Smoothies: Healthy Shakes & Blends (Healthy Cooking Series)

Inspired by my married daughter and teenage son, I burst on to the smoothie scene. The 1-Sale-A-Day special on the Cuisinart CPB-300 SmartPower 15-Piece Compact Portable Blending/Chopping System, which comes with 4 BPA-free travel cups in which you can make your smoothie, sealed my fate. I raided the Baltimore County Public Library of any books relating to smoothies and took out the following eight books, which I plan to review for you:* The complete idiot's guide to smoothies* Good housekeeping blend it! : 150 sensational recipes to make in your blender.* Juicing & smoothies for dummies* Smoothies : healthy shakes & blends* Smoothies, smoothies & more smoothies!* Superfood smoothies : 100 delicious, energizing & nutrient-dense recipes* Green smoothie joy : recipes for living, loving, and juicing green* The healthy green drink diet : advice and recipes for happy juicingThis book is just published, but has a very dated feel - as if it were something from the 1970s.The subtitle of the book is "Healthy Shakes & Blends", but this is not a really accurate description. There are six sections: dairy smoothies, with milk and/or yoghurt; dairy-free smoothies, in which she uses non-dairy milk and/or yoghurt; milk shakes; frappes; decadent drinks; and mocktails (non-alcoholic versions of alcoholic drinks). Frankly, most of the recipes do not fall into the "healthy" category. This is how I would imagine a smoothie book from the 1970s to approach the topic, but not a smoothie book from 2013.The good:* Attractive book. Layout is three recipes vertically with a small related photo over the middle recipe, with a full color photo of one of the recipes opposite.* Simple recipes.* Recognizable ingredients (no surprise unusual ingredients)!* Helpful sections on select fruits, their preparation, and storage.The not-so-good:* No nutritional info.* No discussion of nutrition.* No smoothie theory, so it would be hard to develop your own smoothie.* Some recipes do not have frozen fruit, or ice, or frozen yoghurt, etc. Smoothies needs something iced or frozen in this (according to conventional smoothie theory). So where's the ice??* Recipes not so healthful (as discussed above). Of course, there is no way that a section titled "Decadent Drinks" is going to be loaded with spinach and avocado. I can't bear to think of the number of calories in the various milk shakes and decadent shakes (e.g., Tiramisu Shake, Blueberry Cheesecake Shake, Black Forest Shake...) From a taste perspective, you can't really go wrong if you shove large mounds of ice cream into a recipe!If you just want straightforward smoothie and shake recipes - and don't care about health or calories - this book might work very well for you. If the approach had been smoothies for all occasional and who cares about health, it would probably rate 4 to 4.5 stars.If you are coming at smoothies from a health perspective, then this book is a disaster. "Healthy Shakes & Blends" - NOT. The absence of nutritional info and the general thumbing the nose at healthful eating, especially with that subtitle, brings the book down to 3 stars.

Great price, fantastic quality, recommend to anyone

Good