By Cat, Aug 3, 2017
For the last 15 years or so, I have made a fruity milk and yogurt smoothie for my breakfast meal. It started out as just a few ingredients (fresh fruit, raw milk, homemade yogurt and cinnamon), but I’ve added a lot more ingredients over the years It now takes me 45 minutes or so to make it.
Sometimes, you don’t have that much time, so it’s nice to have other alternatives on hand, so you don’t succumb to processed food. I’ll add alternatives as I find them.
Ample Meal: a meal-in-a-bottle
I’ve not (yet) tried this product, but as a senior citizen, when I am no longer able to make my own smoothie, I would consider Ample Meal. I learned about this from Chris Masterjohn, Ph.D., whose opinions I regard highly. He writes (the formatting is mine):
“Ample Meal is a meal-in-a-bottle that takes a total of two minutes to prepare, consume, and clean up. It provides a balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrate, plus all the vitamins and minerals you need in a single meal, all from a blend of natural ingredients.
- The protein is from [grass-fed sources of] whey and collagen.
- The fat is from coconut oil and macadamia nut oil.
- The carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals come exclusively from food sources like sweet potatoes, bananas, cocoa powder, wheat and barley grass, and chlorella.”
The above list concerns their original product; they also sell a vegan product with protein from pea and Organic brown rice instead of grass-fed animals. See their product nutrition page (1) on their website for more about what they contain, including 6 different species of probiotics! (2)
Preparation:
I contacted Ample regarding how you prepare it. Here’s their response (by Troy Doer, in a 8/3/17 email). If you don’t have a lot of time in the morning, all you do is:
“Add water or your favorite milk (we’re partial to coconut milk) to the bottle and mix it up! You can drink it right away or, if you want a thicker shake, you can put back in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour.”
Fruit: It doesn’t contain any fruit (the ‘banana’ in Chris’s text, above, is just the resistant starch from banana), so if you want to turn it into a fruit smoothie, you could add it; I would add apple and berries, but your choices are many.
Milk: I would use raw goats’ milk instead of coconut milk, except when I’m preparing for a fast. If using coconut milk, the best option is made in your kitchen from a whole coconut (see my articles, Coconut Milk and How to Open a Coconut).
; next-in-line is Organic coconut milk in a can, which I would mix with a little bit of water in a glass jar. I would avoid soy milk at all costs, even “organic.” (Milk from fermented soy, if that’s even possible, would be OK as long as it is not GMO).
References:
- Ample’s Nutrition page: amplemeal.com/pages/nutrition
- Probiotics in Ample: amplemeal.com/pages/nutrition#probiotics
