Light Pina Colada can be a drink dream come true. And a deliciously light tropical smoothie is a great add-on drink for staying cool in hot weather. 🧉
Actually, any Pina Colada is cooling. This one comes to mind as was one sweet drink that gave tropical vacation vibes. 🏖️
The problem with this drink is classic… as in a classic Pina Colada version ishigh calories and sugar.
It’s heavy like a meal. And not a good one.
But, the good news is…
Instead, you can make a healthy, frozen light coconut water tropical smoothie version at home that’s delicious and easy to make.
…And it has no added sugar as fruit will serve as the sugar. Sometimes with all our variety choices, we forget coconuts are fruit too. 🥥
And from the fruits (like pineapple), this is a Vitamin C loaded drink that’s good for boosting the immune system. C is also an antioxidant (aka anti-cancer) that’s water-soluble, so it’s unlikely you’ll take too much. 😊
So this vitamin powerful drink, you can make for everyday healthy drinks. And if you want, add your ginger for a punchy smoothie digestif.
It’s your drink!
…And it’s cool triple layered one if you dare make the American flag colors 🇺🇸 or another (your) country’s flag colors. You can make any color palette with your taste palate and fruit rainbow polyphenol colors. 🌈
Btw, this red, white, and blue one is good anytime of year and especially July 4th Independence Day celebrations. I got a sparkler window show. 🎇
…And then after you’ve made the frozen flag, you’ll end up with this changing colors cool drink as you witness time passing. You may want to make two drinks at a time for yourself.
…One light Pina Colada tropical smoothie you can watch, and another one you can enjoy in the moment. 🍍🍍 Gotta love healthy and happy!
Light Pina Colada Smoothie - Layered Red White and Blue
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
frozen blueberries
Blue matcha tea, brewed and cooled
coconut water
pineapple juice puree from a fresh pineapple
cherry juice or frozen strawberry juice pressed
pineapple wedge (for zhughing)
ginger powder or minced ginger (optional)
Instructions
Add first layer of blueberries and blue matcha tea to your drinking glass. Freeze.
After the first layer is solidly frozen, add coconut water layer. Freeze.
Add red juice layer. Freeze.
Add pineapple juice on top. Tip: use fresh pineapple chunks and blend up so there's a thicker juice pulp puree that makes this drink good food drama and taste. Add your pineapple wedge. Enjoy and watch the drink melt like moving colored sand!
Healthy protein foods are a priority at the top of healthy eating and weight loss. They go hand in hand with healthy fats.
And plant based foods are fun to plant into your overall diet because they add color, textures and flavor.
In catering, we always leaned into plant based foods for the color like in a Crudite dish with raw crunchy veggies and the rainbow effects from the anti-inflammatory polyphenols.
…which makes them wildly nutritious and can be the healthy rainbow food on your plate! 🌈
Making them delicious in dishes from their natural bland-boring taste and out of their whole identity or grocery packaging is what makes the tasty edible difference.
Well… when it’s reframed that way, then we can embrace adding more plant-based foods to our healthy diets. They’re sustainable.
But the real problem with veggies if there is one, is that they’re not filling to our bellies.
Most are low calories leaving us feeling hungry. And that can be good for weight loss when balanced in our lives…
Plus adding healthy protein foods to fill in the gaps for us.
Like these examples:
A plant-based tofu “chorizo” healthy protein foods dish doused with balancing Ayurvedic spices.
You can add alliums like onion and garlic that are fiber and good for immunity. Plus green veggies like green bell peppers, and plenty of spices make this a balanced healthy meal.
You can save tomato for your Italian dishes and lean in on the sweet potato in this dish. 🍠
The spices add the flavor and this one has paprika, turmeric, 5 spices, garlic powder, and cumin.
And for healthy proteins, while sausage is usually high in saturated fats, tofu has healthy fats (Omega-3 and unsaturated fat types) and nutrients like magnesium and calcium so it can be a chorizo substitute.
Other healthy protein foods include a 3 Sisters dish that celebrates beans at the heart of plant-based healthy protein foods.
This is a complete meal. If you have a corn, beans, and squash trifecta, and also add olive oil or avocado to the meal, then you have all your macros in one. That’s tasty and healthy smart eating.
The stuff I get wildly excited about, plus playing with food. 😊
…Like a plant-based homemade pizza that can bemade with wholesome healthy whole wheat, and in as much time as it takes to place a pizza order and have it delivered… and it’s funny I would know because for 4 teenage years, I was a pizza maker for Domino’s Pizza.
