Banana Smoothie With Kale, Lime, and Cardamom (Recipe)

Banana Smoothie With Kale, Lime, and Cardamom (Recipe)
Elena Veselova/Shutterstock
John Immel
Updated:
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Summer heat can make your blood hot and your body irritated. The heat literally stresses your liver. Fortunately, kale and bananas come to the rescue. A soothing and refreshing treat, kale cools you down while banana replenishes your energy levels. A great summertime drink!

Directions

Juice the kale with a vegetable juicer. Add lime juice, kale juice, and remaining ingredients into a blender and puree. If you don’t have a vegetable juicer, simply chop and puree raw Kale with other ingredients. Cautionary note: Vegetable juicing is the preferred method as raw kale fibers may be difficult to digest.

How Does This Ayurvedic Recipe Improve Wellness?

When your mouth feels parched on a hot day, bananas and lime can quench your thirst. Limes are strongly sour, restoring fluids when your mouth is parched. Lime also cools the skin by helping you sweat.

Bananas replenish energy when we’re depleted on a hot summer afternoon. Since bananas are heavy and harder to digest than most fruits, combining them with lime or ginger can make them lighter on a hot summer day when your digestion feels sluggish.

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Bananas also replenish electrolytes, especially potassium. Leg cramps, often called “charley horses” are a common sign of low electrolyte and potassium levels. Lime and cardamom help to digest banana without provoking the Pitta dosha [one of the three dominant body/mind constitutions in Ayurveda].

Cardamom offers a delightful and appetizing flavor. Love for cardamom resonates throughout history—for instance, ancient Egyptians chewed cardamom to whiten their teeth and sweeten their breath. Like perfume, cardamom is highly aromatic. That aromatic flavor opens your pores, cooling you down by helping you sweat. The aroma also functions as a great digestive, helping you absorb all the nutrients in the banana.

Is this smoothie good for my Ayurvedic diet? Find out by taking this free, easy quiz. You'll learn your body type. Time to complete: approximately 1 minute.
Republished from JoyfulBelly.com
John Immel
John Immel
Author
Visit John Immel's website, joyfulbelly.com, for Ayurvedic nutrition one tasty recipe at a time, and professional, clinically focused, Ayurveda training courses. John also founded the National Association of Ayurveda Schools & Colleges, and the American Association of Biocharacteristics Clinicians. Outside of clinic, John enjoys his Christian faith, and his family of 8 (6 kids)!
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