• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • How to Garden
    • Garden Pests
    • Plant Diseases
    • Plant Profiles
    • Raised Bed Gardening
    • Seed Starting
    • Tools & Equipment
  • Vegetables
  • Fruit
  • Herbs
  • About
    • Books & Classes
      • Herbalism Classes
      • Books for Christian Herbalists
      • Privacy Policy

Tropical Smoothie Recipe – Anti-Inflammatory Booster

May 2, 2019 by Jeanne

This recipe for a tropical smoothie – what I call the “anti-inflammatory booster” – tastes great and provides a huge boost of inflammatory busting antioxidants, vitamins, and other substances. It is a vegan, nutritarian (“Eat to Live”) friendly recipe that uses tasty ingredients to make a healthy snack or breakfast.

What Is Inflammation?

I suffer from bouts of what I’ve dubbed “flare-ups” when my arthritis kicks into high gear and makes my life miserable. My doctor can’t figure out what causes them but I have found that using homeopathic remedies as well as focusing on dietary adjustments helps me enormously.

Inflammation is the body’s healing response. It’s what triggers special cells to rush to the site of a cut or scrape or to tackle an infection. When it’s needed for wound healing, it’s life-saving.

But when we suffer from chronic inflammation…it can cause pain and lead to illness. In my case, chronically inflamed tendons, due to some structural oddities in my feet and legs, gives rise to osteoarthritis in my knees, bone spurs, and hip and knee pain.

When these flare-ups occur, my body acts as if it’s undergoing an enormous inflammatory response. The better I take care of myself over time, the fewer these flare-ups I get, and the easier I find it to move, walk, garden, and just enjoy my life.

Enter the tropical smoothie…

Tropical Smoothie Recipe or Anti-Inflammatory Smoothie

This fruit smoothie recipe is loosely based on one that came to me via the Nutritarian Women’s Health Study. I am a participant in the health study, which tracks women of all ages following a nutritarian diet. The nutritarian diet is predominantly whole food, plant-based. It does not have to be 100% vegan or vegetarian, but we limit meats of all kinds, eliminate dairy, and drastically reduce unprocessed food consumption so that it is less than 10% of total calories.

This diet is based on the work of a physician who I greatly admire, Joel Fuhrman, M.D.  Dr. Fuhrman has spent a lifetime studying diet and health. He’s combed through thousands of research studies to determine what, in his opinion, is the optimal diet for health and longevity. For more information, read his book, Eat to Live. I have linked to it below via my Amazon Associate account. I’m an affiliate, so if you buy the book, I receive a small commission, which does not affect your price.

I used dollar store bags of frozen pineapple and “tropical blend” which is mango, papaya, pineapple, and banana. I diced up a fresh banana too. The flaxseeds I purchase are from Wal-Mart (no expensive fancy brands here!) which I grind up in a coffee bean grinder. It takes me less than five minutes to make this smoothie and it tastes fantastic.

Use a coffee bean grinder to grind fresh flaxseeds. Freshly ground flaxseeds contains more of the healthy oils you need to fight inflammation. 

Turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory herb, as is ginger. Flaxseed provides omega-3 fatty acids and other ingredients to reduce inflammation; pineapple contains bromelain, another chemical identified as an anti-inflammatory substance.

One word of caution: this smoothie turns out a sort of weak puke green color. Don’t be alarmed! It tastes wonderful!

Tropical Smoothie – Anti-Inflammatory Smoothie

Whip up this tasty tropical drink that includes healthy herbs, fruits, and vegetables to quench the fires of inflammation in your system.
Print Recipe
Prep Time 5 minutes mins
Total Time 5 minutes mins
Servings: 1 20 ounce
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 1 tablespoon whole flax seeds
  • 2 teaspoons Sugar optional
  • 1 ripe banana
  • 1 cup frozen pineapple
  • 1 cup frozen mango or tropical blend fruit
  • 1.5 cups unsweetened almond milk
  • 1.5 cups raw spinach
  • 1/8 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

Method
 

  1. Place whole flaxseeds in a coffee bean grinder and grind until powder. Add to blender.
  2. Add sugar and spinach to blender.
  3. Peel and cut the banana into slices and add to blender.
  4. Add spinach to blender and almond milk.
  5. Add frozne fruit. Cover. BLEND on smoothie setting for 1 minute.
  6. Pour and enjoy!

More Healthy Smoothie Recipes

  • Foodie Friday: Strawberry Breakfast Smoothie Recipe
  • Fresh Peach Smoothie Recipe
  • Super Easy Blueberry Smoothie Recipe

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Previous Post: « Perennial Garden Clean Up – Conquering the Weeds
Next Post: Wasp Nest with Tube – the Bald Faced Hornet Nest »

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Substack
  • YouTube

As Seen in Porch

 As Seen in Porch

We were featured in Porch.com and answered reader's questions about indoor plants.

Explore All Gardening Articles

Latest Articles

  • Three Easy Steps to Improve Garden Soil
  • Beginner’s Tips to Starting a Vegetable Garden
  • What to Plant in Early Spring: Vegetable Garden

Herbalism Classes & Supplies

Goods Shop by Herbal Academy – botanically inspired products

Disclosure

Home Garden Joy participates in two affiliate programs: Amazon and The Herbal Academy. Home Garden Joy earns a commission from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate. As an Herbal Academy Associate, HGJ also earns a commission when you sign up for classes or purchase herbs or supplies from The Herbal Academy. Herbal information and recipes on this site are provided for educational purposes only.

Footer

lettuce growing in a raised bed

What to Plant in Early Spring: Vegetable Garden

What to plant in early spring depends on your gardening zone, but there are many great choices for vegetable gardening that can make your backyard garden productive early in the season. Spring Vegetable Gardening With careful planning, the average backyard gardener in most gardening zones in the United States can grow fresh, organic vegetables throughout…

Read More

green beans on the plant

How to Grow Green Beans Organically

Beans – whether green beans, snap beans, heirloom beans, or any other kind of beans – are easy to grow organically. They need warm temperatures, full sunshine, and fertile soil to grow at their best. While there are insect pests that will eat the leaves of bean plants, they generally don’t harm the beans themselves,…

Read More

a red wheelbarrow filled with mulch with a shovel leaning against it

How to Adjust Soil pH for Vegetable Gardens

How to Test Soil pH If you slept through high school chemistry class, never fear. You can still learn the basics of soil pH for vegetables to ensure a great garden this year. pH refers to the scale of acid to alkaline, a scale developed in the early 20th century by chemists trying to describe…

Read More

polyphemus moth caterpillar

Meet a Polyphemus Moth Caterpillar

We were on our evening walk last night when this beauty crossed our path: a polyphemus moth caterpillar. What Is the Polymphemus Moth? The Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus) is a large and visually striking moth native to North America. It belongs to the Saturniidae family, which includes many of the giant silk moths. Its name…

Read More

  • Privacy Policy
  • About
  • Awards

Copyright © 2025 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme