I've gotta say, now that Spring has sprung, I'm totally on the smoothie train again. There's just something about the cold blistery Winter that doesn't exactly scream "ICY FRESH GREEN SMOOTHIE." Don't get me wrong, I love smoothies – they provide the perfect opportunity to cram loads of nutrient-dense foods all at once. I will admit that I tend to gravitate towards Green Smoothies. Perhaps it's the nutritionist in me, but for some reason my brain seems to think green smoothies must be healthier than any other smoothie, but that's so not the case!

Take this Carrot Cake Smoothie for example: not a single green in sight, but loaded with vitamin A packed carrots and healthy skin & brain nourishing fats from the full-fat coconut milk. You could even up the nutrition ante even more by adding some digestion-loving ground flax and chia seeds and protein-powered hemp seeds! See? You don't just need to slurp back green smoothies to be healthy!

One thing I will make note of is steering clear of the sugar-bomb smoothies. These are the ones that are usually comprised of nothing but yogurt, berries and maybe even some orange juice. The truth is that this smoothie may actually be doing more harm than good, given that it does a number on your blood sugar levels which further affects your hormonal balance, especially cortisol (a stress-related hormone) and causes inflammation in the body from the dairy-filled yogurt.

When building a nourishing and delicious smoothie, it's okay to use some fruit like 1/2 - 1 frozen banana, a handful of frozen pineapple or an apple, but you'll want to keep it to a minimum as much as possible and including fibre and protein-rich ingredients that will help to slow the release of the sugars into your blood stream (which helps to avoid energy spikes and crashes), such as hemp seeds, ground flax, chia seeds, nut butters or protein powder.

This recipe was born during my recipe collaboration with Becka Crowe of Going Grainless, a desire to start bringing you all more smoothie recipes (one of the recipes we admittedly overlook on our sites) and a mad love for carrot cake! Who else loves carrot cake?! Growing up, it was one of the more undesirable cakes simply because it had the word "carrot" in it. Who wants to have "healthy" cake? Well, the reality is that carrot cake typically isn't that healthy at all with it's cream cheese icing, copious amounts of sugar and butter which keeps it super moist!

I wanted to discover and share a way that we could all still enjoy those perfectly spicy carrot cake flavours but offer a butt load (yes, a butt load - whatever that means) of nutrients at the same time. And what better time to share such a recipe when we're just a week away from the 'ol annual visit of the Easter bunny, right?! If you really want to impress the Easter bunny this year, you might want to consider whipping this up *wink wink nudge nudge*!

Carrot Cake Smoothie

Ingredients

1 frozen banana
2 medium carrots or 1 large
1 inch fresh ginger
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 date (or 2 dates if you prefer a sweeter taste)
1/3 cup full fat canned coconut milk
1/2 cup water (or you could simply use 3/4 cup almond milk in place of water + coconut milk)

Directions

Blend all ingredients in a high-speed blender. Serve in a medium-sized glass and enjoy!

What's your favourite non-green healthy smoothie!?