Cold and Flu Busting
Coconut and Orange Smoothie
It’s that time of year when all the cold and flu bugs are circulating. This cold and flu busting coconut and orange smoothie will stop your cold or flu in it’s tracks in no time.
Since I became a vegan and started drinking smoothies every day 3 years ago, I’ve only had 2 flu type bugs. Both of those bugs surfaced when I was suffering from extreme baby related sleep deprivation. I used to get one cold after another all the way through each winter and spent a lot of my childhood in bed with the flu so I’m still amazed that a change in my diet can have such a positive impact on my health.
If you drink smoothies like this one every day, you’ll do wonders for your immune system. If you already have a cold or the flu, this smoothie contains ingredients that will reduce the length of your cold, plus give you an easy to digest energy source that you will find easy to stomach.
Coconut and Orange Smoothie Flu busting ingredients
This smoothie contains the following ingredients that have shown to be beneficial for colds and flu:
- Oranges: If you have been exposed to a lot of stress lately, it has been shown that an increase of vitamin C can reduce your likelihood of coming down with a cold or flu by up to half.
- Clementines: Just one clementine contains half the amount of Vitamin C required daily. One serving of this recipe contains 3 clementines.
- Coconut: Bruce Fife says in his convincing book that he always prescribes coconut oil for reducing the length of a cold or flu and he has seen some amazing results. Bruce Fife recommends that you take 4 tablespoons of coconut oil a day while you’ve got a cold. I now buy my coconut oil in bulk as it’s half the price of buying it locally.
- Ginger: Ginger has been used for thousands of years for the treatment of colds and flu. You can either add it to your smoothies or steep it in boiling water throughout the day.
- Lemons: Lemons can reduce the severity of your cold and flu symptoms as well as being great for treating congestion and sore throats. Whenever my husband starts to get a sore throat, I make him a hot honey and lemon tea with ginger and he always feels immediate relief.
- Chia Seeds: Chia seeds are a great addition to your drinks when you are feeling run down as they help to hydrate you which is what you need when you’re feeling run down. They also help you feel energised all day and keep your blood sugars stable. I can’t yet find chia seeds locally so I have to buy them online.
- Echinacea: Echinacea can halve your risk of catching a cold and reduce the severity of the symptoms once you’ve got your cold. You can find a great source of echinacea here that can easily be added to your smoothies.
- Honey/ Sweetener: If you are willing to eat honey it would be worth adding some honey to your smoothie to sweeten it up and also provide some amazing healing benefits. I would recommend you use a raw manuka honey as they can be especially good for many aspects of your health and healing. If you don’t use honey, you can use your favourite healthy sweetener instead to give you an energy boost.
What is your favourite natural remedy for colds and flu?
This cold and flu busting coconut and orange smoothie will melt away your cold in no time. It will also give you sustained natural energy to keep you going all day,
Ingredients
- FRUIT SMOOTHIE INGREDIENTS
- 1 Cup Orange Juice
- 1 and a half Cups Coconut Milk (or one can)
- 6 Clementines (3 cups)
- 2 teaspoons of Ginger (raw root ginger, or dried)
- Juice of 2 Lemons
- OPTIONAL
- 2 Tablespoons Chia Seeds
- 4 Tablespoons of Raw Manuka Honey (or any healthy sweetener to taste)
- 20 drops of Echinacea
- 4 Tablespoons of melted Coconut Oil
- TO MAKE INTO A GREEN SMOOTHIE Add:
- 1 Cup Spinach, tightly packed or 2 cups loosely packed. (Or any other mild greens)
- TO MAKE INTO A FRUIT THICKIE Add:
- 1 Cup Oats Or one cup of Quinoa
- TO MAKE INTO A GREEN THICKIE Add:
- 1 Cup Spinach, tightly packed or 2 cups loosely packed. (Or any other mild greens)
- 1 Cup Oats Or one cup of Quinoa
Instructions
- Blend the ingredients in the order listed. If you are making a green smoothie blend the greens and liquid first and then blend the rest of the ingredients. This creates more space in your blender. Add more water if required to thin it out. Substitute any of the ingredients for whatever you already have. If your smoothie is too warm, you can cool it down in the fridge or freeze some of your ingredients before blending. It is better to add frozen ingredients at the end to cool the smoothie down.
- NOTE: The calories shown are for half of the fruit smoothie ingredients listed as this smoothie serves 2.
Notes
If you are new to Green Thickies and have more questions about making the perfect green thickie, please read this guide on How to make a Green Thickie . Or read this guide on How to make a smoothie perfect every time.
