To Kale or Not to Kale

To Kale or Not to Kale

Ok, ok, I’ll stop it with the kale puns. To be fair, I don’t have that much to work with besides kale or berries.

So many people, namely my taste-testers who take one look at my greenish pink sludge of a drink and cringe, are a bit wary of adding vegetables to smoothies. In addition, a reader commented, “ I like the idea of a green smoothie; however, I am still curious as to the difference between this smoothie and one using all fruits and natural fruit juice? What does the spinach or other greens add to the smoothie that normal fruits do not have?” Aside from the motherlode of the nutrients it provides, adding vegetables such as spinach pretty much adds no taste whatsoever. Regardless, I decided to attempt a vegetableless version of one of my previous smoothies.

The perfect opportunity to try this came when the spinach I was planning on finishing expired.  I really wanted to make smoothies for the week because I had no time to make or get breakfast. I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to try it without vegetables to see if there was a taste difference or a difference on how it made me feel.

I chose to recreate my last smoothie so I could have a control group. The original recipe consisted of berries, kale, honey, flaxseed, and kefir yogurt. I made the same smoothie without the kale. There was definitely more room in the blender, so I just doubled everything up to make up the same quantity as I would have had with the kale. The smoothie quickly turned into a vibrant purple color rather than the pale pink it usually looked like. It definitely seemed a lot more appetizing. However, it was a lot harder to blend for some reason. Without the kale, the berries just clumped together in the yogurt and refused to separate. There were also small air bubbles in the smoothie that prevented the berries from blending together so I had to poke around with a fork to try to separate the berries and get rid of the air bubble. After a very messy 10 minutes, I finally got it  to a somewhat smooth consistency, save for a giant strawberry that stubbornly stayed in form. I guess the consistency of the kale helped to prevent the yogurt, honey, and berries from turning into a messy gluey consistency.  

When I finally got around to tasting it, I tasted absolutely no difference. To my chagrin, it tasted exactly the same, if not worse than the vegetable smoothie. Maybe it was because I was so used to the taste of a kale smoothie. In terms of the effect it had on me, the vegetable smoothie definitely had me feeling full longer.  I had to drink twice the amount I normally would have to feel full, and I was hungry an hour later. However, drinking so much made me feel sluggish and sleepy. Even though I did get a small burst of energy, the vegetable smoothie definitely gave me more energy.

In terms of nutrients, I definitely missed out on a powerhouse of nutrients. Here’s a quick list on what I missed out on in terms of spinach.

20% of  the RDA of dietary fiber: aids in digestion, maintains low blood sugar

Flavonoids: slows down stomach and skin cancer cells, prevents prostate cancer

Antioxidants: prevents osteoporosis, atherosclerosis and high blood pressure

Peptides: lowers blood pressure

337% of Vitamin A: provides immunity

Over 1000% of Vitamin K:  keeps bones from breaking down

These, and so much more, is lost without adding spinach. (“11 Benefits of Spinach”). Kale is high in iron, vitamin K, calcium, and Vitamin A.  I would definitely stick to my vegetable smoothies. Not only do the kale/spinach have a ton of cancer stopping super nutrients, it tastes better (atleast to me), gave me more energy, and are generally more filling. I definitely recommend keeping the vegetables in.
            So, that’s a wrap folks. Although this blog is coming to an end, rest be assured that I will continuously be making these smoothies for breakfast. By making one simple switch in my diet, I am more focused in school, feeling more full, intaking a ton of nutrients, and overall feeling a lot better without the usual weighed down feeling I got when I started my day with a waffle. The smoothie project has been a solution to all my problems; it is a fast, healthy breakfast I can grab to go and feel great about.

Work Cited

"11 Health Benefits of Spinach." Health Diaries, 28 Feb. 2011. Web. 15 Mar. 2013.

            <http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/11-health-benefits-of-spinach.html>.

Text Review

Text Review

For my text review, I chose to focus on the importance of eating breakfast. Many college students simply do not have the time or energy to get up in the morning and eat breakfast. My smoothie project will hopefully encourage more students to prepare their breakfasts in advance and actually take the time to eat/drink something, whether in room or on the go. Many students also skip breakfast because they want to lose weight. I wanted to find a study that emphasized the importance of breakfast and the consequences of skipping. I then found an article in the International Journal of Obesity in 2003.

