Smoothy Groovy

I am very into making smoothies right now.  One reason I’m doing this is because of an experience I had a couple of weeks ago.

My husband was telecommuting (yay! that’s good Frugal news).  I went upstairs to clean out the kitty litter box.  As I walked by his desk, I saw that for lunch he was having Fritos and beer (boo! that’s BAD Frugal news).

Why is this bad Frugal news, you may ask?  After all, he was eating at home.  And he was eating stuff that was in MY home.

Well, Fritos just aren’t too Frugal.  Price-wise, it’s true you can always find them on sale.  And there’s nothing wrong with them once in a while as a small side dish to something more nutritious.  But as your ENTIRE lunch? With a beer kicker !?! Yikes.

To this day, I do not know where that bag actually came from because I know for sure I didn’t buy it.  Maybe it was lurking in the back of the pantry from long ago.  Truth to tell, I was so horrified  by this sorry spectacle that I didn’t even think to ask him were those Fritos came from.

The real reason this lunch wasn’t Frugal is because it pretty much had no nutritional value whatsoever.  In fact, it had mega-negative nutritional value because a steady diet of Fritos and beer is sure to lead to some serious health problems.  Health problems are expensive!

In general, however, I think my husband and I eat fairly healthy.  I cook dinner almost every night, so I have a lot of control over what goes into that.  Also, I send him to work every day with a decent lunch.  It may be bologna and carrot sticks (or an occasional frozen dinner, bought on sale), but that still nutritionally and financially beats the pants off of a double-bacon cheeseburger, supersize fries and soda.

But still, I could see that there was plenty of room for improvement.  Especially since my husband absolutely refuses to eat that most important meal of the day, Breakfast.  Or I guess you could say he has lots of black coffee for breakfast.

So I thought about all this for a few days, racking my brains to come up with a workable solution: how could I add more fruits and veggies into his (our) diet that he would be willing to stick to regularly?  And it had to be easy for me to do, because I am lazy and I won’t stick to it regularly if it isn’t.

Finally I decided that a daily smoothy was a good compromise.  Load up a blender with some water, fruit juice, non-fat milk,  or soy milk, a whole piece of fruit, a handful of vegetables like carrots, broccolli, or spinach, some spices, a little honey, and maybe a scoop or two of protein powder, raw oatmeal, wheat germ or ground flax seed, and whirl away. In 30 short seconds you have an extremely delicious, very nutritious “meal”. I have even tossed in whole coffee beans for a little extra pick-me-up.  (My husband is kind of like my smoothy guinea pig heh, heh, heh).

I put it in a cup, and my husband drinks it on his drive in to work.  He has liked every one I have made him so far.  I’ve made him a different one every day, because there are so many variations. That’s also appealing to him: our frugal diet can be a bit monotonous (we just came off of three straight nights of slow cooker chili), so he likes the variety.

Smoothies are frugal because you can be creative with them and use whatever you have on hand.  The possibilities are almost endless. You don’t really need a recipe, only a good imagination and an adventurous spirit.  Also, there are TONS of recipes on the Internet (for free!).  But there are also lots of good smoothy recipes books at the library, too.

It is also possible to get your total required servings of fruit and vegetables for the day into one large smoothy.  I go this route in the morning, in place of breakfast.  This results in what is known as a “green” smoothy, and it is really green.  It looks strange at first, but it is acutally quite tasty.  Kind of earthy. And any fruit and vegetables I eat the rest of the day are “bonus” good nutrition, because I have already had my full complement. This is huge and filling, so I don’t need to have anything else for breakfast.

There is also some anecdotal evidence that green smoothies are an effective way to curb common cravings like chocolate and other sweets.  I don’t know if this is true, but I notice I have been eating a LOT less candy and bread than I used to. I have a terrible sweet tooth, but it does seem to be better controlled these days.

Smoothies can help save you a lot on your grocery bill.  You can use almost all parts of a fruit or vegetable if you have a good enough blender (I do, a Vitamix.  A regular blender just doesn’t have enough power to make a really smooth green smoothy). So there is less food waste.  Also, you can toss in those fruits and vegetables that were on the verge of being thrown away because they were starting to go a little limp.  Mushy apples? - not a frugal problem any longer when smoothies are added to the menu.

It could be also that you have a hard-core Smoothy King or Jamba Juice habit. They are pretty delicious.  I remember when my sister was pregnant with her youngest and had an enormous craving for these.  She spent a lot of money every day to satisfy it.  They are very expensive! If you do it at home you save a lot of money, and quite possibly a lot of calories.

Since I am slurping my way through so many vegetables lately, it has inspired me to put in a vegetable garden this year.  I told my husband that that is what I wanted for my birthday this year (it’s in April) and he is agreeable to doing all the grunt work, so I am in the early planning stages. (That’s a good Frugal birthday present for someone, by the way.  You don’t need to put in a full vegetable garden either.  Think smaller - like potted herbs, sprouts, or tomato plants). We have a much larger yard in this new house, so that is a good way to put it to use.  Homegrown vegetables can be a very good way to save money, and also you know for sure that they are organic (if that is important to you).  Plus, gardening itself is a very healthy, vigorous activity.

So if you have been wondering how you can eat a little better in 2009 this might be an option worth exploring.  It’s easy, cheap, and kind of fun.  What’s not to like? Enough said. Get out there and make yourself a smoothy, Cowboy.