How Victoria’s Secret supermodels start their days? Let’s take a deeper look at Miranda Kerr’s green smoothie recipe and ingredients behind it.
Miranda Kerr morning smoothie recipe
Miranda Kerr’s green smoothie ingredients:
Coconut water (1 glass)
Coconut milk (1 glass)
Acai berry powder (1 tbsp)
Goji berries (1 tbsp)
Spirulina (1 tbsp)
Cacao powder (1 tbsp)
Maca powder (1 tbsp)
Chia seeds (1 tbsp)
Rice protein powder (1.5 tbsp)
Miranda Kerr’s morning ritual
Miranda starts her day with warm water with lemon claiming that it cleanses your body and boost the immune system. Are these claims actually true?
Well, there are studies made on how fruits and vegetables affect human DNA. According to study done in Hong Kong lemon seems to really provide some DNA protection.
Lemon or its ingredients cut DNA damage about 30%. It was also tested that the effect did not come from ascorbic acid (vitamin C) as they removed it from the tested lemons.
I am not sure if there are any studies made where lemon did actually boost detoxification pathways, but yes there are some ingredients in lemons that provide DNA protection.
Does eating lemons or citrus fruit make you less likely to get cancer? Well, this meta-analysis linked high citrus fruits consumption with a 10% reduction in risk of breast cancer. Another study has linked the consumption of citrus peels with reduced risk of skin cancer, but there was no association with reduced skin cancer and overall consumption of citrus fruits.
So it seems that you should also consume citrus peels to get the most benefits. As you can see lemons are a healthy thing to consume, but what about the actual Miranda Kerr’s green smoothie ingredients…
Miranda’s smoothie ingredients
Let’s take a deeper look for these ingredients – what exactly are these ingredients, are they really healthy or just random claims from marketers? And also let’s look at studies made on them.
Acai berry powder
Acai berry is grossly hyped “superfood” from the Amazon. Acai berry is sincerely high in antioxidants (ORAC Value 102700 according to USDA), which is the reason why it’s used in many beauty products.
But does consuming Acai berry really give you health benefits? Let’s take look studies made with Acai berries.
-In one pilot study, Acai berry improved plasma glucose levels, insulin and total cholesterol in overweight adults (1).
-Another pilot study made on berry-based juice blend also improved serum lipid profiles but did not have any effect on sports performance (2).
-It is also tested in mice that Acai berry is not beneficial for athletes (3).
According to these pilot studies, there is something in Acai berries that seems to improve lipid profiles in humans, but more studies are needed to make any conclusion.
In conclusion, Acai berry is antioxidant high over-hyped berry but does not yet have enough scientifical studies under its belt to justify its high price.
Basically, it does not really matter if you replace your expensive Acai berry powders with fresh blueberries (for example). But if you want to use Acai berries, I suggest using a high quality organic freeze-dried powder like this.
Goji berries
First I was extremely skeptical about Goji berries, but I was a little amazed when I looked at studies made with them. While most of the studies made on Goji berries are pilot studies and there might have a conflict of interest, but a positive result has been seen.
(as there is a huge conflict of interest, I ignored every study that Goji selling MLM company made. You just can not trust studies like that).
– Goji berries contain some polysaccharides that seem to enhance endurance according to animal studies (1, 2).
– Goji polysaccharides improve neurogenesis, memory and protect against Alzheimer’s disease according to animal studies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
– Other benefits from animal studies: Goji berries seems to be anti-estrogenic (1) and enhance the immune system (2).
In conclusion, Goji berries seem to improve athletic performance, neurogenesis, memory and even protect against neurodegenerative disorders according to animal studies. Of course, we still need to wait for good human trials to confirm these findings.
It’s hard to find good Goji Berries
It’s really like flipping a coin to try to find high quality juicy and soft Goji berries as every batch of berries seems to be different.
It’s been a while since I have ordered Goji berries, but from personal experience, Dragon Herbs have been the only company that constantly delivers almost fresh like juicy and soft Goji berries.
Spirulina
Miranda Kerr’s green smoothie’s only “green” ingredient is pretty famous blue-green algae called Spirulina (which similar to chlorella).
Spirulina has good nutritional value and contains all essential amino acids. Benefits of spirulina are mainly linked to its nutrition content.
But it’s also noted that consuming Spirulina seems to improve blood lipid profiles, lower blood pressure, LDL, total cholesterol levels and triglyceride levels in humans (1, 2, 3).
Spirulina is a controversial superfood as there seems to be a lot of quality issues with it. Low-quality Spirulina products might contain everything from microcystins to heavy metals (Assessing potential health risks from microcystin toxins in blue-green algae dietary supplements).
How much spirulina you should use?
It is suggested to use just a small amount of these green algae products. Spirulina is intended to be like your multivitamin, not your main calorie source. If you’re pregnant you should not use them at all, better to be safe than sorry.
I can not stress enough that you must choose your Spirulina very carefully. If you can not afford clean high-quality Spirulina just skip it and buy organic kale instead. The only Spirulina that I have used without problems is made by Nutrex.
Is this one of Miranda Kerr’s beauty secrets?
Cacao powder is an unusual choice for a green smoothie, but it indeed might quite an excellent thing to put in smoothies.
For example, the famous Casanova reckon chocolate as an aphrodisiac and drank it with his ladies (his biography is awesome read). Casanova was a wise man, as new research shows that cocoa ingredients affect the brain, improving mood and sense of well-being, which leads to an increase in sexual desire especially in women.
The flavonoid-rich cacao is not for just improving sexual desire, as in a new study it was noted that cacao been shown to reduce wrinkles and make the skin more elastic. For this reason, you should choose non-alkalized flavonoid-rich cacao, even though it tastes bitter.
You can identify real cacao from its bitter taste (non-alkalized), which mean it has still health beneficial flavonoids remaining (1)
Personally, I am a big fan of CocoCardio, which uses 100% non-alkalized flavonoid-rich cacao combined with beetroot and hibiscus.
Other ingredients in this smoothie included:
Maca powder – The famous libido booster. You can learn more about maca root by reading maca experiences.
Chia seeds – You can learn more about chia seeds by reading Chia seed benefits
Rice protein powder – For learning more about rice protein see: Rice protein 101
Conclusion
Miranda Kerr’s green smoothie contains some really healthy ingredients but is more like superfood mix smoothie than a green smoothie. To make this smoothie more green you could use more leafy greens (kale, spinach, romaine lettuce) or more varied green powders.