This article is a research study done by several Harvard researchers. It studies the correlation between skipping breakfast and weight change in adolescents. The article talks about how there have been many cross-sectional studies on the topic, but no longitudinal studies (Berkey). The purpose of this study was to find out whether skipping breakfast affected body fatness. This study was done by analyzing questionnaires over the course of 3 years. They specifically targeted 9-14 year olds, their body mass index, and their frequency of eating breakfast. They discovered the children who ate breakfast were more energetic then those who did. Those who were more energetic were more physically active (Berkey). However, they found out that there was a difference in children who were already overweight and children who weren’t. The children who were already overweight and skipped breakfast lost weight, whereas children who were at a normal weight and skipped breakfast actually gained weight. Children who ate breakfast in all groups did better in school. The study also looked at other factors that could have influenced results, including race, age, and inactivity.

This text’s ethos is strong because the researchers come from very prestigious institutions. They all work/study  in various departments at Harvard, including the Department of Medicine, Department of Nutrition, Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, and Department of Epidemiology.  The text was also published in the International Journal of Obesity, another very credible source.  Additionally, the text had to be approved in order to be submitted to the publication, as shown at the bottom of the text where it states both the receiving date and the date the study was accepted and published (March and May respectively). The study itself gains ethos because it examines all factors to ensure there are no confounding factors that could skew the results. One weakness of this text is that the study examined results from self-reported questionnaires, which could be very biased. The fact that it is self-reported ignores a huge percentage of the population that hadn’t responded to the questionnaire. This especially leaves out certain socioeconomic classes who don’t have the time to respond.  In order to make this study more credible, the researchers should target specific areas that they believe are missing. According to the study, 94.7% of the respondents were Caucasian children.  Therefore, the argument that race might not be a confounding factor is not valid.

Overall, this article supports my claim that breakfast is necessary to work well in school and remain energetic throughout the morning. The best way to do that, of course, is a good old fruit-veggie smoothie.

Work Cited

Berkey, Rockett, Gillman, Field, and Colditz. "Longitudinal Study of Skipping Breakfast and      Weight Change in Adolescents." Nature. International Journal of Obesity, 17 Mar. 2003.        Web. 28 Feb. 2013. <http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v27/n10/full/0802402a.html>.

