Smoothie — Trading waste for abundance

So my morning smoothie today is a very special one. Every day is a special smoothie day, but this particular day I have a special item that I am very excited about! Fresh and organic coconut meat!

Now I am no smoothie guru. There are many instagram babes that know what's up in the smoothie world, creating artistry with seeds and berries and little things I have never even seen before. My appetite has low patience for making beautiful, intricate things like that on top of my smoothie. I will say though, I can put beautiful things in it! With that being said, I hardly had patience to take this set of photos! I just got out of a 7am spin class that my best friend, Leslie teaches and she is a monster on the bike! Anyhow these things below are what went into todays breakfast.

My smoothies these days normally consist of just frozen bananas, almond milk, and cacao. I'll also put chunks of peanut butter on top or raw granola when I buy it in bulk. The texture when you blend the frozen bananas with little milk is like ice cream. The consistency is unreal - dense, chocolatey, creamy. Since trash free, I have not been buying chocolate because of the packaging so this always fills that void. Another thing I haven't been able to buy is frozen fruit because of the plastic packaging. However I can now integrate strawberries because they are in season at the farmers market! I got the kale there too.

I got this coconut meat from an amazing woman named Brownie. She is the owner of a beautiful, serene vegetarian cantina called Shanti Shack just a couple blocks away from the East River. There is a mezzanine area on top of her kitchen where there are long couches and bean bags where you can eat, read, or accidentally fall asleep. She is truly an effortlessly kind woman who makes food that hits your heart strings and deep into your soul. Not to mention she composts all her food scraps and she is the most earth responsible owner out there, I'm convinced. All her to-go containers are compostable, biodegradable, and recyclable, too.

So what is so great about fresh coconut meat? It is a super food fa-sho (for sure). It is packed with minerals, antioxidants, and fiber. Because of the fiber in the fresh coconut meat it functions like a probiotic, which means it feeds the good bacteria in your intestines. Eating this meat consistently regulates the digestive system and is known to aid in weight loss. It has less sugar than other fruits too (not that I ever count fruit sugar as bad sugar).
I'll add a recipe to this smoothie for good measure:

3 frozen bananas
2-4 strawberries
1 cup of kale
1 tablespoon of cacao
3/4 cup fresh coconut meat
1/2 cup of homemade almond milk or less (it seems low but in order to get that ice cream consistency you don't need much milk)

and BLEND!
Also, do not forget to compost your banana peels and any other scraps you have leftover!