These Shakes are a Blast!
You might think I’m a little crazy (my husband sure does) when I tell you to make a sweet, nutrient dense shake from a cooked sweet potato but these babies are delicious and so easy to digest!! For those of you who know me, you know that I experienced years of digestive and other health difficulties before finally figuring out the keys to keep my belly, my body and my brain happy and healthy. This week marks the newest in a long line of nutrition discoveries that I want to share with you. I’ve been using sweet potato for years, but never like this!
What’s in a Name?
The label “sweet potato” covers the white sweet potato, the orange yam and the purple skinned Japanese sweet potato. There is no “true yam” in our markets, they are all sweet potatoes. Low on the glycemic index, bursting with vitamin A, vitamin C and fiber, the sweet potato is an excellent source of happy carbs. Relative to other unrefined carbohydrate, sweet potato converts to glucose fairly quickly so you can use it to fuel your body for exercise and your brain for better concentration and focus. Sweet potatoes can deliciously crowd out the cravings for refined sugar, white flour and the nutrient-poor quickie-carbs that we are often tempted by. For those with digestive impairment, sweet potatoes are often much easier to digest than grains, even the non-gluten grains like quinoa and brown rice, which is particularly helpful.
Food for Mood
Carbs make us happy – because a steady supply of easily available glucose makes us happy. Diets higher in protein and fat and very low in carb work well for weight loss as long as people don’t feel too poorly using such a protocol. If you’ve tried a high protein low carb diet (Paleo-ish) and didn’t feel great then try the sweet potato as a the main carb source along with your healthy protein, sufficient fat intake and green veggie too. When you feel a carb craving, try this Sweet Potato Shake for an easy to digest and super-healthy carbohydrate and then take note of whether it quickly satisfies. I have been using these every day for a week now, and am LOVING them!
Orange Sweet Potato Shake
3/4 cup mashed cooked sweet potato (I like the white sweet potato for this recipe or the Japanese sweet potato with the purple skin)
juice of 1/2 an orange
1.5 cup unsweetened almond or coconut milk
4-5 ice cubes
a bit of orange zest (optional)
Place all ingredients in a blender and whirl away.
Of course you can just eat sweet potatoes the old fashioned way, baked until soft and mashed with some butter or coconut oil, but I dare you to try this variation. I think you’ll be happily surprised!
My inspiration for this post came from my experience this week, and from the book Sweet Potato Power by Ashley Tudor. Thanks for rockin’ the sweet potato Ashley!
To Your Sweet Health,
Cassandra Mick, CNE
