I bang on about juicers enough, but here's our thought on our other favorite tool of choice, the blender. A decent blender in your kitchen is a brilliant tool for healthy drinks no mess, no waste and great easy to digest drinks! The blenders I recommend are all tough with plenty of power offering easy liquidizing of fruits and veggies, we think when you adopt a raw and fruity life you'll need equipment you can depend on.
What to look our for when you buy a blender
- POWER, at least 900 watts but the more the merrier, a really powerful blender will make smoother smoothies quicker than a low power machine.
- QUALITY particularly in the power socket, a cheap blender will ALWAYS break where the drive from the motor meets the blade driver.
- JUG SIZE again, if you are making drinks for the family, the bigger the better, and allow for the drink sloshing around.
- CONTROL speed control is an advantage, at low speed you can fold oils and powders into your drinks at high speed you can mill nuts and seeds.
EASY to clean, look for wipe clean surfaces, and simple to clean contours.
Keep things interesting too, if like me you can be a little lazy, equip yourself with a decent recipe book so you've always got new things to try. This keeps me primed with new mixes to try and knowledge of the effects of natural additives such as spirulina! There are TONNES of hip books out there, they're a great help in keeping things fresh!
When you've got the time double up the juicer and blender for max nutrition, juice some carrots, ginger and tender stem, throw that juice in the blender and add some pears, pineapple, half an avocado and a couple of scoops of essential food and KAPOW, there you have broad spectrum natural nutrients in a glass!
Remember, the point of consuming smoothies as well as them tasting really good is that liquidized food is easier to digest than food you chomp up, this means it takes less energy to digest and is more thoroughly digested.
If you are new to this fresh and juicy lifestyle here is some help deciding if you need a juicer and a blender and what each tool is for.
So here are a few of our favorite things to chuck in the blender
- pineapple: just slice it up trim the skin and lob it in
- avocado: a total favorite total food here at JP towers you can't go wrong with avocado in the mix
- banana: a smoothie staple, too fleshy to juice so in the blender it goes
- Berries: blue, straw, black, you name it berries are good for you and add great taste to a smoothie.
- Kiwi fruits: rammed full of vitamin C slice them, scoop them and throw it in the blender, the seeds crush up nicely and add protein.
- Oranges: buy seedless oranges peel them and blend them great and no waste!
- Apples: peel and core they blend well in a powerful machine.
- Melon: high water content, great for thinning out a drink so it will go up a straw OK!
- Peach: stone out then blend and great taste and texture to any drink
- Nuts and seeds: add protein and more to your smoothies with a handful of nuts and seeds
So easy to do and really worth while for health and nutrition smoothie making gives you the all important raw or live aspect to your diet.