Blueberry Birch Water Smoothie – now at the Living Produce Aisle

Blueberry Birch Water Smoothie

This is a super cool way to start your day for a lot of reasons, and my friends over at the Living Produce Aisle thought so too – if you swing by, they’re going to be running this as a summer feature all month, so you don’t have to make it yourself…

Here’s what makes it cool:

• 52 North Birch Water– the super hydrator and energy recovery gold- little known in North America but growing fast
• Home grown nutrient packed micro greens for potassium and calcium from your nearest Urban Cultivator …
• Fresh ginger and turmeric for zip, and hemp seeds for protein
• Banana- just because…
• And local Blueberries. because they’re pure awesome.

In our house we believe you do whatever you have to do to keep a ready stock of super food antioxidant bomb blueberries in your freezer at all times –  we’re big fans of these big fat organic berries from Hare’s Farm blueberries in Pemberton- I just placed my 100lb end of season order today lol, so that’s going to be a major component in our smoothie…

52 North is a super cool company and even cooler product- you’ll see me talking about them  lot in the near futute; For ages, Eastern Europe has recognized birch water for its restorative power – in fact, birch water is the endorsed recovery drink of the Russian Federation of Sport, and the word on the street is that you’d probably even find 52 North here in the dressing rooms of  our own athletes close to home…

The folks at 52 North have partnered up with a fellow up in Williams lake who’s tapping good ol’ Canadian trees for this birch water- for years he’s been snowshoeing out into the forest harvesting Silver Birch water for his Russian wife to remind her of home, until recently, when he partnered up with the folks at 52 North, and now far as I know it’s the only Canadian birch water on the market…

For myself, I see it as a great alternative to coconut water, with very similar properties but less than 1/4 the calories and a little cleaner taste. Birch water is loaded with phytonutrients, trace minerals, electrolytes, saponins and antioxidants, and there’s none of that lingering mustiness that I frequently associate with coconut water- instead there’s just a hint of sweetness, but nothing too pronounced; This has quickly become a staple in my pre & post workout plans, and my kids absolutely freak out about the raspberry flavor, lol. In a world where we mostly have to chase them around trying to keep them hydrated, its been hilarious to me that we now need to limit them to one 750ml bag at a time 😉

This is pretty much what led to the birch water finding its way into my smoothies- it’s a great hydrator and my morning smoothie is usually trying to accommodate both prepping me for a big mountain bike ride, and getting as much nutrient & hydration into my kids as I can before I go – those add up to a win win when they see me dumping the 52 North into the blender, lol.

I’m also a huge fan of my urban cultivators, as are my kids, so it was inevitable that we’d be incorporating our house grown greens into the smoothie- in fact, 50% of what we grown is typically smoothie bound.

We settled on arugula and kale for the greens in this one- we got some spiciness from the kale and the arugula brought a peppery, nutty tone to it that worked really well against the backdrop of the blueberries…

Nicole Fetterly is a registered dietician that I’ve had the opportunity to work with on another project developing cold press juices and nut “mylks”, (Revel Juice), where she guided us through how to formulate with a mind for the nutrient values as well, as we were creating recipes for her to be able to develop our cleanse program, so in addition to tasting great, they had to make sense from a nutrition standpoint; I’m now picking her brain constantly, lol, so here’s her feedback on this one-

“This smoothie is packed with fibre- it provides 7 grams or almost 30% of your daily fibre needs. It’s also very high in vitamin C with almost 50% of your daily needs. These two nutrients both contribute to heart health and improved immunity; as well, this smoothie will be very hydrating with electrolyte potassium to help you absorb the fluid and anti-inflammatory properties from the cucumber. The antioxidant capacity is also extremely high to help boost immunity and protect against disease.”

He said “mmmmmm good“…