That would be a long time for a teen in today’s working world… but I had fun working. People at all ages stay put when they’re happy.
Back then, like most my age I leaned into the carefree happy over healthy.
These days, wiser having tried more food experiences, we can make better choices.
And we can bake and make our own meals where we get to choose ingredients.
Whole wheat flour is slightly higher in protein and fiber than everyday white flour. And that reminder can help move us closer to healthy desires.
Each step starting with food thoughts make us intentional about what we manifest in this Life.
If we source healthy ingredients and foods, then that’s what ends up on our plates and in our bodies.
And the choice of healthy protein foods is a healthy leader for us and our meals especially when we choose the protein foods first.
Too often we have healthy intentions but end up with the happy for any number of reasons. 😋
So balance or a happy medium I like to say is the best approach… and in my world, I lean into the happy tastes and end up doing the healthy without compromising taste…. and happy to give healthy friend advice.
It’s simple when there’s no pressure to eat healthy, so then it’s easier to make the healthy choice most the time because the freedom of choice…
And we can do that when we go out also. There are plenty of healthy and tasty places to eat these days.
Intentional good foods is what happened when I planned events for American restaurants serving Mediterranean cuisines.
Those experiences made me appreciate small plates and family style foods with healthy flavors.
At a Spanish tapas place, small appetizer plates were the only plates they had.
They also had gigantic paella pans (that could’ve held all the small plates inside).
One was the Friday happy hour pan fit for as big as a dining room table.
I remember back when I would blog every day and the people I worked for didn’t even know what a blog was. I just told them it’s marketing and they let me do my thing, haha.
But the people that were coming to the blog, got it.
You all get it. 😀
I shared recipes and special happenings that’s still the way things are today.
And in the Italian, Spanish, and Lebanese restaurants where I was a food insider, one common ingredient used was tomatoes. Often it was a subtle hint as part of a mixture of flavors we call a relish.
Like Meshi Bel Zeit stuffed veggies that was the vegetarian option for Lebanese events.
For home meals, a dish like that would pair well with a common tomato dish that goes well with many healthy protein foods including peas.
Green peas are a good source of healthy protein as are chickpeas. That makes us hap-pea! 🫛
And quinoa is good to add to our healthy protein foods list. It’s another complete meal.
Quinoa has 9 essential amino acids that our bodies can’t make, so you can definitely feel full after a bowl. It’s a food illusion because you’re eating what looks like a cooked grain (starch), but as a pseudo-grain it’s acts more like a protein super food when it lands in your body.
And even more of an illusion when you add quinoa as a breakfast cereal. This would’ve been a great way to start the back-to-school days if we knew about the super grain way back then.
3 Tips for Cooking Quinoa – Healthy Protein food
1. Use a pan (instead of a pot) for more even cooking.
2. Toast your quinoa on the stovetop before cooking.
3. Don’t salt your dish until the end if you use peas so they don’t dehydrate.
You can make a quinoa paella like this one made of quinoa instead or rice, and then add other healthy protein foods on top. This way you can get all your protein grams in that day with a bottomless quinoa dish.
If gram numbers count for you… the easy way to remember is to take your weight and divide by two for a rough idea of how many pr0tein grams you’re looking for.
Quinoa paella would also be deliciously paired with a za’atar cracker.
Either avocado smoothie way, an avocado super fruit is one good healthy fat food to eat first thing because of its profile. 🥑
An avocado has fiber, protein and healthy fat that will help your muscles, and prevent blood sugar spikes that’s easier to do on an empty stomach before you’ve had your first meal.
And all that helps prevent weight gain from cravings.
And on those missions, you can add one more healthy step intention.
You can make your avocado smoothie more of a savory experience with a little vinegar, leaning into its veggie appearance. Yes, adding a little vinegar like in a salad but in your smoothie.
I recommend drinking this with the simple avocado smoothie only, but up to you or not if you add to your avocado coffee as a healthy smoothie enhancement.
Vinegar with acetic acid is a natural probiotic and can help balance gut, improve digestion, and lower bloating and gas.
As food as medicine goes, ACV can be your remedy for heartburn symptoms taken before or with your meals. No more popping pills.
A good way is to add a few ACV eye dropper drops full or a teaspoon of vinegar to your avocado smoothie that you’ll barely taste.
And one last easy step for your healthy balanced living is growing an avocado seed to a plant.
This way you keep all the avocado parts, in sustainability efforts.
Avocado is one of the healthiest ways to break the fast in the morning. It's high in glutathione antioxidant that's raised with coffee in research studies.