Suitable for Special Diets: Gluten free (Use GF Oats or Quinoa), raw (Use raw oats/quinoa), vegetarian, vegan, dairy free, egg free, sugar free, wheat free, soya free (don’t use soya milk), salt free, nut free (replace nuts with any plain seeds)* If you want to check if you can drink green thickies on your special diet please read this first. This will suggest some substitutions so you can still enjoy Green Thickies with ingredients you can tolerate.
This has been shared with Full Plate Thursday, Simple Lives Thursday, Your Green Resource, Frugal Food Thursday, Thank your body Thursday, Foodie Friday, Gluten Free Friday, Wellness Weekends, Fight Back Friday, Freaky Friday, Fresh Bites Friday, Fill those jars friday, Simple Meals Friday, Healthy Vegan Fridays, Simple Whole Foods, Pennywise Platter
This post has been shared with these Fabulous blog hops.
Green Thickies also co-hosts a blog hop, Healthy Vegan Fridays so join us on Friday to find fabulous health related articles and healthy recipes..
The best type of blender to make Green Thickies is a Vitamix and you will get beautifully smooth Green Thickies, but you can use whatever type of blender you have or can afford. This blender
is reasonably priced and will easily make green thickies along with lots of other delicious food.
Comments always put a smile on my face, so please take a minute to say hello below. Many thanks.
If you have enjoyed this post please pin it to Pinterest, Tweet it or share it on facebook (below) so others can enjoy it. Many thanks.
Hi, I'm Katherine, thanks for stopping by. I healed myself of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and lost 56 pounds. I now have loads of energy for my baby girl and enjoy walks on the beach with my family. I am passionate about helping you improve your health and reach your ideal weight. I invented Green Thickies to provide a complete meal drink for busy people who care about their health.
This smoothie looks so good. Thank you for sharing it. I found your page from the Hey what’s fro dinner mom? link party. I am glad I did.
Thank you. It is a gorgeous smoothie, hard to believe it’s so good for you!
Hi Katherine, I’m Anne from Life on the Funny Farm (http://annesfunnyfarm.blogspot.com), and I’m visiting from Natural Living Mondays.
I haven’t really gotten into the “healthfood smoothie” thing yet, but if I’m going to start, this would be the one. My kids (and I) love oranges AND coconut, so this would be perfect.
Anyway, thanks for posting this. If you’ve never visited yet, I hope you can pop by my blog sometime to say hi…
I mainly drink smoothies as they save so much time with kids. If I had my way though I’d sit down to a long relaxing breakfast. Ah well maybe later in life! I’d love to pop over and say hi. Heading off to your blog now. Thanks for visiting.
Great information. I read a lot about natural remedies and on my blog, since I’m a nurse, I write an article on Wednesdays about natural remedies. I am going to feature this article. Thank you for the info.
We have met by chance…but we become friends by choice.
http://simpleesue.com/honduras-missions-making-bread-in-a-mud-oven
Your blog sounds great. I’m heading over there now to have a look. Thank you so much for featuring my article. I’m so glad you can get some use out of it.
This looks delicious… do I have to have a cold to make it? ;-) I’d love for you to share this at Tuesday’s Table for the Holidays – http://zentmrs.blogspot.com/2012/12/tuesdays-table-countdown-to-christmas.html!
Ha ha, no just drinking this will really help you to prevent a cold! Thank you I’d love to share this on Tuesdays Table.
I just pinned this to keep on hand for the winter. Thanks for the helpful information and tasty idea.
Thank you. I’m glad you liked it!
This looks really good! I have never tried coconut milk or oil. Maybe I’ll make some room in the budget for it. I was just telling my husband, I have never been so sick in my life as I’ve been lately and I’m desperate to do something about it. Pinning this so I remember!
If you like the taste of coconut oil I’m sure you’ll love coconut milk and oil. Coconut milk is cheaper as coconut oil is quite expensive. I use so much now that I buy it in bulk which really helps. I think the cheapest way to eat coconut is to buy dried coconut. From that you can make coconut milk by blending it with water and straining it, or coconut butter (which is quite like coconut oil but nicer) by food processing it until creamy. Brown coconuts are also cheap where I live.
Wow, I never knew you could make it at home. I happened to see some coconut water and milk on sale at the store this weekend and grabbed some. Later today I plan on trying this smoothie. And I am sick again/still so I’m hoping it will give me a boost!
Is the nutritional information for one serving of the “plain” smoothie or is it for the green thickie?
Just for one serving of the plain smoothie yes. If you want to add the calories for the oats for one serving add about 150 calories.
