How to Make SUPER Alcohol & Drug Recovery Smoothies

Matt Finch: You can be so creative, you can boost your health and addiction recovery, and mental health, and physical health, and energy, and mood, and focus. I am an avid smoothie maker and mixologist, and I love to share these types of frameworks and even recipes and examples with you. And I love to hear feedback that you've tried something and loved it.

Announcer: Thanks for tuning into the Elevation Recovery Podcast, your hub for addiction recovery strategies, hosted by Chris Scott and Matt Finch.

Matt Finch: Thanks so much for joining us today. This is episode 262. My name's Matt Finch, your host, joined by my sidekick Papaya the bird who has been flying around and being super loud and crazy this morning. So right now I got her to relax, sit on my shoulder, because I want some help from her to help me present this to you, which is a super smoothie customizable framework for addiction recovery, alcohol recovery, mental health, and even physical health, emotional health. Starting a day with your own customized super smoothie can help things like overcoming an addiction, staying away from addiction after you've detoxed, can help put you in a better mood, help to reduce sugar and unhealthy food cravings. It can help your health, gut health, liver health.

Matt Finch: Pretty much if you do one of these smoothies right and you drink it on a regular basis every morning or even a few mornings a week, this is one little life change if you're not already doing it that can radically alter your health. So without further ado, let's get into it. For anybody new, my name is Matt Finch, I'm a recovery coach and a former certified alcohol and drug counselor, that around seven years ago now decided to go into private practice recovery coaching so I could help inform people about things like holistic health, nutraceutical, super smoothies, tonic herbs and so much more. I was very restricted working as a certified substance abuse counselor at a traditional treatment program.

Matt Finch: There was only so much my scope of practice could do to help people, and so it was pretty fetal in my opinion. Getting into the ingredients of this super smoothie that's totally customizable, number one ingredient is the base liquid. That can be anything from water, such as spring water, alkaline water, filtered water, et cetera, or things like organic almond milk, coconut milk, oat milk, hemp milk, even things like organic cold pressed fruit juice, orange juice, apple juice, or really anything you want. This is no restrictions. It's supposed to be a health smoothie.

Matt Finch: So with that in mind, based on your preferences, food sensitivities, taste buds and all those things, you can use this episode to really either dial in your current smoothie health shake protocol, or to start a new one from scratch. So that's the base liquid. It can be anything that's a liquid, but since this is a recovery smoothie mixology, it should be something that's healthy or very healthy.

Matt Finch: Number two is protein powder. Protein is made from amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks that our brain uses to create neurotransmitters like dopamine, endorphin, enkephalin, dynorphin, GABA, serotonin, and more, thus when we increase a diet that has adequate protein for our needs, it helps to stabilize and balance our neurotransmitter systems and that is typically a very good thing for our behavior and for our mood as well.

Matt Finch: For protein powders, it could be anything from grass-fed raw whey protein powder, or grass-fed whey protein, or organic whey protein, or just regular whey protein powder. There are plenty of different good organic vegan plant only protein powders. There's egg protein powders, egg white protein powders, bone broth protein powders, collagen protein powders, and much more. So that's going to be number two ingredients. So again, the base liquid, water, some type of juice or milk, plant milk or something like that, really whatever you want. And then protein powder, depending on your needs, anywhere from 20 to 30 or even 40 grams of protein is often a really good place for the person.

Matt Finch: Number three ingredients is fats. So this is things like fat oils, things like organic virgin cold pressed olive oil. The type I use is a hundred percent sourced from grease. Virgin organic coconut oil, or just regular organic olive oil that's not cold pressed, or medium chain triglyceride oil also called MCT oil, et cetera. Could even be things like avocado is an ingredient, even though it's a chunky fruit with the seed, not technically in its oil position and it also has the other things in there that are not just the straight avocado fats. But this is just a customizable framework to give you lots of different options, lots of different benefits, and lots of different mixology tips. That way you can add this to your life like I said, or if you're already doing this, this is a great way to optimize it.

Matt Finch: Number four is superfoods. This is under the category of either powdered superfoods and or liquid superfoods. Organic is pretty much always best or wild caught depending on the type of superfood. And then finally five, fruits and or veggies. And we could put in and or nuts, seeds, and other organic whole foods. Again, organic is preferable. So then there we have the ingredients.

Matt Finch: If we go back, we got the base liquid, water, almond milk, cold pressed apple juice, something like that, eight to 12 or even 16 ounces. And I'm going to get deeper into what types of ingredients and quantities of ingredients in a later slide. Just to review though, then we got the protein powder, then fats, then superfood powders and liquids, then fruits and or veggies. So directions for super smoothies.

Matt Finch: Number one, add a liquid base to the blender, usually depending on the person is about eight to 12 ounces. That's where most people fall into the range. Otherwise, if you got like a 16 ounce liquid or more smoothie, it's either not going to be very thick or it's going to be really filling. One of the benefits of this smoothie is to actually get you a lot of macronutrient nutrition and super high micronutrient nutrition without getting you too full. And after we add the liquid based the blender, anywhere from eight to 12 or up to 16 ounces, two, add oils, powders, and liquid ingredients. So we're going from the total liquid base into all the different oils and powders and liquid superfoods, et cetera, that way it gets into the liquid base really, really good.

Matt Finch: And then finally, we're going to put the fruits and or veggies and or other organic cold foods on the very top. That just helps it all blend together easier. If you put in the fruits and veggies first, and then you put a bunch of powder on top of that, and then a bunch of oils on top of that, yeah, it's still going to probably blend good and everything, but this is just a more efficient way to do it, easier to blend, better blending, and also easier to clean up. That's just my experience at least.

Matt Finch: And then five, test thickness and taste. You might need to add in some of an ingredient, you might need to add a little bit of extra liquid to make it not so thick. And so that might be perfect or it might be good enough, but always do the thickness and taste test. Because we want these things to be desirable. We want to really be looking forward to their exact amount of thickness and consistency and even temperature and definitely taste for our unique needs. Because the more we look forward to drinking these regular morning shakes, the more likely it'll be that we'll stick with it.

Matt Finch: Liquid base ingredients. Let's go through all the different categories and give you some examples of what could be ingredients within these overarching categories, such as liquid base. We start off with as we've stated, water, almond milk, coconut milk, hemp milk, raw grass-fed milk, oat milk, cold pressed organic fruit juices. And there's so many different options as well. Typically, water or like organic almond milk or organic coconut milk, those are typically going to make some of the best ones if you're adding fruits and vegetables and superfood powders to it. Not always, but those are pretty tried and true tested, proven liquid bases.

Matt Finch: Moving into protein powders. Some of my favorite ones for addiction recovery and just health and wellness in general, and there's a big, huge variety here too based on your needs, your preferences, et cetera. Raw grass-fed whey protein powder, grass-fed whey protein powder, organic whey protein powder, organic bone broth protein powder, egg protein powder, grass-fed beef protein powder, vegan organic protein powders, things like pea protein, brown rice protein, hemp protein, and they got a bunch of different other ones like quinoa proteins, typically from grains and vegetables and even nuts and seeds, and then grass-fed collagen protein powder. This is a pretty comprehensive list, but I'm sure I left some things out here, but these are definitely the most common ones and even some of the less common ones.

Matt Finch: Moving into the fats category. Here are some really good examples; organic cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil, virgin organic coconut oil, medium chain triglyceride oil or MCT oil, Udo's blend oil, hemp oil, flax seed oil, and on and on. Now moving into the superfood powders/liquids category. Some of these are just superfood powders and or liquids, and some of them are actually brands that have a combination of several or even dozens of superfood powders in them. Starting off the first one, dragon herbs tonic alchemy, that has 91 different superfood powders from land and sea. This stuff is really expensive, I hardly ever use it due to the price and I have really good backup green powder thing.

