What do you need on hot summer days? Moisture and vitamins. Calories are optional as your body needs to work less to keep temperature. So why not starting the day with a smoothie? And how about seasonal ingredients? All the main ingredients for this healthy green summer smoothie are readily available at the end of the summer: melon, apples and grapes amongst others.

How to make this healthy green summer smoothie?

With a good blender, smoothies are of course very easy to make. You just have to prepare the ingredients and then mix everything in the blender. And ready you are. But there are still a few details that you should pay attention to. As they make a real difference. So that's why we're going through all the steps here.

the preparations

As always, we start with preparing our ingredients. A little bit of cutting is still involved. But because everything goes into the blender anyway, we don't have to invest hours to finely chop fruit and vegetables.

The melon

It is best to take a well-ripe melon. Ripe melons are juicier and sweeter in taste. And this smoothie needs that. You can use different types for this healthy green summer smoothie. I usually use a honeydew melon. But you can also take a Galia melon. We only want to use the flesh of the melon. So we remove seeds and peel. Then we cut the pulp into medium-sized pieces that fit well in the blender.

The grapes

We remove the grapes from the twigs. Then we wash them off. Also check if you have seedless grapes. The seeds are bitter and that does not benefit the taste of the smoothie. Today, however, most grapes sold for consumption are seedless. So that's already a good thing. Otherwise, it is best to remove also the seeds for optimal taste.

The cucumber

Just like the grapes, we rinse the cucumber well under cold water. Normally we need about a third of that cucumber. The rest can be put back in the fridge with cling film. We cut the part that is intended for the smoothie into medium-sized pieces.

The spring onions

We also add some spring onions to this smoothie. This as a counterweight to the much sweeter apples, melon and grapes. And the green part of the stems also contributes to the green color of our healthy summer smoothie. Of course we don't need the roots. So they go off. Furthermore, we also remove harder or unsavory parts. So that we only have the fresh white and green stems left. We cut them into pieces of two to three centimeters.

The apples

Finally, we peel the apples and remove the cores. Then we also cut those into medium sized pieces. I used golden delicious here, one of my favorite apple varieties. We cut the apples last, because they turn brown quickly if they have to lie too long. So they have to be transferred to the blender as soon as possible.

Blending the healthy green summer smoothie

Now everything has to go in the blender. But the order plays an important role! A classic rookie mistake is to throw everything in the blender and then turn it on. And then seeing the blending is not happening at all. As all pieces block each other... Annoying, because then you have to take everything out and start again. I also always unplug the power cord when manipulating the blender. Safety first!

So the order plays an important role. It will also not be possible to put everything at once in the blender. So where do we start?

We need to make sure we have liquid at the bottom quickly, which then drags the rest of the ingredients into the process. So we start with the lemon juice and the grapes. Supplemented with already a few pieces of melon and cucumber. We mix them first.

Then we add some more melon, the scallions and cucumber. And again we blend it to a smoothie. We repeat this also with the apples until all the ingredients are blended.

At room temperature our smoothie will taste a bit soggy. So we need to place it in the fridge for a few hours to cool down. Then stir your smoothie well before serving and enjoy it!

Can I replace some fruit with fruit juice?

You can also replace the grapes and apples with fruit juice. That saves some prep work. But there are also some drawbacks to it. We'll elaborate on that a little further here.

This smoothie is very thick. Replacing some of the fruits with fruit juice will make it more fluid. This is because the fruit juice contains less fiber. And that is exactly the disadvantage that you need to be aware of.

The fibers fill our stomach, so our body will give a signal that we have enough. That signal does not come or will come later if we use fruit juice. So we keep drinking of it. But of course all those fruits also contain a lot of sugar. And although they are natural sugars, our body has to process them all. So the risk it that we consume more sugar than is actually healthy.

But if we consume more, we also take in more vitamins. Isn't that a good thing? Well, also for vitamins, there are limits to what our body can absorb. The rest then leaves us through the normal channels. So this doesn't help our body either.

Finally, the fibers are good for the bowel movements. And it is really important that we get enough fibers for that.

So, it is certainly not forbidden to replace some of the fruits with fruit juice. And for sure there are much more unhealthy choices you can make with regards to eating and drinking. But keep in mind that this is a second best solution. Some of the benefits are lost, and you may even end up with a false sense of health.