Peanut butter banana smoothie is one good balanced pairing drink. It’s especially good for Vata balancing as both are sweet ingredients.
When you want to kick it up a balancing notch, then add a few more healthy and taste enhancing ingredients.
This one has added avocado and coffee.
Add in an avocado for more balancing power (good for Vata, Pitta and Kaphas) along with coffee for Kapha tired sides.
Vatas are the anxious and worried characteristics in us, plus the indecisive, inconsistent, or jumpy sides.
We’re complex but our drinks and recipes don’t have to be. 😊
Coffee in a smoothie is a great way to get your anti-inflammatory caffeine in.
Avocado adds healthy fat. When the avocado is ripe, you can add to your smoothie as a fruit and green! 🥑 Either way, it’s a great plant-based way to start your breakfast day.
The best nut butter to use are the all-natural ones that you stir up that are two ingredients. And nothing beats a ripe banana. Save your green bananas for a snack especially when you don’t want to spike your sugar.
You can keep them green by adding them as a bunch to your crisper drawer and leaving the plastic wrap at the stems. And to ripen quicker for a smoother, pull bananas apart and set out in room temperature. And the ‘ol brown bag works.
Best of all, you’ve primed your gut for proteins so you’re not hungry, help build muscle, and work toward your healthy weight goals.
So here’s the peanut butter banana coffee smoothie. Whatcha waiting for? 😋
These 3 ingredients make a balanced breakfast smoothie.
Course beverage
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
1small to mediumripe banana
1tspall natural peanut butter
coffee
1/2ripeavocado
Instructions
Blend ingredients and enjoy! This is such a refreshing and awakening beverage. Bananas are prebiotic and have fiber, and peanut butter is a good protein source. When you add coffee, you add anti-inflammatory polyphenol benefits. What's missing? An avocado healthy fat for your peanut butter protein and future protein meal to come.
Healthy fat foods were once an oxymoron. I was working in hotel catering where we had plenty of decadent high fat dishes around.
Food life was easier back then…
All foods with fat were labelled bad back in those pre-extra virgin olive oil days (where these days olive oils aren’t virgins but we look for the label).
Foods were more black and white and good vs bad foods. That wasn’t the healthy nutrition facts and rainbow variety of foods we would evolve into. 🌈
I share the good, bad, and unusual in this article, plus a healthy fat foods list below.
Starting with nuts… pre-milennium, nuts were often seen as healthy fat foods in people’s homes on display.
Shelled nuts were sitting on a tray with maybe de-shelled nuts cracked with a nut cracker sitting near by. Cracking nuts in front of a television was an old-fashioned past-time. Oh, that’s nuts! 😊
Then over the years, nuts became the controversial “bad” snacks to be avoided because of the high fat content. It didn’t matter what the fat was. It was and is the healthy kind. But back then, fat was fat.
And you are what you eat was the mantra that was taken literally.
Then the nutty tide gradually turned (thank you research!) yet again where today all nuts are celebrated and valued as one of the healthy fat foods and healthiest snacks available out there.
Nuts are accepted and recommended in a healthy eating regimen. They have high healthy fat and protein content all in the size of a shelled M&M that could be wrapped around a large peanut.
But joking aside, earlier last year I was feeling stuck with my body as I hit a plateau and I couldn’t get my muscle strength back the same way.
I couldn’t do the same strength yoga moves I’d been doing for a decade. As we age, we lose muscle that we can’t gain back. And that’s a fact for both men and women.
We see proof in former male body builders common in American culture who can’t create the same muscle despite their desire and habits to maintain the muscle they had.
And the same effect in an opposite extreme of a lightweight female (myself 😊) who couldn’t do the same.
…So I tweaked up my diet routines.
I started my morning with a little fat and protein along with fiber. This was after I had started a regular fasting habit that you can too. It’s not that hard. If I can do it, you can too!
And I learned one of the best foods to break the fast with is an avocado, that’s a food celebrity loved by most. It’s beloved and celebrated.
It’s also a mild tasting fruit that can taste like a veggie. From an avocado, I could transition into healthy proteins easily that meant a savory breakfast (vs. a sweet one I had to overcome).
A little fat in your system helps to absorb the foods that have fat-soluble vitamins (D,E,A, andK).
So avocado being a neutral food 🥑 is balancing for Ayurvedic Vata, Pitta, and Kapha bodies.
🎉 Btw, there’s a new search feature 🔎 on this blog site so you can easily look up Vata, Pitta, Kapha, and other healthy blog articles.
