Dairy & eggs
Moderate evidenceKefir
Pooling the randomised trials, blood pressure, CRP, cholesterol, blood sugar and weight all stayed put. Two things changed: fasting insulin, and lactose digestion.
Kefir and berry smoothie
The kefir has to be plain, and the flaxseed has to be ground. Whole flaxseed passes straight through.
1 servings5 min
Ingredients
- Plain kefir1 cup (200 g)
- Frozen blueberriesa handful (80 g)
- Bananahalf (60 g)
- Ground flaxseed1 tbsp (10 g)
- Ground cinnamona little
Method
Grind the flaxseed in a grinder or mortar. If it came pre-ground, skip this — but check it has been refrigerated since opening.
Use the blueberries straight from frozen. No ice needed, and without ice nothing gets watered down.
Blend the kefir, blueberries and banana for 30 seconds. Longer and friction warms it.
Add the ground flaxseed and cinnamon and run it five seconds more. Over-blended flaxseed turns the drink gluey.
Drink it now. Left standing, the flaxseed keeps absorbing and it thickens.
Cooking note
It has to be plain kefir. In a trial of 15 adults with lactose maldigestion, breath hydrogen came to 224 for milk, 87 for plain kefir and 156 for flavoured kefir — nearly twice as bad as plain. Flavoured products also routinely exceed 10 g of sugar per 100 g.
Grind the flaxseed. The intact hull is not digested, so whole seeds mostly pass through — and the omega-3 (ALA) and the lignans are inside. Pre-ground goes rancid quickly: refrigerate after opening and use it within a month.
Do not heat it. Kefir's cultures die with heat. If you want it less cold, use fresh berries instead of frozen rather than warming anything.
It helps to know what kefir does and does not do. Pooling the randomised trials, blood pressure, CRP, cholesterol, fasting glucose and weight did not change. Only lactose digestion and insulin markers did. This smoothie does not do more than that.
Half a banana, not a whole one, because of sugar. A whole one plus the lactose in the kefir pushes the drink past 30 g. If it needs sweetness, add cinnamon — it adds no sugar but makes sweetness register.
Ingredients used here
Fruits
Moderate evidenceBlueberry
Anthocyanins — the pigment behind the blue — are the compound that keeps showing up in vascular and cognitive research. A handful a day is the studied dose.
Nuts & seeds
Moderate evidenceFlaxseed
19.4 g of omega-3 (ALA) and 23.1 g of fibre per 100 g. But swallowed whole, the hard hull means most of it passes through undigested.
Fruits
Moderate evidenceBanana
A green banana is mostly resistant starch; a ripe one is fast sugar. Choose the stage that matches what you want from it.