Festive spiced smoothie

Today's challenge is to eat only whole foods - which is normally not a challenge at all but a way of life.  It seems, though, that during the festive period the trend is a very different type of eating whole foods - as in stuff the whole lot in!  Last time I looked, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, bread, milk, brandy cream, chocolates etc are neither wholesome nor unprocessed but are very definitely fiddled with quite a lot from their original state and full of all manner of chemicals and sugary naughtiness.

And whilst I do enjoy all this festive fare, I can feel it too.  Headaches and heartburn abound, the gym feels more of a struggle, sleep isn't quite so deep and various inflammations are grumbling.

So before I hit New Years Eve with aplomb tomorrow, I thought a mini clean slate might be in order first today.

First up, after the usual hot water with lemon juice, a lovely cleansing breakfast smoothie.  I make no apologies for posting so many smoothie recipes. I love smoothies, they're incredibly healthy and a really quick, easy way to cram in a load of goodness before even leaving the house. Plus there are an infinite number of different ways to make them.

Here's today's:

Blend 2 big handfuls spinach with a cup unsweetened almond milk - do this before adding the other stuff or you'll end up with bits of spinach in it instead of a nice blended consistency.

Then add in:

1 banana
1 apple (cored and sliced)
3 dates
1 dessert spoon almond butter (we use Meridian nut butters, they contain nothing but nuts and are in most supermarkets or health food shops)
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn maca powder (optional)
1 tpsn baobab powder (optional)
To increase the protein content add a scoop of hemp protein powder too.

Blend it all up until nice and smooth, you may need to add more liquid (almond milk or water) to get the right consistency and you'll need to blend it for quite a while to get the dates and the apple to blend down properly.

Yum.

Next up, some kind of sprout or kale salad I think...watch this space.