I'd Kale for a Berry Good Smoothie

Hello again!
Before I start talking about my latest concoction, I want to talk about a problem I’ve been having with the smoothie breakfast lately. Even though my smoothies are full of fiber, fruit, vegetables, and all sorts of healthy goodness, my stomach is still growling a few hours later. After some further research, I read that the act of chewing actually helps you stay full longer and smoothies skip that step. Many people say that this can be solved by putting bananas in the smoothies, but considering I’ve had a taste aversion to bananas since I was a little girl, I set out to look for different companions to my smoothie breakfasts.
The first thing I tried was an Eggo buttermilk waffle. I didn’t put my usual nutella/maple syrup because I was trying to avoid the over consumption of refined sugars, so I just ate it plain. That did absolutely nothing. If anything, I feel like I was hungry even earlier because the waffle was completely processed. I then tried adding peanut butter to the waffle. Foods like peanut butter take a while to digest and are full of healthy fats that help keep you full. This made a better difference. I felt full longer. However, I wanted to move away from refined foods altogether, but I hated whole wheat waffles so I had to stray away from waffles altogether. When wandering around the aisles of Trader Joe for my smoothie ingredients, I stumbled upon this whole wheat cranberry walnut bread. It sounded disgusting, but the aroma of the freshly baked bread drew me in immediately so I decided to give it a go. This was the best so far. It kept me full until an hour before my usual lunch time, which is 1-130.  (Note: I normally eat breakfast around 7:15) The only problem with that was that it got boring eating that every day. So I decided to look for one more food item that I could alternate with. So I decided to turn to the one source I could always count on; my mother. My mother, who was elated that I had decided to eat healthier after years of forcing down fruit and organic ‘Fruit Loops’ (colored cardboard, more like it), immediately suggested an egg. I tried to patiently explain that the whole point of my blog was to make a fast efficient breakfast I could take to go, but she insisted that I needed protein and an egg was the best way to do it. She suggested boiling/buying boiled eggs in advance and keeping them in my fridge. They were portable, quick to eat, and were available preboiled at the local supermarket. For those of you who hate eggs, (i.e my sister) a boiled egg is the perfect solution because its so small, you can finish it in two bites and minimize the time spent suffering choking down scrambled or fried eggs. A hard boiled egg, along with my power smoothie, was the perfect combination. I could literally feel myself more awake and energetic each morning.
So on to my next smoothie. Although my strawberry spinach smoothie was delicious, it got boring after a while so I went back to the drawing board. I decided to keep the kefir base because I needed it in order to stay full, so I decided to mix up the fruit-vegetable combination. Instead of spinach, I decided to go with kale, a well renowned superfood. Kale has more than 1000 percent of the daily recommended vitamin K, which can reduce cancer, help with blood clotting, and build strong bones. It also has more than 180% of your Vitamin A, which “aids vision, growth, bone formation, tissue repair and red blood cell production”. I decided to mix up the main flavor by adding mixed berries instead of just strawberries so I would get a variety of different nutrients in my smoothies. Blueberries provided antioxidants, blackberries are full of vitamin C, E and ellagic acid, which can prevent cancer, and strawberries provide phenols, which can reduce inflammation. The first time I made this, it tasted great, but the texture was very gritty from the kale stems. Normally, theres only a little texture from the flaxseed and berry seeds, but the kale stems were very prominent and affected the taste. The second time I tried it, I chopped it in advance before dumping everything in and it tasted a lot better. In addition, I put the kale in first so it could be as pulverized as possible before adding in the other ingredients. In the future, I think I’ll stick to spinach smoothies during the week simply because it’s easier to prepare, or try finding another green. Broccoli, anyone? Just kidding, that would taste terrible. Or would it?
In the meantime, check out the recipe and pictures below.


(http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/the-health-benefits-of-kale).
Smoothie 2
Mixed Berries
Kefir
Honey (optional)
Kale
Flaxseed
1. Chop stems off kale. Blend with other ingredients. Add honey to taste.

Strawberry Spinach Surprise

Hello again. So, before I start explaining my first concoction, I want to go more into the concept of this blog. 
My primary goal in this blog is to help my audience (namely college students) to be able to have a quick, healthy breakfast in the hectic mornings. If you are a college student, you're floormates will probably not appreciate a blender going off at 7 AM. The great thing about these smoothies is that you can make them in batches ahead of time. I like to make my smoothies on Sunday, enough to last me a week. Now, some people, primarily my mother, have told me that once the fruits are blended, they begin to lose their nutrients unless you drink it right away. However, according to an article in livestrong.com, writer Jennifer King says that only heat, light, and oxidation can cause fruit to lose its nutrients. Although it is better to drink the smoothie right away before it is overexposed to oxygen, the loss of nutrients would take time. The best course of item is to chill 
it right away in order to keep heat from making the
fruits lose nutrients. 
So what you should take from this is to put it in the
fridge as soon as you make it. 
Onward to the actual smoothie making adventure.
I had a hard time finding the exact ingredients I was
looking for based on my research. After combing 
through several blogs on the perfect green smoothie

I found out that there should be a base, greens, 

Add a dash of healthy!

I know, appetizing right

fruit, fiber, healthy fats, and an optional sweetener. For my first attempt of a smoothie, I decided to use kefir as a base. For those of you who don't know what kefir is, it's a type of fermented milk. It's pretty much just a yogurt drink with probiotic bacteria that is very good for your stomach. Drinking it plain, kefir tastes like a slightly more sour version of yogurt. The one I found at Safeway was blueberry flavored kefir. Although the blueberry helped with the sourness, it had some of the added sugars I was trying to avoid. However, I have to work with what I have. I chose frozen strawberries as my fruit, but fresh will work as well. I used a cup of spinach as my greens, as you can see from the picture on the left. I then topped it off with honey to sweeten it and ground flaxseed to add fiber. Looks delicious, I know. The blender I used is called a Magic Bullet, and its about the size of a venti cup of coffee. It's very portable and easy to wash, which is ideal for a college student. The first time I made this, it was
incredibly loud. I discovered that was because I 
added everything at the same time and blended. However, on later attempts, I blended the spinach and yogurt first before adding the 
strawberries to mute the sound a bit. 
The results was surprisingly good. It was a little tart, probably because of the kefir, but the taste of spinach and wheatgrass was completely gone. It tasted only of the strawberries and the yogurt. When complemented with bread, it was
quite filling as well.

