For the disclaimer . . I am not a nutritionist. I know nothing about medicine. I think humans should be able to live on Dr. Pepper! Don't believe anything I say! :)
Vince had blood work done recently and his iron level was low. I was shocked that it was recommended that he takes a children's gummy vitamin. He isn't going to do that! I checked the ingredient list and the first ingredient is glucose syrup. The second is sugar. Farther down the list is palm oil. Yes, they do have a good bit of iron in them but I started looking to see which foods are high in iron. I wish that we had been taught more about nutrition in school. We've learned a lot in the past few years but I think back to how nice it would have been had we known 40 or more years ago what we know now and we still have a whole lot to learn.
We also struggle to get enough protein and have both been drinking a protein shake every day. I don't like any of the artificial sweeteners, nor do I like Stevia which is in so many of them. We found one at Natural Grocer that has no sweetener at all but it's about $40 and with both of us using it, we go through at least one, sometimes 1-1/2 containers of it each week.
Tonight I was looking up foods rich in iron. Because of the oxalates in spinach, we try not to eat too much of that but another recommended foods is cannellini beans - most any beans really. We LOVE cannellini beans and buy 50 pounds of them from Azure, usually once a year.
As I was looking at the nutritional value in cannellini beans, mainly to check the iron they provide, I noticed the protein. I already knew beans were high in protein but it hit me . . why can't I make a protein shake using cannellini beans. When I can them, I don't add anything - no salt, no fat . . I could just dump a pint jar of beans in the blender, add bananas or blueberries or strawberries, milk or chocolate milk . . and have a smoothie with about the same protein I'm getting from some of the powdered mix, plus more iron and LESS money. And, I won't have to store those containers of protein powder!
Why didn't I think of this before now?
There are many recipes online for protein shakes using cannellini beans. We're going to try this one tomorrow.
I'll report back on what we think!
I've made a lot of desserts out of beans. Cookie dough dip, deep dish cookie pie...the recipe blog Chocolate Covered Katie has quite a few if you want to try them. (To note: I cut the sugar by about half in her recipes pretty much straight on the first time I make them because they're REALLY sweet to my/my family's taste buds.)
ReplyDeleteThank you for the info. I see a lot more beans in our future! I went to Katie's blog and she does have a lot of recipes I would like to try. Thank you.
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