Matt Finch: I need to just really focus on keeping the tonic alchemy on hand though, even if I just use a third of a scoop or a half scoop. Because even though it's that expensive, it's very expensive. A serving size is pretty big, I think it's either seven or nine grams of powder. Like I said, 91 different nutrient, everything from Chinese tonic herbs, to probiotics, to seaweeds, to antioxidant fruits and vegetables, superfoods, it seems like it has everything in there. Another one I learned about from my cohost, Chris Scott is called cocotropic. That's a blend of raw cacao powder, as well as mushrooms, really healthy mushrooms superfood powders.

Matt Finch: And then we have things that are no particular brand or product, but just single superfood powders. You might have heard of some of these before, matcha powder, maca powder, mucuna powder. Those are all really good for energy and mood. Beetroot juice powder is a nitric oxide booster. That's also great for energy. Cacao powder is great for energy, mood, bliss, even euphoria. Hawaiian Spirulina is a super good health tonic, fish oil, really good omega threes, CBD oil, tried and true for alcohol and also drug addiction recovery and anxiety, and even pain relief and sleep. Hawaiian Noni juice or Noni juice extract, that's a really good one to boost nitric oxide as well.

Matt Finch: And then tonic herb. So those are Chinese adaptogen herbs, adaptogen's just another word for tonic herbs. I like the word tonic better. Some type of mushroom blend, like I use MicroForce by HealthForce. Chris uses cocotropic. Kyani Sunrise, that's a brand and that's a product with I think 20 different superfood, mostly super fruits liquid in there.

Matt Finch: Nutritional yeast, a really great vegan protein/B vitamins and more benefits. Apple cider vinegar, pine pollen powder, earth broth, that's from the brand HealthForce as well, and warrior food, that's a vegan protein powder, superfood which is kind of low on protein. But I use that more as a superfood powder than my main protein powder, but some people use it as their main protein powder.

Matt Finch: And now let's go into whole foods, specifically fruits and vegetables, but certainly people can add nuts, seeds, anything else like that. Any foods, organic berries, banana, these should be like organic when at all possible, preferably most of the time at least, but I know they're hard to come by in some areas. And some fruits and vegetables actually are more important to get organic than our others. For example, like look at avocado, that's got this huge skin protecting over the meat of the fruit, but look at berries, like blueberry, strawberries, those poor little things have no barrier protecting them from all the nasty commercially used stuff to kill off the bugs.

Matt Finch: And you got these herbicides, fungicides pesticides, these are all poisons that... Berries when they get sprayed by these poisons, they're like this, "Oh no, please help us." They have no protection, they're just getting slime. So what you can do is google what foods should for sure be organic. And then from that, then you know when you're going to the store, at least which ones are most optimum to get organic and which ones it either doesn't matter or it doesn't matter nearly as much.

Matt Finch: All right, let me get off that tangent. Where was I here? Yeah, apple, mango, pineapple, plum, avocado, wild blueberries. These could all be organic or some of them wild, they could be fresh or frozen, medjouls, dates, kale, spinach, Swiss chard, rock horn shaved off the carb, lemon, lime, lemon and lime peel, watermelon, canola, honeydew melon. I might have some of the spelling wrong on these, I'm not a great speller. Chia seeds, flax seeds, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, dot dot dot dot dot dot dot. I do have a spell check program on here Grammarly, but sometimes there's just so many different misspellings that I just kind of it's okay if some of them are misspelled.

Matt Finch: This isn't like an online course or a book, this is educational video. All I'm trying to do is not look like a complete loser when it comes to spelling and then give you the good information that you're looking for that you can use. And as long as you know the word I'm talking about, then I'm sure if you know the right spelling, then someone could tell me in the comments. All right, examples. Here is something called morning bliss. It's a hybrid of something that Chris Scott taught me many years ago and then some kind of additions and subtraction as well that I made to customize it for me.

Matt Finch: So here's an example using this outline. Eight to 12 ounces of H2O, this is the morning bliss recipe, or almond milk or another liquid base. Frozen wild blueberries, one handful, organic banana, small one. One teaspoon of each of the following superfood powders, organic matcha powder, organic maca powder, organic mucuna, I spelled that wrong. I know how to spell that one too, supposed to be organic mucuna powder, not mucuna powder. That's going to be my new nickname from a mucuna, mucuna powder. Beat root juice powder, blend for 30 to 60 seconds, consume. So that's a really healthy one, really delicious as well, and extremely healthy.

