Healthy Breakfasts

Fresh fruit is a great choice, it is tasty light and the fructose is a natural sugar, which is sweet enough to satisfy your craving for something sweet.

Fruit salad is a healthy dessert and a breakfast option when you are trying to control your weight. Orange, plums and mango make a delicious fruit salad and the juice from the fruit means that you do not have to add sugar syrup.

Many people add alcohol to a fruit salad, which is wasted calories, to add panache to fruit try a little freshly ground black pepper to strawberries that is an old Mediterranean trick to add taste and bring out the natural sweetness of the strawberries. Mango fresh peach or nectarines, and lime make a fantastic breakfast choice; just squeeze the juice of the lime over the fruit.

Smoothies are an inventive way to add fruit and fibre to your diet as well as tasting fantastic. For those of you that have never been introduced to smoothies, they are a rich, frothy fruit drink, rather like the Indian Lassi, but they do not have buttermilk added, though there is no reason why you cannot add buttermilk. There are many high tech machines made especially to make smoothies, but all you need is a blender and a little imagination. Blueberry and lemon, add a zing to the morning. Pile the fruit into a blender and serve over ice.

However, a smoothie should be creamy thick and rich not watery. You can waste many calories in a smoothie without adding any real taste. Avoid adding high fat ice creams, and cream. The best smoothies are made from pure fruit, though a good tip for adding smoothness is to freeze the fruit first, just pop them in the freezer, frozen bananas make a great satisfying smoothie base just pop the bananas in the freezer in their skin, take them out, peel them and you are on the way to a great smoothie.

You can also add tofu, low fat milk, almond milk, low fat Soya milk, fat free yoghurts, or fruit juices to the smoothies. Some smoothie combinations are listed below to get you started, these are my favourites, use your own family needs and preferences to create your own delicious and healthy smoothies.

Smoothie recipes

1. Strawberry and Almond Smoothie

Fresh almond milk is easy to make at home with either whole almonds or ground. Boil the almonds for three minutes and then rub the skins off and grind them in a coffee blender. The proportion of water to milk does vary with individual taste but most people find that three part water to one part almond is about right.

2. Banana, Tofu, Nutmeg and honey Smoothie topped with granola

Freeze the banana and tofu overnight, and then blend all the ingredients in the morning. Add honey to taste is required and then top the drink with granola.

3. Berries and frozen peach yoghurt

I use any berries to hand but my favourites are blueberries, raspberries add a little lemon or limejuice and fruit yoghurt.

Smoothies are not just for breakfast time, I love to pour them over fresh fruit for a dessert, if you are not that hungry they make a wonderful lunch. Once you have tasted them you will wonder how you survived without them.