…And in my tweaks I also added a little healthy fat snack back. I’m guessing you know what that may be. Yup, good ‘ol nuts!
I hadn’t been eating whole nuts as snacks by themselves for years because I thought they made my skin break out due to nut oils, when I believe it was other Pitta reasons now.
It’s funny the myths we tell ourselves.
…Or we go off of one tell-tale experience we had one season.
Plus, with nuts I had to change my mindset from the previous years where nut and fats were deemed as bad. Those were my nut challenges.
And like me, you could ask yourself: what changing mindsets about and around foods would help you reach your goals?
We can constantly be growing our minds to better ways and new lifestyle habits.
And the fact is our bodies are constantly evolving and renewing daily, so you could start a new regimen by testing healthy foods again that you gave up on before or thought you shouldn’t eat because of past sensitivities or reasons.
It’s healthy for us to add as many as possible healthy rainbow foods and variety into our diet if we’re not allergic because each healthy food has a different profile and makeup, even coming from the same family.
In those ways, then you don’t have to worry about whether you are or aren’t getting enough of one nutrient, vitamin, or mineral.
Or wonder if the supplements you’re taking are absorbed or not. You’re covered either which way with the rainbow assortment of foods on your plate. 🍽️
And when I made the healthy changes I did, I noticed a good difference to my thin-frame Vata body where the muscle tone came back and I could attempt to make progress with the strength yoga moves.
Whether your goal is to gain muscle or lose weight, when you eat healthy fats they increase HDL that increases growth hormone which triggers more amino acids that are building blocks for proteins needed for muscle production.
Muscles over flab is fab! 😊
The distinction is healthy fat foods vs. unhealthy fat foods. I provide a helpful healthy variety list below that can be good reminders.
Walnuts is one on the good list for brain health. They’re easy to remember as they’re shaped like our brains.
They have the powerful ingredient that some healthy fats have: Omega 3.
Omega-3 foods are anti-inflammatory. Omega 3 is good because it’s healthy fat that lowers triglycerides that’s known to be a risk factor for heart disease.
So here is the promised and promising healthy fat foods list (as part of a recipe for a good body and healthy lifestyle):
Avocado – the super food of healthy fats. It’s chameleon versatility is unparalleled to other plant foods. An avocado also has different names like alligator pear or butter fruit.
You can see why with the leathery skin, pear shape, and silky center texture. It’s unusual and common that blends well with us peeps.
An avocado seed is also one of the easiest seeds to grow as a plant. Like us, they like room temperature without excess humidity.
Seeds – flaxseed, chia seed, sunflower seed, pumpkin,and hemp seed all have different properties so it’s good to mix them in.
Chia seeds are good toward weight loss goals and adding more calcium for stronger bones.
We often forget about sesame and poppy seeds. They look like cute decorations on foods but they are healthy fat foods that can be added to healthy foods like yogurts and salads.
They don’t just decorate a bagel. Transfer them to your healthy adds.
Natural Almond or Peanut Butters – It’s easy to tell if a nut butter is healthy. The fewer the ingredients on the jar, the better. And when you can stir the oil into the nut butter, even better for the better butter. 😊
Nuts – almonds, peanuts, walnuts, pistachios, and pecans are all good common snacking nuts.
Macadamia, Brazilian, cashews, and pine nuts are not as common, but have their own healthy profiles.
Eating a variety for your healthy needs is a good strategy. Each nut is different even though they are healthy fat foods and protein all-in-one. That’s why they’re nutrient-dense.
To salt or not? The unsalted nut versions are better for you because often the salted versions add too much salt. But you could buy a bag of salted and a bag of unsalted and mix the two to your body needs, tastes, and liking.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)– is the good olive oil. The best is usually more bitter.
Finding high-quality, medium-balanced, and a mild extra virgin olive oil for cooking or baking could be your balance.
If you’re going to bake cakes and breads, using an extra virgin olive oil for the monounsaturated fat is a healthy choice over poly or saturated fats.
You can generally tell by the color if it’s light and mild or dark and bold.
The oleic acid oil is one natural healthy profile in EVOO that’s also found in almonds. It’s good for satiating hunger that helps with weight loss.
It also adds Omega-9 food (not as common so you may not have heard of) that can be found in avocados and other foods too that’s good for good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol.
Good is good so don’t mess with good.
EVOO also helps reduce the body’s glycemic response reducing blood sugar levels to help protect against known chronic diseases such as diabetes that’s a growing health concern on the globe.
