In an effort to add more fruits and vegetables into our diet, I've been looking at smoothie recipes. My chiropractors really recommend them as an energizing breakfast, packed with nutrition. I think this can be true if the smoothie recipe focuses on healthy ingredients without added sweeteners.

The Ultimate Smoothie Book contains a lot of great information regarding the best ingredients to use in smoothies and what nutritional benefits each food adds. It is well-organized with informational sections before you actually get to the smoothie recipes. The smoothie recipes are also organized into categories which makes it easy to find the type of smoothie you are looking for. I love that each smoothie recipe also has a nutritional breakdown per serving.

I was a bit thrown off by the book beginning with a section on juicing. I wasn't looking for a book on juicing - I was looking for smoothies! Calbom puts a great emphasis on using fresh fruit and vegetable juices in her recipes, which would unfortunately necessitate another piece of kitchen equipment which I am not interested in purchasing at this time. Calbom also uses ice frequently in her smoothie recipes and claims that a regular blender will be able to handle this. Maybe some blenders can handle ice well enough to make a truly smooth smoothie but I know mine cannot.

The majority of the recipes included in The Ultimate Smoothie Book look really tasty. Unfortunately, I've decided that I'm going to need to wait until I have a better blender and warmer weather to actually try them out. Smoothies in the middle of winter just don't sound very appealing! ( )