Snap on the rim, and drink it on the go!

in

Meet the Blogger

Hello everyone, my name is Sania Baqai and I am a freshman (freshwoman? freshperson? freshgenderneutralbeing?) at Santa Clara University in California.

This font is kind of boring. Can I change it? Ok, I can change the color. And the size. Oh here we go. That sucks, the choices are super limited. 

Oh well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I digress. (Fair warning, that will probably happen a lot.)

 So this blog is a project for my Critical Thinking and Writing class focused on food. The topic I chose is smoothies! I know, it sounds boring, but I'm going to go beyond the status quo and add what every college student (or just me) seems to have a phobia of: vegetables! I plan on making healthy, balanced  smoothies chock full of fruits and vegetables and all sorts of other healthy things that I still need to do research on. By the way, if you didn't understand the title, it's supposed to be a play on "smoothie to kill for." It's funny because kale is a vegetable people usually put in smoothies. Smoothies to kale for? Smoothies to kill for? Get it? 
Never mind.

Back to the point. I was first introduced to the ideas of 'green smoothies' (what the mainstream/Oprah call it)  by seeing it on random comedies on TV. I would see the stereotypical 'health/fitness nut' who always doing push ups, stuff eggshells and broccoli and who knows what else in a blender and slug it down. Needless to say, the idea of a green smoothie, no matter how hyperbolic it probably was on TV, did not seem appealing to me. 

When I started seeing people on food blogs do it though, I wavered. The smoothies these people were making had strawberries and pineapple, and yes, vegetables such as spinach, but they assured me the spinach was virtually tasteless. So I started warming to the idea and told myself I would try that eventually, if only to have a funny story to tell to my friends.

That was two years ago. I pretty much forgot about the idea of green smoothies until I went to hang out at my friends house. After lunch, we both craved dessert, but she was on a diet, so most of my ideas were vetoed. The only thing we could really settle on was fruit, but as most people could tell you, I am not a fan of raw fruit and vegetables. Which, I know, is a pretty bad idea, but I generally don't like eating raw fruits or vegetables unless I have to. 

I had then brought up the idea of green smoothies, which my friend immediately pounced on. Her mom was a health nut, so the house was full of Vitamix blenders and wheatgrass and whatever else you need to make a smoothie. We stopped by Safeway to pick up a bag of frozen berries, which we ensured had nothing else but berries ("My mom will kill me if I bring non-organic berries with added sugars into the house") and set off to start. After a lot of experimentation, it actually turned out pretty good. We had her siblings taste it without telling them the added vegetables and they loved it. Our Green Smoothie (ours was actually purple) was a hit. 

So why am I writing a blog about these? A few reasons.

Many college students don't eat breakfast. They simply get up and go to classes. I wanted to think of a breakfast idea that you could make in advance and eat it to go every day through out the week. It had to be healthy though, because stuffing ourselves with sugary cereal bars probably isn't a better alternative to not eating anything at all. 

Also, I don't like raw fruits or vegetables. I recorded everything I ate for an project a few months ago and I was pretty surprised how little I filled the daily nutritional pyramid. What on earth have I been eating? I would have one serving of vegetables a day, and it would be french fries. My fruit serving would come from skittles and the occasional orange flavored corn syrup (they called it orange juice). 

So, that is it for now. I'll do some more research on the perfect smoothie and my next post will be my probably disastrous attempts at making a nutritional smoothie. Don't worry, I'll have a panel of taste testers to try it out, so if it tastes terrible, I'll be sure to tell you before you go out and try to make it yourself. 

-Sania