chocolate-banana shake

so, I don’t know how many people will be interested in this. angie, maybe.

I’m trying to eliminate enough CRAP from my diet and working on putting into me only that which is healthful and nutritious. I’m kind of skirting paleo eating and just sort of dabbling in it. but the biggest thing I’m trying to get rid of right now is sugar. sugar is TERRIBLE for you. some people probably quake at the very thought of that, but really, for me, it’s not that huge of a deal. I have never had a huge sweet tooth. most of my snacky cravings are in the form of salty junk, rather than sweet.

a little bit ago, I wandered into the kitchen looking for a little something. I remembered that I had some bananas in the fruit bowl, and figured I’d better eat one of them before it got too ripe for me (I’m a little squeamish about bananas and there’s a very narrow window where I can eat them without gagging. it’s not the taste, it’s the texture.) so I peeled myself a banana and was thinking how much I really didn’t enjoy eating bananas, and at the same time, remembered how much a really loved chocolate banana milkshakes. so I threw my peeled banana into a magic bullet cup and decided to see if I could concoct my own!

I didn’t want to use any chocolate syrup. that’s full of artificial crap and is mostly HFCS anyway. so I grabbed my container of cocoa powder that I use like twice a year and when my MIL comes to visit and makes herself ‘ghetto mochas’. I’m contemplating the diary free thing, but not entirely sure how I feel about that at this point, but I have taken to buying almond milk to use in my smoothies. I haven’t drank it straight, so I don’t know how it is by itself. I also only buy the plain, unsweetened kind (as opposed to ‘regular’, vanilla, or chocolate, which all have sugar added to them).

so I mixed up 1 banana, about 8 oz. of almond milk, 1 spoonful (like a regular silverware spoon) of cocoa powder, 1 spoonful of milled flax seed, a dash of vanilla extract (maybe 1/2 tsp), and a little drizzle of honey – maybe 1 tsp (just because I didn’t really want it to be bitter like straight cocoa can be). I mixed it up, not having any idea what to expect. guess what! it’s SO good! it tastes exactly like I wanted it to and could even stand to be a little less sweet.      (just imagine a banana into that picture.)

**now for a little disclaimer: I don’t know a lot about ‘cocoa powder’. the I read the ingredients on the back and all it said was “100% cocoa”. does ‘cocoa’ have sugar and/or milk in it? I don’t know. the other thing is that the ‘pure’ vanilla extract has sugar in it. how much, I don’t know, and given that my use of it was pretty minimal, I assume the sugar content was also minimal.**

the substance of it was a little runny. that didn’t bother me, but it wasn’t really ‘milkshake-like’. next time, I might try freezing the banana first to make it a little colder and maybe give it a little more bulk.

but, it was a great snack, with some protein, calcium, and a ton of potassium.

next time you’re having a little chocolate craving, skip the brownies and try this!