Tips from Teri The Vitamix Lady, Part I, Fresh Fruit Smoothies

Are you a regular smoothie maker? Do you own a VitaMix or other high speed blender?

My friends and I were fortunate enough to be invited over to Kim's house (there she is below), for, amongst other things, a special demonstration of food preparation with the VitaMix. It was so much fun and I learned so much, so of course, I want to share it with you. Thanks Kim and Teri!

I'm going to start out with smoothie tips.

Tip #1: Put the ice in last. Putting it in first is a surefire way to wear out your blender.

Tip #2: Along the same lines as tip #1, load your blender from soft to hard: soft ingredients at the bottom up to harder ingredients at the top.

Tip #3: Leave the seeds in and the stems on. Ex. Strawberry stems and carrot stems, cantaloupe seeds, grape seeds (think resveratrol), the pith and seeds of an orange, pineapple cores (okay, that's not a seed or stem, but you get the picture--lots and lots of fiber). We throw out a lot of the nutrition in our food that in a blender becomes indistinguishable!

Tip #4: But not the seeds of an apple . . . they contain arsenic!

Tip #5: Even the little nub end of the banana--it contains the seeds of the banana, and thus the most nutrition!

Tip #6: A straight up fruit smoothie? No greens? No flaxseed? I wouldn't drink this for breakfast everyday, but all of that fruit together, plus some ice, makes a really wonderful, refreshing dessert smoothie that your whole family will love. I could totally see serving this to guests at a brunch and really wowing them. Today we had it as an afternoon snack. YUM!

Oh how I heart you VitaMix!

Did you know that you could put all of that stuff into your smoothies?