Gut-Healthy Banana Mint Smoothie Recipe

The Ultimate Post-Travel Drink

While travel is fun (and often delicious), it’s common to come home a little bloated and dehydrated. Between eating out every or most meals, likely eating fewer fruits and vegetables than at home, having limited food options available, and indulging in treats and adventurous foods experiences, it’s totally normal (and worth it) for digestion and hydration to be a little “off” upon arrival home.

My gut-healthy banana mint smoothie is a nutritional powerhouse that’s an ideal way to refuel, rehydrate, and lessen bloating after travel. It clocks in at 11 g of fiber and 23g of protein. The smoothie is tart and tangy from the kefir with subtle sweet notes coming from the banana and mint. Better yet, it’s thick enough to eat with a spoon. This smoothie is soothing after a trip, but nourishing and delicious any time.

Smoothie Ingredients and Health Benefits

What makes this smoothie great post-travel is its digestive and rehydrating properties. This smoothie is particularly gut-healthy because of the prebiotic and probiotic elements of many ingredients, as well as the functional digestive benefits. Throw in vitamins and electrolytes from the produce, and you’re set to rehydrate and renourish too! Let’s give some nutrition definitions for context, then dive into the specifics of a few ingredients here.

Nutrition Definitions

Prebiotics (n)- non-digestible carbohydrates in foods that feed the beneficial bacteria in our gut. Thought to improve digestion, strengthen immune system, regulate blood sugar and more.¹²³ Prebiotics are Probiotics’ food.

Probiotics (n) – Beneficial bacteria in our gut. Like prebiotics, they help with digestion and can prevent the growth of bad bacteria in our gut. These are found in fermented foods like yogurt or kefir. Ensure the label reads, “live cultures.”⁴

Fermented (adj) – In simple terms, fermentation in foods means that bacteria or yeast broke down and transformed parts of food. This can improve digestibility and nutrition, and/or can create byproducts like acids.⁵ Think yogurt, sour dough, sauerkraut, kim chi, etc.

Electrolytes (n) – essential minerals, like sodium, potassium, and mangnesum, that aid the body with fluid balance, nerve function, and muscle contraction among other uses⁶.

Functional Benefits (n) – Additional benefits beyond nutritional value.⁷ Nutritional value encompasses calories, macronutrients like protein, fats, and carbs, and micronutrients, like vitamins and minerals. Functional benefits are include outcomes like relaxation or energy. For example, mint leaves are thought to be a functional food because beyond their Vitamin K content, they aid digestion. In additional to fiber, tomatoes contain lycopene, an antioxidant that

• Spinach – just one cup provides more than your day’s recommendation for Vitamin K. Also provides folate, as well as potassium (an electrolyte!).
• Fresh Mint – Mint is a functional food thought to act as a digestive aid. It’s said to help alleviate bloating and gas. Mint also offers a fresh, slightly sweet flavor to the smoothie along with folate and B6, which can aid with nausea or gastric distress that some may experience after travel.
• Chia Seeds – Our first prebiotic! Also high in fiber, which can help you return to regularity after being on the road and healthy fats to help absorb some fat soluble vitamins and stay full.
• Sprouted Oats – Another prebiotic. Also lends additional fiber and gives the smoothie some bulky and a very subtle chewiness.
• Kefir – Contains live strands of probiotics to aid digestion and relieve bloating. Also a source of protein, calcium, and vitamin D. Note – since kefir is fermented, it contains less lactose than milk, so may be more tolerable for those with lactose sensitivities.
• Banana – Packed with ~ 400 mg potassium (close to 1/10th your daily needs), B6, vitamin C and more prebiotics.

Recipe Tips

Order of Ingredients – This is a thick, spoonable smoothie. To achieve the best consistency possible and take mercy on your blender, I recommend adding ingredients in the order I have them listed below. Ie – leafy greens and liquids on bottom by the blades with frozen ingredients on top. Keep the powders sandwiched in between so they don’t spin out of reach of the blade.

If you’re using an individual blender with a screw-on blade, then reverse the order with frozen ingredients at the bottom of the cup and liquids and leafies on top where the blade will be.

Best Kept Mint Secret – I cannot recommend fresh mint highly enough. If you are in ANY way able to avoid the sad boxed mint at the grocery store and find a fresh, leafy bunch like the one below, I implore you to do so. For those in the U.S. who live near a Patel Brothers, an Indian grocery store, they sell fresh mint this size for only 99 cents! It beats the price and quality of the little boxes any day.

Recipe

References

1. Brown University Health Services. “Importance of Prebiotics.” Brown Health, https://www.brownhealth.org/be-well/importance-prebiotics. ↩︎
2. Everard, Amandine, et al. “Cross-talk between Akkermansia muciniphila and Intestinal Epithelium Controls Diet-Induced Obesity.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 110, no. 22, 2013, pp. 9066–71. PMC, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3705355/#:~:text=5.,weight%20loss%20and%20prevent%20obesity. ↩︎
3. Valdes, Ana M., et al. “Role of the Gut Microbiota in Nutrition and Health.” BMJ, vol. 361, 2018. PMC, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6463098/. ↩︎
4. National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements. “Probiotics: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals.” NIH ODS, https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Probiotics-HealthProfessional/#h4. ↩︎
5. National Heart Foundation of New Zealand. “Fermented Foods: The Latest Trend.” Heart Foundation, 2018, https://www.heartfoundation.org.nz/about-us/news/blogs/fermented-foods-the-latest-trend#:~:text=Fermented%20foods%20are%20foods%20and,acids%2C%20gases%20or%20alcohol ↩︎
6. Vieira da Costa, Monique, and Andrea Wagner da Silva. “Electrolytes: Mechanisms and Implications for Internal Body Functioning.” Revista de Nutrição, vol. 33, 2020. https://www.revistanutricion.org/articles/electrolytes-mechanisms-and-implications-for-internal-body-functioning-105950.html#:~:text=Importance%20of%20electrolyte%20balance,rhythm%20and%20ensuring%20effective%20circulation. ↩︎
7. Slavin, Joanne. “Fiber and Prebiotics: Mechanisms and Health Benefits.” Nutrition, vol. 30, no. 2, 2013, pp. 123–129. ScienceDirect, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212267213006801. ↩︎