place them in a bowl or a bag with a fruit that gives off a lot of ethylene gas and the process will happen more quickly.
Don’t be afraid to invent your own recipes, but remember not to mix too many different fruit or too many strong flavors in one and the same smoothie. Bland juice from apples, pears, carrots, and oranges goes well with most other fruit and vegetables. If you use fruit with a strong or bitter flavor you can sweeten the smoothie with a bland juice.
Vegetables may not initially be associated with smoothies, but they can be used in moderate quantities too. For example press beets, chili, spinach, celery, bell peppers, or broccoli in a juicer and pulp them.
You can also work with different herbs, powdered berries, or seaweed, nuts, seeds, protein powder, dried berries, and natural fibers that are available in health food shops and delicatessens. And don’t forget the garnish! Make your own creations and let your imagination flow.
In my local food shop nowadays there are loads of readymade smoothies and juices for sale, so why make things complicated with cumbersome machines, heavy bags of food, and an unnecessary waste of time to make your own smoothies? For me the answer is simple: it is fun, it is easy, it is delicious, and my body feels good on it!
The advantage of pressing your own juice and mixing your own smoothies is also that you know precisely what they contain. You can choose the fruit and vegetables yourself, and that way you make sure that you always have the freshest and finest ingredients. You can also easily adjust the ingredients and proportions to your favorite flavors. The possibilities of inventing new recipes are endless and once you have started it is hard to stop.
A lot of cafés have started serving freshly pressed juices and smoothies, which is great since you can easily get something nutritious instead of a latte and a pastry. But make sure you ask about the ingredients, whether they use sugar or other sweeteners, and whether your smoothie or juice is freshly made. Don’t hesitate to ask the staff about what the smoothie contains and when the fruit that has been used was cut up. In a really good place you can see when the fruit is cut up—and maybe even get to choose the fruit yourself as well.
There are a lot of reputable and committed companies that supply good healthy smoothies to the shops for those occasions when you can’t, don’t have time to, or don’t want to make your own. These smoothies have 100 percent fruit content—with no additives, flavor enhancers, colorants, sweeteners, or concentrates. Buying that kind of smoothie is definitely a good option but it can never match up to a freshly made smoothie of newly cut-up, fresh fruit that you drink straight after making it. Beware of smoothies that contain colorants, flavor enhancers, sweeteners, concentrates, and other added substances. The list of ingredients should preferably contain nothing but fruit.
For me it is really important that what I eat and drink should look appetizing—all my senses should be stimulated. That is why I like to serve smoothies in attractive glasses that I decorate with fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs, edible flowers, and anything else I can find that is fun. There are endless ways of decorating and serving smoothies or juices; just look at cocktails and let their fantastic decorations and fun presentation inspire you.
It can also be fun to use ice as a decoration. You can buy molds in craft shops to make imaginative ice shapes. In addition you can freeze small berry fruit, edible flowers, or herbs in ice cubes to make the decoration extra delightful. I often save quirky cocktail stirrers when I am on my travels and use them to decorate my smoothies and juices.
Children, who can often be hard to please when it comes to fruit and green vegetables, think it is cool and delicious to drink smoothies—especially if they are allowed to come shopping and choose the ingredients, make them, and decorate them. If you want to have even more fun with the children (or your adult friends) you can freeze smoothies in ice cream molds with sticks—nutritious and delicious! But don’t keep smoothie ices too long in the freezer, they can become mushy and they will not be nearly so delicious.
Every health drink should look so good that it is hard to resist. Personally I like to serve smoothies in beautiful glasses with attractive decorations.
