Banana and Strawberry Smoothie
If you are looking to get your ‘five fruits and vegetables a day’ quota up then this smoothie is a must. It’s packed full of fruit and goodness. Strawberries are a good source of vitamin C and also vitamin A. They are also a good source of the minerals calcium, potassium and phosphorus. Plus they taste yummy!
For two people you will need:
- 2 peeled bananas
- 10 washed strawberries
- 10oz of low-fat yoghurt
- A tablespoon of honey
- Half a cup of ice
What to do:
- Cut up the fruit and place all the ingredients into a blender until the mixture is smooth.
- Poor into a cool flask and serve in a plastic cup with a straw.
Tip: If you don’t like strawberries then try pineapple and orange instead. If you haven’t got any yoghurt or honey then you can make smoothies with milk.
What’s happening?
To a botanist strawberries aren’t berries at all. Technically, they are considered a “false” fruit. “True” fruits, like pears and blueberries, are a plant’s ovaries and solely consist of seed(s) inside a fleshy ovary wall. The strawberry, by contrast, misbehaves by growing an enlarged flower base with its fruits defiantly stuck to the outside. The little tike! What looks like its seeds are in fact dried, miniature fruits called “achenes”, bearing miniscule seeds inside. As the flower base swells during ripening, its cells pull apart from one another and the space fills up with tiny air pockets. This air pressure maintains a strawberry’s shape, and if it’s released, e.g. by freezing, the cell walls rupture and you end up with … mush. Hmmmmmm. That’s put me right off my smoothie.
The Romans were wild about strawberries and used them medicinally for a wide range of conditions, including infections, fever, kidney stones, inflammatory conditions such as gout, as well as blood and liver disease. Good grief! Imagine that? It would make prescribing medicines so much easier. However, modern nutritional science has provided research that supports the strawberry’s health-giving properties. They contain more vitamin C than oranges: eight a day will give you all you need. Meanwhile, their high content of pectin, a soluble fibre, keeps your cholesterol in check and its cocktail of natural antioxidants protects against heart and circulatory disease.
For more fabulous recipes and strawberry info, visit the BBC’s food website.
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