That’s one reason why EVOO is at the heart of Mediterranean diets, foods, and cooking that’s eaten all around the world and in the Mediterranean Diet.
I worked in Spanish, Italian, and Lebanese restaurants in America doing event planning and marketing. These restaurants served authentic dishes where they learned from their countries’ cuisines and cultural cooking techniques.
Olive oil was always at the heart of dishes. Some of my favorite dishes are: paella, watermelon salad, and risotto.
Not being around those types of foods but pining for their tastes, I was inspired from my experiences. I created my own home recipe versions posted in my recipe log that are weekly being added to.
And to keep the party going here and the healthy fat foods list growing… these are a few more healthy fats.
Healthy Dairy – I think this is the new food controversy because of the variety of processes. Also, there are so many vegan and allergy-friendly versions out there these days that taste great.
If you’re not allergic, there are so many benefits to healthy dairy such as protein, probiotic, and vitamins.
One dairy problem is in cheeses because there’s such a wide variety of cheeses to choose from in types and processes. Some not so healthy.
And some healthy cheeses I worked with in catering party menus were shanklesh, manchego, burrata, halloumi, feta, and pecorino.
We usually knew the cheese sources, whether it was cow, sheep, goat, or buffalo. We just couldn’t point out which goat or sheep it came from.
But when you’re in a store looking at a sea of cheeses to choose from, it’s a guess at mystery cheese. The packaging won’t tell you much… other than thin slices in a package isn’t straight from a farm.
Pasteurized cheeses we identify with thin slices can often have stripped nutrients and other processes that offset the healthy fat profile.
In rural places like Sardinia with a large number of Centenarians, the goats eat wild grasses that have Omega 3 and antioxidants.
So when we don’t have those options or we simply don’t know, the answer again is variety. When you eat variety, you’re more covered. You can switch up your foods and your healthy cheeses.
For a natural Vata body, this is naturally easy because that’s the taste preference.
But if that’s not your natural way or you like what you like today and don’t want to switch, the better alternative is to add more of other foods to what you like. That way you make room and plant seeds.
And as you think about that, you can consider these other common cheeses:
Cottage cheese with reduced milkfat (and remember to read the sodium and sugar content).
Greek yogurt with reduced milkfat (like cottage cheese, read the labels). Sometimes “reduced” has higher sugar. And “no fat” is almost always a gimme for more sugar.
Eggs – are a complete protein with essential amino acids. Vitamin A, D, choline and most the B vitamins. So that’s why often you can feel a burst of egg-energy especially if you were feeling low sugar or energy before.
If you grew up with the same nuts controversy I did, then you probably got the same downloaded message about eggs and their bad cholesterol.
This could be the mindset you want to overcome. Because with all the egg-cellent healthy benefits, you may find a new way to bring eggs back to your kitchen.
Look for pasture-raised eggs and Omega-3 eggs. Omega-3 eggs can also benefit insulin sensitivity over insulin resistance so that could tip you in eggs favor.
And since we’re talking protein and healthy fat foods, one of the healthiest swimming out there is wild salmon.
Salmon is a fatty fish and wild salmon is one healthy Omega-3 fat fish.
From working in Mediterranean restaurant kitchens, I learned some of the most wild caught fishes come from the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean in the northwest areas of America.
Should you eat farm raised salmon? Personally, I wouldn’t on a regular basis for the same reason you wouldn’t order mystery food and put on a plate.
As alternatives or when not available, you can always switch up to another wild white fish as variety. Or bring home cans of smaller fish.
Having that backup plan is always calming. In my pantry, I’m prepared with options. And that can be your plan!
As a home baker or cook, you can source practical foods like extra virgin olive oil.
…I also like coconut oil. For controversial oils, it’s a saturated fat but is good in another way as it has a much higher good HDL profile than other oils. It also has a low bad LDL compared to even extra virgin olive oil.
So in moderation, when my tastes change I add a ‘lil oil to my morning coffee and other edibles I can dream up ✨ like dreamy smoothies.
One you may enjoy is this strawberry tropical smoothie that has a little strawberry popsicle and orange dreamsicle blended in one 🍓And a little healthy fat add is up to you! 🎉
Blend the ingredients. When you add the herby flavor, it gives a third dimension. Mint will be mildest, basil is middle of the road, and cilantro will the the most pungent. Save Money Tip: you can freeze your fresh organic strawberries when they are in season.
Pour about 3/4 full, leaving a little room for the orange dreamsicle layer.