Pango Smoothie demonstrates: sugar is evil, but not indispensable

I've been dragging myself this week through a lethargy borne of changes. Since I got a respectable job and am no longer making my own schedule, my eating routine has been completely thrown for a loop. Tuesday I even had a bacon burrito from Golden Pride, of frustration, even though with every bite I mentally whipped myself for straying so egregiously from the Beauty Detox way. I know, very bad. So now again I must pause and reconsider. What are my priorities? How much time can I devote to cooking? What do I really want entering my stomach?

I've developed a special preference for fruit in smoothies as part of my project to manage my time more effectively. After creating a spreadsheet of the activities that make up my day, I've concluded that a significant portion of my day is spent chewing. True story. Chewing a large salad takes approximately 18.4 minutes, while chewing a large bowl of fruit takes up to 16.8 minutes. Not to mention lunch, that is where the real bottleneck is! The Glowing Green Smoothie, on the other hand, takes 2.9 minutes to ingest, and that's if it's half-frozen.

So I've decided to allow myself to regress digestively and eat most of my food mashed, in baby-food form. This not only saves time, but also makes for delicious meals, as you will soon see. When you eat blended foods, you've already partially broken down the food, so your stomach has to put less effort into processing it, which means energy saved to be used by your body in some other way. According to Kim's book, our bodies can use up to 80% of our whole supply of energy for digestion. Isn't that crazy? No wonder most of us crave for a nap after lunch. 

There's only so far that this blendophilia can reach. I'm not going to go and blend bread or meat or some insane thing like that, although if I do ever decide to make the steak milkshake I've heard about I'll let you know. There are foods that don't lend themselves to blending, and we wouldn't want them to either. I love the texture of halva, for instance. I would never blend that. But fruit - anytime. And because I've lived in Georgia, and I often get hopelessly nostalgic after the sweet, juicy Georgia peaches, this is my favorite breakfast snack at the moment.

Pango Smoothie

~ serves 1

1 organic ripe peach, halved and cored

3/4 cup mango chunks (frozen) or flesh from 1/2 large mango

2 dates or 1 Tbsp coconut nectar or honey

1 cup ice cubes

1/2 cup water

Blend everything with a hand blender, regular blender or a Vitamix for about 1 minute.

Recipe adapted from Whole Foods Recipes from Vitamix.

Note: If you manage to make this smoothie even more heavenly, tell me how!