Recently, a doctor recommended I eat half of a pineapple every day because of the natural anti-inflammatory properties of the fruit. No problem, I thought. I love pineapple.

When I actually tried to eat that much pineapple several days in a row, it was rough! My mouth burned and I ended up with acid-based stomachaches.

Eventually it dawned on me that if I put the fruit in a smoothie, I could drink it and avoid the mouth pain.

I am not a smoothie person. I think it is better to eat a piece of fruit than to puree it with high-calorie ingredients. But at this point I was willing to try anything, and was convinced I could make healthy smoothies.

Experimenting with a variety of additional ingredients I had some successes and failures.

• Some fruits don’t go well with pineapple.
• If I don’t add additional liquid, or if I use too much yogurt, the smoothie will be too thick to drink.
• If I put the ingredients in the blender in the wrong order, it won’t mix well.
• If I throw in a handful of baby spinach, I can’t taste it.
• If it doesn’t blend long enough, there will be chunks of ice left.
• Peanut butter doesn’t work for me.
• It is easy to get carried away with tossing in tons of “healthy” ingredients and making a very high-calorie breakfast.

After some trial and error, and checking calories, I finally settled on 1/2 Greek yogurt, half of a banana, chia seeds, milk and ice along with a cup of fresh pineapple. If I have fresh spinach, I throw a big handful in, too.

A couple of things happened.
1) I ate a lot more fruit and that was great.
2) The natural anti-inflammatory did not affect my muscle pain.
3) I was consuming a lot of calories! When I finally added it up, the total ranged from 400 to 600 calories per smoothie.
4) I was hungry not long after drinking a smoothie, so I ate even more calories later in the morning.
5) Cleaning a blender every day is a pain. I finally bought a small blender specifically designed to make smoothies. The smoothie is mixed in the drinking cup and has a travel lid. Clean up is so much easier!
6) I gained weight.

So eventually I gave up. I liked “eating” more fruit and felt good, but it felt like I was eating a lot of sugar even using healthy ingredients. I didn’t like feeling hungry or gaining weight. And the anti-inflammatory of the pineapple never worked.

For people (like me) who have trouble eating in the morning, smoothies can be a good option. But be sure to measure the ingredients to be aware of what you are really consuming.

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