Many people are putting more focus on making themselves healthy meals at home. This is smart for several reasons. First, most of us live in areas where we’ve been encouraged - or required - to quarantine. Even when the immediate threat of COVID-19 has passed, there will be a new emphasis on maintaining some social distance. Second of all, making your own food at home is almost always a cost-effective choice. And finally, when you make your own food you know that you are controlling what goes into your body.
One of the items that we love making at home is a smoothie. Not only can you get a healthy dose of fruits and vegetables into your diet, but smoothies also can taste great. You can get a substantial amount of variety into your smoothies by using seasonal ingredients and testing new combinations. Beyond the typical ingredients, we also encourage you to add the best probiotic for smoothies into your creations. The right probiotics not only help to optimize your health, but can support you in several important ways:
Supporting you in achieving or maintaining a healthy weight
Probiotics act in the gut. Of course, a healthy gut can optimize your digestion, but do you know why that matters? One important reason to support your digestion is that this can play a role in your weight. The right probiotic can aid in the digestion of carbs, protein, and dairy. When your body is fully digesting the healthy foods you eat, you get more benefit from them. A diversity of good bacteria in the gut has been found to correlate with a leaner body weight. Furthermore, obesity is correlated with less diversity of healthy bacteria. A smoothie can be a nutritious snack full of vitamins and fiber, that’s made even better with the addition of the right probiotic to deliver healthy bacteria to your gut.
Supporting a strong immune system
Another benefit of eating well - including making smoothies - is the ability to support a healthy immune system. Because the foundation of your immune system is in your gut, adding healthy bacteria to the gut can create a stronger defense system to fight off viruses, infections, and harmful bacteria. Instead of turning to probiotics after you’re feeling ill, we recommend working probiotics into your daily routine to help support your overall health.
Ingredients for a healthy smoothie
While our focus is on the best probiotic for smoothies, there are certain foods we love using in our smoothies:
- A nice base for smoothies is Greek yogurt which can contain a substantial amount of protein. Look for the plain varieties, so you can avoid excess sugar. Greek yogurt gives smoothies a rich, creamy taste. As an added benefit, Greek yogurt has some healthy bacteria, although not nearly as much as a good probiotic.
- Berries are some of the highest fiber fruits. Raspberries and strawberries are especially good sources of fiber. Additionally, they provide natural sweetness and a beautiful, deep color. Don’t hesitate to buy frozen berries. Since the fresh ones are not in season much of the year, frozen fruit can be an easy way to get quality, tasty ingredients at any time.
- Chia seeds can be a great addition to your smoothie, particularly for their ability to keep you feeling full for longer. Chia seeds expand in your stomach, taking up room and slowing digestion. They are one of the best sources of dietary fiber you can consume. Because of their fiber, they can aid in supporting healthy digestion, just like the best probiotic for smoothies. They are also well known for being a great way to get omega-3 fatty acids.
- Some people worry about adding nut butters to smoothies because they are higher in calories. While this is true, remember that calories are necessary to fuel a healthy body. Adding nut butters like almond, cashew, or peanut butter to a smoothie can boost the protein of your drink.
- Vegetables are a key ingredient many people like to slip into their smoothies as well. With all the other ingredients mentioned above, the taste of vegetables is often overridden completely. This can be a very beneficial delivery system for many people to get some additional greens, which bring along their own vitamins, fiber, and nutritional value.
No matter what ingredients you choose for your smoothie, you can improve it by including a probiotic that supports your health in several ways.
Best probiotic for smoothies
When you’re looking to add a probiotic to your smoothies, we recommend Digesta-Lac because of its ability to help digest protein. In addition, Digesta-Lac supports a slightly acidic environment that is important for good intestinal health. Another important property of Digesta-Lac is its ability to support the digestion of dairy products by assisting with lactose metabolism.
You can purchase Digesta-Lac in powder form to add directly to your smoothie. We recommend stirring your probiotic powder into your smoothie, after blending.
Eating well is one of the most important choices you can make for your health. A well-rounded diet does not have to be boring. It should include as much of a variety of grains, fruits, and vegetables as you can find.
Smoothies are a particularly good way to squeeze several servings of produce into your day. They’re also a perfect way to get picky eaters to enjoy a healthy alternative to ice cream or sugary drinks. Beyond using good ingredients, a great way to increase the value of your smoothies is to add Digesta-Lac.
In addition to adding a probiotic to your smoothie, we encourage you to consider Healthy Trinity, a probiotic supplement that combines our most popular probiotics into a convenient capsule. While there are many probiotic options, Natren stands out as a company that is truly committed to providing you and your family with the highest quality, and safest probiotics.
Our supplements are microbiologically pure and guaranteed to have 100% potency of each strain of good bacteria. You can view all our probiotics here.
