Berry Smoothie

I real­ly dis­like bananas.

I’m not brag­ging or any­thing; just stat­ing a fact. I tru­ly dis­like bananas. I always have. I know they’re very good for me and I wish I could eat one. I hon­est­ly don’t think I have ever man­aged to eat an entire banana by itself (that is, not in some oth­er food).

The 2006 Rich­mond Marathon was the third (and last) marathon I ran. It was excep­tion­al­ly hot that day, with temps around 80° in Novem­ber. The last 10k was real­ly rough on me and I knew I was in des­per­ate need of some nutri­tion after the race. I sat down on a curb in Shock­oe Bot­tom with a banana and a bagel, think­ing that the banana was exact­ly what I need­ed. I man­aged to get about half way through it, forc­ing every bite.

Then it occurred to me: I’d rather risk seri­ous injury or death rather than eat an entire banana.

Like I said, I real­ly dis­like bananas. Always have.

Berry Smoothie

None of this changes the fact that bananas are excel­lent to eat after stren­u­ous work­outs or runs. I still know this and I’m quite pleased that I final­ly found an easy recipe that I enjoy to have after work­ing out. It does have quite a lot of sug­ar, but you can sub­sti­tute water/ice for the juice to reduce that by about half.

Ingredients

• 8 oz Apple Juice (sub­sti­tute with same of ice water or ice or oth­er juice to taste)
• Medi­um Banana, frozen
• 1 cup Mixed Berries, frozen
• 1/2 cup Vanil­la Yogurt

Steps

1. Pour the juice, berries, and yogurt in your blender cup.
2. Use a but­ter knife to slice the skin off a cou­ple of sides of the frozen banana. It comes off very eas­i­ly, even when frozen & you can just cut off slices into the blender while hold­ing the two remain­ing sides.
3. Pulse the blender 5–6 times to chop up the frozen bits.
4. Blend on high for 40 seconds.

Serves 2 (who am I kid­ding, I drink the whole thing. So should you).

The best part: The frozen banana is almost unde­tectable in terms of fla­vor, smell, and tex­ture. I mean if you get nose right down into the cup, you’ll detect banana; but that’s what straws are for. For peo­ple who real­ly hate bananas.