Matt Finch: I just realized that there's no protein powder on this. There should be a protein powder on this one. Any protein powder, whey protein goes really good with this one as does a vanilla flavored plant protein powder, or no flavor whey or vanilla flavored whey or no flavored or vanilla flavored plant protein are my two preferred ones for this morning bliss, maybe even little bit of collagen protein in there too. Man, I feel like [inaudible 00:16:56] for forgetting the protein powder in there.

Matt Finch: Gosh, I forgot the fat in there too, that should also have extra virgin cold pressed organic olive oil in there. So I got the superfoods and the whole foods in the base, but I forgot the fat and I forgot the protein powder. Not when I make the smoothie or drink it, but when I created this slide. Sorry about that. Here's my current shake. This could be a really healthy one for somebody that is trying to overcome a substance use disorder. This is actually could be really good for almost anybody depending on their biochemistry and needs, but check out the macronutrient and micronutrient power in this example.

Matt Finch: My current shake, I don't have a name for it. Eight to 12 ounces of alkaline water, or spring water if I don't have alkaline. One tablespoon brags, cold pressed extra virgin organic olive oil, a hundred percent sourced from grease, around 30 grams of grass-fed whey protein powder, vanilla flavored, 10 grams of Bulletproof grass-fed collagen powder, one tea spoon, Hawaiian Spirulina powder, one teaspoon MicroForce powder that's a potent mushroom, powder extract blend by HealthForce. One teaspoon earth broth, that's also by HealthForce, one teaspoon vitamin and roll green also by HealthForce. I love HealthForce and I don't make any money to say how much I love them, but I spend a lot of money because I love their stuff so much.

Matt Finch: One teaspoon organic beetroot juice powder, one teaspoon maca root powder, one teaspoon organic matcha powder. Let's see, one teaspoon wild Alaskan fish oil, liquid, 20 drops of liquid vitamin D3, one gram of L-citrulline powder, and one gram of MSM powder. So as you can see, really, really heavy duty on plenty of good protein, plenty of healthy fats, and plenty of good superfood powders and liquids. Most of them whole food. Most of these things, the liquid D3 is not from a whole food, and or neither is the citrulline, or the MSM powder, but everything else, Hawaiian Spirulina, vitamin green, organic beetroot juice powder, earth broth powder, that's all food right there. That's all super doper superfood powders and liquids.

Matt Finch: And then finally I put a small banana in and I put either one berry or a blend of berries, or I put strawberry, or I put strawberry mango, or I experiment with different things. But typically I'll put wild frozen blueberries in there and a banana, organic banana usually, or I'll do banana mango straw strawberry, or I'll do strawberry mango banana, or I'll do strawberry banana. I really like the banana in there, and I usually only do a small little banana because otherwise it's too sweet for me. But I'm putting bananas in lots of these examples, but you certainly don't need a banana to make a super shake. Not at all. You don't even technically need any fruits or vegetables in there.

Matt Finch: As well you could really just do some good fat, water, and protein powder and maybe that would be enough. That's healthier than most people's breakfast. Just for example, some raw grass fed whey protein powder with eight ounces of water, two or three scoops of the protein powder with eight ounces of water and maybe some Bulletproof brain octane oil, like a teaspoon of that. That's probably better and healthier than most people's breakfast.

Matt Finch: All right now, moving on. Recovery smoothie mixology and five steps. Number one, liquid base, number two, protein powder, number three, healthy fats, number four, superfood powders and or liquids, number five, organic fruits and or veggies, et cetera. Using that five step framework as well as having a blender, you can be so creative, you can boost your health and addiction recovery, and mental health, and physical health, and energy, and mood, and focus. I am an avid smoothie maker and mixologist, and I love to share these types of frameworks and even recipes and examples with you. And I love to hear feedback that you've tried something and loved it and got value of it. So with that being said, thanks so much as always for listening. We love you guys so much, and have a great day.