Green Detox Smoothie - Pleasantly Surprised

How many times have you tried a recipe from a FB post, recipe site, recommendation of a friend or family member all claiming it's the yummiest, best thing you will ever taste? And it ends up being a pile of crap... Well, that's exactly what I expected when I saw this recipe in a Fitness Rx FB post for a Green Detox Smoothie. But, it DID have kale in it (a super food) and if it sucked, I would just plug my nose and gulp it down. Nothing to loose except a bit of time preparing it.

Next shopping trip I picked up the kale, pineapple, bananas - all items I would have picked up anyway. I had vanilla whey protein powder at home so that left the unsweetened coconut milk. Unfortunately the store I went to didn't have unsweetened coconut milk...who would have known there was going to be a run on this product, lol...after considering other products, decided to substitute the coconut milk with unsweetened almond milk, also low in sugar.

1/2 cup of unsweetened coconut milk <-- used unsweetened almond milk
2 cups of chopped kale
1 1/2 cups of chopped pineapple <-- used fresh
1 ripe banana
1 scoop of vanilla whey protein powder (optional)

Throw it all in a blender and blend away. Took a few minutes and a couple of start/stops to chop until smooth. Add some additional water, if you like it with a thinner consistency.

Results - it looks pretty, a nice shade of green overall and you can see the small bits of kale. Now, if you are sensitive to the smell of your food, DON'T smell it, you can tell there are chopped up greens in it. Took a big sip and expected it to taste like it smelled but I was pleasantly surprised. It tasted like pineapple mostly with a hint of banana and vanilla, it was sweet, not too much and the only hint of the kale was the bits that were floating around. I have to admit I drank it down fairly quickly, I was hungry and it was good. The downside - be sure to check your teeth for green bits of kale before you head out :-)

The smoothie filled me up without giving me that horrible sugar rush like you would get after drinking down a milkshake and no brain freeze.

Will definitely make this smoothie again trying different fruit combinations with the kale and with frozen fruit varieties to make it a bit colder. What are you your favorite combinations? Be sure to share what you whip up.

Nutrition
Calories: 183 (around 270 if you add protein powder)Protein: 5g (25g if you add the protein powder)
Fat: 7gCarbs: 38g
Fiber: 5g