Five fruit-based smoothie combos to include in your diet

For an individual taking their diet seriously, fruit-based smoothies are great ways to include additional nutrients.

Fruit-based smoothies as the name suggest basically require one (or more) base fruit, spices, vegetables, and healthy proteins as such as oat, whey, and protein powder (flavoured and unflavoured).

These power-packed drinks are affordable, easy to make, and can be taken for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Some of the best fruit-based smoothies considering staple fruits in the Nigerian region are:

Banana-ginger smoothie

This banana-ginger combo is said to soothe general troubles with the stomach such as indigestion, bloating, and nausea. This smoothie also relieves heartburns and if you include enough ginger, could also reduce nasal irritations triggered by flu, hay-fever, and sneezing.

Banana serves as the base ingredient for making this smoothie with half to one teaspoon of grated or ground ginger (according to preference), some vanilla yoghurt, a teaspoon of honey forming additional ingredients.

Some individuals might opt for using fresh ginger roots (one to two), depending on taste.

Every ingredient can be blended together until they are smooth enough to personal taste.

Watermelon-turmeric smoothie

Take advantage of the watermelon season by trying out this special smoothie. Watermelons are great hydrating agents as they contain a lot of water, making them excellent choices for maintaining healthy skin.

On the other hand, turmeric is an original oriental spice forming the major ingredient for curry.

Watermelon naturally has a sweet taste, while tumeric has a bland taste which blends well with the watermelon.

This smoothie is best enjoyed chilled.

If your taste buds are tolerant of sharp tastes, you may consider including some slices of pineapple to amp up the general taste of this smoothie.

Mango smoothie

Mangoes thrive during the rainy season in Nigeria that sometimes, they are left uneaten, overripe and then spoilt.

Mango smoothie provides a great way to put all of those extra mangoes into use. The best choice is to go for fresh mango fruits. Because blending fresh mangoes will reduce the chances of getting a thick texture, you may want to freeze other ingredients like the banana and vanilla yoghurt or just crushed ice if you’d prefer your serving cold.

Get the mentioned ingredients into the blender until they are smooth enough to taste. Should you want to include ice, do so gradually until the ice is pureed.

A typical serving for two cups might need one large mango or two medium-sized mangoes as base ingredients.

Mango is rich in nutrients namely; sodium, protein, potassium, vitamin A, D, B12, C and B6, as well as calcium, and magnesium.

Tomato-apple smoothie

Tomato is a great source of Vitamin K, C, Potassium and Folate and is a staple in Nigerian markets.

Although you might be more familiar with using tomatoes for sauce, soup and stew making, tomato also forms a great base for a super-packed smoothie.

The ingredients needed for this smoothie (for two cups), is 4 medium-sized tomatoes (or 2 large), a large green or red apple, some tumeric and or celery.

Make use of frozen tomatoes to achieve a thick texture for the smoothie, put in frozen slices of apple, a quarter teaspoon of turmeric, and a few stalks of celery and blend together to get desired texture.

Some other ingredients that go well in a tomato smoothie are ground pepper, olive oil, basil leaves, soya milk, cucumber and banana.

Macha-detox smoothie

Macha is a ground form of specially processed and concentrated form of green-leaf tea. Macha possesses theanine (a type of amino acid providing the special brothy flavour in Macha and other green teas) which is basically, a stress-reducing agent.

Using matcha powder as the base ingredient, add a cup of packed spinach, half to one cup of coconut water, one or two sliced bananas, (preferably) half a teaspoon of ginger paste or powder.

Combine all ingredients in a blender and grind till they reach the required texture. If you want to include ice, you may blend then in gradually until they are pureed.

Cucumber is also an excellent ingredient to include in a matcha-detox smoothie.