My whole family totally needs this right now! My husband brought home a bad flu, and me and my two girls caught it, so we need a little immune boost! :-)
Yes this time of year is horrible for bugs isn’t it. I really hope this smoothie helps your family.
This sounds like your best yet! I would never think to add coconut oil to a smoothie, but that sounds genius! I will definitely try that, and this recipe in general! I always add quinoa to my smoothies now, thanks to you :) Thank for sharing at Meatless Monday!
Thank you. It was one of my favourite smoothies. It is much easier to eat coconut oil in a smoothie than straight out of the jar and so good for you. That’s great you are still adding quinoa. Quinoa is much more expensive where I live otherwise I’d add it all the time too.
This sounds like a really great smoothie! Thanks for linking up with me for Friday Favorites. I’m featuring you next week!
Thank you so much for featuring me!
This looks so yummy! This would be a great post to share at our Meal Plan Monday link-up at http://www.modernalternativekitchen.com! Hope to see you there tomorrow!
Thank you! I’ll head over there now.
This sounds like it would really recharge you! YUM! Thanks for linking up at our Gluten Free Fridays party! I have tweeted and pinned your entry to our Gluten Free Fridays board on Pinterest! :)
I hope to see you again this week!
Stop by this week to see if you were the winner of the Sugar and Spice Prize pack! We had a super great variety of recipes and entries this week!
Cindy from vegetarianmamma.com
Thank you. Yes it gives you so much energy and tastes amazing.
Hi Katherine,
I think I might need this awesome smoothie today. Hope you have a great week and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen
I am not sick, but I’ve been so tired today and this sounds like the perfect pick-me-up!
Yes it’s a good energy boosting smoothie too. Thank you!
YUM love the flavours in this one! I have been getting lots of oranges from my new produce delivery service so this is perfect :)
Yes it’s one of my favourite smoothies. That’s great you’ve got a produce delivery service. I’ve recently gone back to mine too. It makes life so much easier but I find a lot of my fruit and veg isn’t the quality I would have chosen myself with it.
Such a good idea to put ginger in a smoothie! I’m going to try this when I make a smoothie next. :)
Ginger is lovely in smoothies. Most of my favourite smoothies have ginger in them. Let me know how it goes!
Excellent ingredients, Katherine! Love that you are sharing these great smoothies and thickies at Deep Roots on Wednesday!
This is indeed delicious! Thanks for bringing it to Tuesday’s Table – hope you come back next week!
thank you for sharing with us at the wednesday fresh foods link up! i’m looking forward to seeing what seasonal & real/whole food posts you have this week. hope to see you there! xo, kristy
This recipe was AMAZING! I got incredibly sick last week and this totally saved me – I just HAD to include it in my Links You’ll Love round up this week. Keep up the great work!
http://moicontrelavie.com/2012/12/23/links-youll-love-58/
That’s great Caity, I’m so glad this smoothie helped you so much! Thank you for sharing that and hope you recovered in time to have a great Christmas!
If you are using coconut oil instead of coconut milk, do you still use 1 1/2 cups? Also, can you clarify the type of coconut milk you are using. Is it the one like soy milk but coconut our the coconut milk from the can? Thanks a bunch…I have the flu right now and running a fever of 101 and need help.
No, don’t use coconut oil instead of coconut milk, use it as well as. For this recipe I used coconut milk from a can as it’s more creamy (but I’m working on some homemade recipes). Sorry to hear you’ve got the flu. I really hope this smoothie helps you and you recover soon!
Gotcha, thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I bought a large tub of coconut oil from Costco the other day and wanted to see what your thoughts are on how and when to use it. Thank you.
As I’ve said before, there are no words about how much I love this site! There isn’t much that I haven’t tried! Peanut and almond with banana and cocoa is my favourite.
I do have one question about this smoothie.. The orange/coconut smoothie… The mixture is separating alot, even before I put the oil in… What am I doing wrong? This ones not for saving for later on in the day is it?
Cheers
Kim :)
Aww thank you, that’s so kind of you! Peanut and almond with banana and cocoa sounds amazing. I’ll have to give that a try with carob!
That’s a shame your smoothie is separating. I didn’t have that problem and did store mine in the fridge for about 24 hours too. Are you following the ingredients list exactly or making some substitutions? Do you include the oats? I’ve never had any of my thickies separate before but might possibly be a climate thing, coconut can react differently depending on the temperature, not sure if it’s that?
I want to to thank you for this wonderful read!! I absolutely loved
every little bit of it. I have got you bookmarked to look at new stuff you post…