Goji Berry, Mixed Berry and Banana Smoothie

Yesterday I was watching the Dr. Oz show and one of his guests made a smoothie with goji berries in it. We have consumed goji berries for a few years at our house but we always put them in our hot green tea.

I had not thought of using the goji berries in a smoothie before seeing this show but wanted to give it a try. In order to encourage the dried goji berries to break up completely in the blender I soaked them in water overnight in the refrigerator to completely rehydrate the berries. The goji berries didn’t change the taste or texture of the smoothie.

If you are unfamiliar with goji berries you may be wondering what health benefits they have that can justify the price producers charge for them. According to the ORAC system goji berries have a value over 25,000. I have not seen any other food come near this value. For comparison blueberries have an ORAC value of 2,400. As you can see 10 times the value is significantly higher than the “superfood” blueberry. The ORAC system was designed to standardize the antioxidant value of foods so they could be compared. The higher the ORAC value the more health giving the food.

Goji berries are also reported to dramatically increase the immune system thereby increasing our resistance to disease. Goji Berries are also antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory. They are also high in vitamin C and a complete protein containing all 8 essential amino acids. We purchase our goji berries from Amazon. They have the best price on the unsweetened dried goji berries that we have found.

Goji Berry, Mixed Berry and Banana Smoothie
Serves 2

Ingredients:

¼ cup of dried unsweetened goji berries, soaked overnight in ½ cup of water (put soaking liquid in smoothie)
1 ½ cups frozen mixed berries, unsweetened (blueberry, raspberry and Marion berry)
2 bananas
1 ½ cups almond milk
2 tablespoons golden flaxseeds, freshly ground
½ teaspoon ginger powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon, ground

Directions:

Place everything in the blender and puree until completely smooth. Serve immediately.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 304.17
Calories From Fat (21%) - 63.06

Total Fat - 7.13g
Saturated Fat - 0.57g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 120.75mg
Potassium - 658.11mg
Total Carbohydrates - 61.05g
Fiber - 11.83g
Sugar - 31.29g
Protein - 6.91g

Comments:

Next time I will reduce the banana to one and increase the frozen berries by ½ a cup. The flavor was good but there was a little too much banana flavor in this smoothie.

We had this smoothie this morning with ½ a green drink and were ready to start our day. I always feel better knowing we are getting so much nutrition first thing in the morning.