- And it's got five grams of fiber in it, your GI doctor will be
very happy with you. - [Producer] This will
solve all your problems in the GI area. (upbeat music) - Smoothies are a tasty and convenient way to get a whole load of fruit
and veggies into your system, but it's a common misconception that all smoothies are totally healthy. Smoothies can contain a ton of sugar in an effort to make them
as delicious as possible. Even if they are natural
sugars from fruits, they're still sugar, and you might want to
consume those in moderation. So when I was assigned to
work on a healthy drinks book, I was challenged to make
healthier recipes for smoothies with less sugar, that still tasted great. We set ourselves a strict limit, no more than 20 grams of sugar, including all natural sugars, and we aim to have at least
four grams of fiber per serving. Today, I'm gonna show you what I learned during recipe development, methods for making low sugar smoothies, with the right temperature and consistency that still taste great,
let's get cracking. (upbeat music) A good smoothie is not just
a bunch of random ingredients thrown into a blender, a good smoothie should
have a homogenous texture with no fibrous or pulpy bits. It should be cold and pleasantly thick. During testing, we identified
the six universal laws of smoothies. Number one, start with a flavor base. Now this will form the
bulk of your smoothie, it'll probably be fresh or
frozen fruits or veggies. Number two, build more flavor. For sweetness and acidity,
you can add some fruit juice, you could also add seed or nut butters for some savory richness. Number three, keep it cold. You always want something frozen. Now, this is normally frozen produce, but you could also add ice. Number four, use a natural emulsifier. Something like a banana will give you a thick
and creamy consistency. Number five, boost your smoothie. These are the things that will boost the nutritional value of your smoothie. We're talking things like
nuts, seeds, protein powder, dried mushrooms, et cetera. Number six, thin it out. If your smoothie is too thick, add a little water to
adjust its consistency without adding any extra sugar. So how do we control the level
of sugar in our smoothie? Let's take a look at our
simple fruit smoothie recipe. (upbeat music) The first step is being strategic with your choice of fruits. I'm using two cups of blueberries, but you could also use
raspberries or strawberries. Berries are lower in sugar
than other fruits commonly found in smoothies such as
bananas, mangoes, or pineapples. They're also generally higher in fiber. I use frozen blueberries here, they're cheaper, they'll
keep your smoothie cold, and they're often better than fresh. Very often you can just
see it in the color of the finished smoothies. And if you use fresh, unfrozen berries, sometimes your smoothie will gelatinize. This particularly happens when
you're using milk or yogurt, and that's because the
pectin in the berry's skin interacts with the calcium from the dairy. Now, it doesn't really
happen with frozen berries because their pectin tends to
be bound up in ice crystals so it can't fully interact with the dairy. Next up, the banana. Now bananas have a lot of sugar in them, so why are we using it
in our healthy smoothie? We tested making this
smoothie without the banana and it blended up lumpy,
more like a pulpy juice. All of our smoothie recipes make two one and a half cups smoothies. So we're gonna add half
a banana per smoothie, so that's a whole banana in total. Most traditional smoothie recipes would probably use a
whole banana per serving. So instead we're gonna
replace one of those bananas with three quarters of
a cup of plain yogurt. The yogurt's gonna contribute less sugar, but still give us that full
rich, creamy mouth feel, and it also adds protein, which will make you
feel fuller for longer. We need to thin this out so the smoothie will blend properly. I'm adding three quarters
of a cup of water. A lot of recipes would
add fruit juice here, but this is plenty sweet enough, it doesn't need that additional sugar. Now we're gonna blend it up. I'm gonna blend this on low for 10 seconds before slowly increasing it
to high till it's very smooth, which will take about one minute. Let's taste our smoothie. Oh, it looks so smooth, you get that beautiful
glossiness from that banana. Smells so good. Oh, it's got just that right texture. The first thing you get is that creaminess and you really taste the blueberries, you know this is a blueberry smoothie. This is so fully flavored and it's only got 19 grams of sugar compared to 40 or 50 grams for
other common berry smoothies, and it's got five grams of fiber in it. So we tackled low sugar fruit smoothies, and we saw why you need
to use frozen blueberries to get that luscious, smooth texture. But what about hardcore veggie smoothies? Let's take a look how to get
the ideal smoothie texture in a recipe that's packed
with fiber-filled vegetables. The super greens smoothie. (upbeat music) Veggie smoothies are super nutritious, and this is one of my
favorite smoothie recipes that I've ever developed. But a smooth, creamy texture
is a little trickier to achieve with all of these fibrous veggies. To start, I'm gonna add a cup of spinach, you could also use arugula or baby kale. And then I'm gonna add a
quarter cup of parsley. Now the order that you add
these in is very important. We want to start with the
leaves closest to the blade so they get chopped up fastest. If you put them in last,
they'll just bob about on top, it'll take longer to blend,
the smoothie will warm up, and that's no good. Next, we'll add some ice. It'll keep the drink nice and cold and contribute to that
really satisfying texture. I'm gonna add four ounces of cucumber, so I've cut these into two inch pieces. Cutting your food into small pieces is much better for a smoothie because it'll circulate much
more easily within the drink, which means you'll spend less
time scraping down the sides. Next, we'll add one cup
of broccoli florets, they add a lot of fiber. You could also use cauliflower, zucchini, even frozen broccoli. For our smoothie to be a
smoothie, it needs to be smooth, so we need to add an emulsifier. Last time we added a banana, but broccoli and banana doesn't
have a great ring to it. During testing, we found
that using half an avocado gave us that same creamy consistency that a banana or a mango would
have in a fruit smoothie. I tried this without the
avocado during testing and it was not great, not
emulsified, not creamy, kind of like the berry
smoothie without the banana. So when in doubt, use some avocado to add body and richness
to your green smoothies. And the fats in the avocado
make the fat soluble vitamins in the veggies that much
more readily available. Now for a nutrition boost, a lot of people like to
boost their smoothies using healthy add-ins like
flax seeds or whey protein, and these are entirely optional, but I'm gonna add two
teaspoons of spirulina. Now, this is a type of algae and it's incredibly nutrient dense, it's a true super food. You can find it online,
from a health food store, or even the supplements
aisle of your supermarket. Now this smoothie is healthy, but it needs a little sweetness. So I'm gonna add one cup
of unsweetened apple juice. Now this will add about 12
grams of sugar per serving. It's important to add all of
these ingredients in order. So remember our goals from
earlier, smooth, chilled, and mildly aerated. You don't need a super fancy blender to make a good smoothie, it all comes down to blender technique. We want the smoothies to
blend as quickly as possible so the friction generated by the blades doesn't warm up the smoothie too much. We want to create a vortex,
kind of like a mini-whirlpool, so that the solids will
get sucked into the blades, a circulate around and they
get drawn in again and again. To get that vortex going, start your blender on
low speed for 10 seconds. Once you start seeing
the food circulating, you can gradually increase
the speed to high, and then we'll let it go until smooth, which will take about two minutes. Time to taste. Nice, really smooth. Oh, the first thing you
get is that greenness, you just think about
like freshly cut grass or like that lovely cucumber, think about mint in summertime, like just something, it's just
fresh and vibrant and green. It's so cold, you can
taste it's nutritious, but it's not unbalanced. That little bit of sweetness
really balances it out any of the bitterness from those greens, I feel healthier just from those two sips. So undisputed, this is the
champion of healthy drinks. There's 14 grams of sugar in this one, there's five grams of fiber, it's incredibly healthy
and very delicious. This is your easiest way
to get your five veggies done by breakfast. So if you're still asking, do I really need a recipe and a technique to make a smoothie? The answer is yes, you absolutely do. So remember our six laws
of smoothies, flavor base, flavor builders, temperature, emulsifiers, boosters and thinning. Using this blueprint, you'll be able to dream up endless healthy smoothie possibilities. We actually developed 28 smoothie recipes for our healthy drinks book. Here are two of my other favorite recipes, the Orange Creamsicle
and the Tahinicchino. To make the Orange Creamsicle add one cup of ice for
our frozen component, one peeled and quartered orange and one shredded carrot to
make up our flavor base. One banana and three
quarters of cup of yogurt will be our emulsifier. Half a teaspoon of vanilla
will be the flavor modifier and we'll thin with a
quarter cup of water. Fruity, vanillary, very well balanced, like a healthy Orange
Creamsicle, that's what it is. For the Tahinicchino smoothie, add one cup of ice to a blender, one banana for our emulsifier, two tablespoons of tahini, and one tablespoon of instant
espresso powder for our base. One tablespoon of honey,
half a teaspoon of vanilla, and a pinch of salt for
our flavor modifiers. And then one cup of milk,
plant-based or regular, and one cup of water will thin it out. This tastes like a really
beautifully thickened iced coffee with some extra subtleties to
it, the vanilla, the honey, the sesame, really comes
together to a lovely whole, really tempers the
bitterness from the coffee, it's a great drink. It's that easy to make healthy,
delicious smoothies at home. All the smoothies we talked about today have less than 20 grams of natural sugar and at least four grams
of fiber per serving, and they taste fantastic. I hope you give each one of them a try. What's your go-to smoothie recipe? Let me know in the comments below. Hit the like button, subscribe,
and I'll see you later. (upbeat music)
