Category: Low-sugar healthy recipes

Orange dream smoothie with creamy popsicle vibes is one frozen treat I grew up around ice cream trucks and drink stands with colorful fun signs.

This sign is orange (and not lemon-ade) like you often see.

And you can make a healthy orange dream smoothie with oranges like these.

And for beverages, the orange flavor is calming to the body.

Oranges calm our parasympathetic nerves that directly impact if we feel anxious or not. It’s also one healthy way to celebrate that we have decadent beverage variety choices when we get a ‘lil creative.

The orange calming factor can give you a new reason to be happy today. 😊

Your body, balance, and sensitivity to tastes and smells change all the time. What’s good for you in this season may change in the next or even tomorrow.

You can come up with your own creative dream smoothie ideas like I did  and stumbled on the creamy dream orange smoothie.

Stumbling upon keeps life interesting!

And this is one sweet and healthy smoothie to add to your list.

As a natural Ayurvedic Vata, I was born with a sweet tooth, so if I think a dessert is too sweet, then believe me… it has waaay too much sugar, so that’s why I came up with less sweet, healthier options!

Especially in America, where foods are loaded with sugars, our healthy taste buds and sense can be off track.

The average American consumes over 70 grams of sugar a day, when 25 grams of maximum recommended added or processed sugar is agreed on by both the FDA and American Heart Association.

While fruit sugar (fructose) is a better kind of sugar, it’s still sugar at the end of the day.

Going From Morning Frappucino and Coca Cola to Low Sugar

In our American diets, we can go over the recommendation in just our breakfast beverage choices alone!

If you like Frappuccinos like many of us do, whether your drink has added whipped cream or not, you’re looking at 50 grams of sugar or more for a 16-ounce drink.

That’s okay once in a celebratory while, but if you order a Starbucks Short size beverage (regular 8-ounce glass size drink), you’ve used up all the recommended sugar for the day… and it may not even be 10 am yet!

And actually, you can see most Americans carrying around the Tall or Grande size beverages (or larger). Our small is often a super size large in other countries.

The healthier order option with no sugar is black coffee or tea. So then, getting back to basics, the only safe beverage out there is water, as pure and healthy… but are they all?…

You can clearly taste the difference between purified waters and artesian waters like Fiji brand water.

The water variety is all sold in plastic bottles and available on grocery shelves, but the cost difference gives you an indicator of the quality difference. And you can clearly taste the difference between Evian and purified water.

In America, you can commonly buy a water bottle case (24-16 ounce bottles) of purified water for under $4.

They’re usually advertised “on-sale” and you can find them in the front of the store when you first walk in.

Higher-end, luxury water brands you can find in the water aisle selections also, but you can expect to pay closer to a dollar or more a bottle.

The good news is most tap water in America is drinkable and many households use a Brita pitcher with a filter or similar.

So as we question drinks such as basic water, we have to wonder about other consumable beverages.

Coca-Cola is known for its evolving trends as society changes and as a popular beverage consumed around the world.

There’s even a Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta, GA where you can taste different versions of Coke served all around the world.

As you can imagine the American Coke version is loaded with sugar (too scary to even mention how many sugar grams per can, but you can look it up!).

In my late 20’s I used to drink sodas for breakfast when it was trendy and corporate offices stocked their refrigerators full of soda cans for employees and invited visitors to grab.

I quit the unhealthy soda habit after a few years in healthy awareness although Coke will always be beloved.

I traded caffeinated sodas for healthier morning teas, coffee, and slowly moved drifted over to water and then added back a creamsicle orange dream smoothie and other breakfast smoothies as better choices with redeeming health benefits… and hopefully this inspires you if you haven’t done the switch already!

If you want more energy and vitality, getting off sodas and high-sugar drinks is a good move. Often they have 40-70 grams of soda per can!

Water can seem boring to taste, but that’s what our bodies want and will reward you for.

You can always mix it up with carbonated water and naturally flavored waters that are enjoyable.

Despite some of our generally unhealthy cultural habits, Americans have made drinking water, chic and cool, as we carry around water bottles to our work and of course to our workouts and yoga.

It’s a comparison observation I made when I was in Rome in 2019 and saw that even though all the public water sources and fountains are deemed clean and drinkable, you won’t easily find reasonably priced water bottles around. …how funny is that?

So, we’ve gotten better at drinking water regularly and not just taking a vitamin supplement or while we work out.

We know that drinking proper water amounts prevents kidney stones, keeps our bodies functioning and our skin looking young.

So on that healthier level, we can make healthier breakfast drinks like a smoothie easily with the Magic Bullet gadget or a blender.

You can add protein powders or if you like bananas, they’re a good smoothie staple.

Bananas have a higher glycemic index that can spike inflammation, but they are rich in fiber, potassium, and B vitamins, so they’re still a good natural super food good for filling an empty or upset stomach.

And that’s what makes this orange dream smoothie irresistible!

When I first made this creamsicle orange dream smoothie, I loved the textured beige-cream frothy color beverage (and maybe you do too!)

The whole orange is much healthier than concentrated orange juice if you want to do a small step replacement for healthy habits.

And a much healthier version than the childhood popsicles that this special creamy orange dream smoothie comes from.

Use one whole orange. A Calfornia navel, blood orange, or Cara Cara navel orange will give you a more balanced sweetness than a Florida orange.

If you can, opt for organic or heirloom oranges especially if you’re using the outside peel or zest that’s a great idea for taste and texture.

The magic add is 1 tsp orange marmalade (add bold sweetness but you don’t need much) or you can stay wholesome with your orange zest only

Add vanilla milk

Also add vanilla yogurt (to thicken) or if you prefer, you can add a banana that will slightly alter the taste but still pair well with an orange.

And ideally you will have a full-on orange dream smootie.

How?

Make some orange zest from one medium orange.

Blend with a teaspoon of marmalade, yogurt, and vanilla milk. Marmalade has sugar so that’s why keeping in moderation is a tasty-good idea for this Creamy Orange Dream Smoothie.

This one tastes like the orange cream popsicle but without so much sugar. If you want to add some protein, blend in fine almonds or add powders.

And if you want to have low-sugar, then eliminate the marmalade and cut down on the orange zest.

Enjoy your cream orange dream smoothie morning!

 

 

Check out other and the latest healthy beverage recipes!