a not-gross protein smoothie

~45g to start your day

Greetings from Massachusetts, where I am recovering from ten days up at Bennington (grad school summer camp) AND recovering from a mystery ailment (four-day tummy ache). Luckily it snowed last night, so I’m writing this while looking out over the neighbors’ snow-covered lobster traps.

I am ready to get back to what I consider “regular” eating habits this week, a distinction that is entirely personal and occasionally arbitrary. When I am home in Brooklyn, that means beginning each day with a big honking smoothie.

I’ve written before about smoothies, especially a dupe of the mango smoothie from Brothers in Rockaway, Queens, which not to brag but many MessHeads have told me that they regularly make at home:

I still really love that recipe (and regularly purchase the original at the beach) but given that I am currently prepping for my first powerlifting meet, I need to begin my day with more protein.

Over the last year I have developed a smoothie recipe that meets a small but crucial list of requirements—

• 40 grams of protein or more

• tastes good, not gross

• decent amount of fiber

• doesn’t rely on protein powder

—and the recipe I’m sharing today is the result. I don’t measure things with too much exactitude, but I’ve gotten pretty good at eyeballing. Sometimes I’ll swap in some new fruit; sometimes I’ll be out of frozen spinach or chia seeds or my weird peanut butter powder. But this is the general rubric I keep to most mornings, and it sets me up for success in that it keeps me full for a long time, it gets me well on track to my protein goals—the recipe’s got about 45 grams of protein—and it gets me a serving each of fruit and vegetables. I rely heavily, you’ll see, on a big bag of Wyman’s frozen wild blueberries.

A note on protein powder. You could absolutely add in some unflavored protein powder to this smoothie to really turbocharge the protein levels. But it is important to remember that protein powder is NOTFOOD. There is nothing wrong with consuming NOTFOOD and in fact I do it every day. But when we consume NOTFOOD we must not try to convince ourselves that it is food. Protein powder is not delicious; it is a supplement that can be made palatable. In order to not be eating nasty food in my daily life, I consume protein powder in a shake, with some orange juice (+vanilla protein) or Fairlife milk (+chocolate protein¹). I’ve tried adding vanilla protein to this smoothie and I did not, personally, enjoy it. I’ve tried adding chocolate protein powder to stovetop oatmeal and I HATED it. In my kitchen, then, protein powder must stay in its designated lane. In yours, things might be different.

I should also note that this makes a lot of smoothie—about two glasses’ worth. I work from home, so I just drink it over an hour or two in the morning, but I’ve also found it travels well.

Blueberry Smoothie With Lots of Protein

Serves 1