Breakfast Smoothie

Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day, but with today's busy lifestyles it's often the first to go. The time to cook a wholesome breakfast, then to sit and eat it can be difficult to schedule. While on the journey to better nutrition, I have managed to move beyond the grab a cup of coffee and run out the door style that served me for years, I have difficulty thinking about eating solid food first thing in the morning. Personally, I have found that smoothies provide a healthful breakfast option that's tasty, portable, and easy on the stomach. Also, while I have enjoyed a cup of coffee every morning for probably three decades, since learning that coffee intake can interfere with serotonin production, I have cut back on the coffee. A well-balanced morning meal blended into a smoothie can provide enough fuel to keep me going until noon without any cravings for snacks or caffeine.

What goes into my breakfast smoothie? In our kitchen, smoothie-making is akin to soup-making: whatever is handy goes into the recipe. Of late, kefir is the base liquid; our kefir is homemade using our fresh, raw goat milk from the farm. The drink pictured was blended almost a month ago, but to the best of my recollection the recipe included the following ingredients:

     * Kefir, made with raw, organic goat milk
     * Garden tomatoes, organic
     * Cocoa, raw, organic powder (from Optimally Organic)
     * Blueberries, frozen
     * Strawberries, frozen
     * Peaches, fresh, local
     * Garden cucumber
     * Garden mint
     * Action Whey (TM) --This is the ingredient
     * Nuts--either walnuts, almonds, or pine nuts
 
Possibly that smoothie included a palm-full of chia seed; I don't use it every day because it's stored on a high shelf and I do not always feel like climbing up to reach supplies stored up there. The same goes for various powdered super foods from Optimally Organic; usually I like to add maca root powder to smoothies.

A two-quart blender mixes up a smoothie big enough to drink a glass before leaving the house, then I bring along the balance in a plastic juice bottle. This allows me to pour out smoothie into my cup and sip throughout the morning. I love the taste of chocolate mint smoothies!