Looking for a sweet and energizing start to your day? First and foremost, eat breakfast as it provides a boost of energy and gets your metabolism going. Secondly, there are many foods you can eat for energy, two of which are bananas and dark chocolate.
Raw bananas are a very good source of Vitamin B6, and a good source of Dietary Fiber, Manganese, Potassium and Vitamin C (source). There are three kinds of sugar in bananas, and both complex and simple carbohydrates, all of which are used as sources of energy (source).
Dark chocolate contains a small amount of caffeine as well as theobromine, a central nervous system stimulant (source).
For this quick and simple morning smoothie, the addition of cacao nibs provides little crunchy notes for a fun change in texture. A product of the chocolate industry, cacao nibs are created when cocoa beans are roasted and de-shelled, then broken into pieces (source).
Chunky Monkey Smoothie
1 ripe banana
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup vanilla almond milk (your choice of sweetened or unsweetened)
2 tablespoons raw cacao nibs
Combine the first three ingredients in a blender and process until smooth, approximately 15 seconds. Add cacao nibs and blend another 5 seconds, so as not to crush all of the nibs. Enjoy!
megmeister
This sounds very yummy! Since I can’t eat bananas, do you have any suggestions for a replacement? Thinking about trying raspberries or strawberries. Have you used Chia Seeds in anything like this?
Hey Angela! No, I haven’t used Chia Seeds before but that may very well be good in this smoothie. I think it’s worth a shot! Also, your idea of raspberries or strawberries should be good. Anything that goes well with chocolate. Even cherries, or maybe blueberries? You could even add in some peanut butter. Yum!