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Raw Vegan Cilantro Blueberry Detox Smoothie
Contents » Recipe : Tips : Substitutions : Variations : Inspiration : Resources
In our house, this cilantro blueberry detox smoothie is referred to as our “brain cleansing” smoothie.
It’s packed with fresh cilantro (or coriander to us Aussies), and wild blueberries, with a dash of spirulina powder for good measure.
These are some of the tops foods recommended by Medical Medium as being good for cleaning heavy metals out of the mid-brain.
The banana and orange make the smoothie sweet and creamy, and also help to pull together the flavours so that the cilantro and spirulina flavours are not too overpowering.
If you’ve read Medical Medium before, you might notice that I haven’t included the recommended barley grass juice extract powder or Atlantic dulse in this recipe, and that’s because:
A) I didn’t have any on hand when I created this recipe, and
B) I wanted to make sure that I created something that my 16-year-old son would be happy to drink.
Despite his adventurous taste buds, I’m not sure that “seaweed flavour” would go down too well!
I actually make enough of this each day for three of us to drink a 300ml glass each, and the only reason I don’t do 4 glasses’ worth is because my daughter is 10.
Enough said.
But if you want to start cleaning out your brain and getting it working even better than ever before, then here’s a great smoothie that combines some awesome detoxifying ingredients, while also tasting pretty amazing!
I look forward to my “brain cleaning” smoothie every day, and so do my husband and son.
And Paul (my husband) even said that when he started drinking this, he could feel his brain sharpening up and working better.
In the first few days of drinking this, my son and I also noticed specific parts of our brains reacting to the smoothie about half an hour after drinking it, so I’m confident that it’s having an effect.
And it doesn’t hurt that it taste pretty amazing as well.
Cilantro Blueberry Detox Smoothie recipe
Make sure to read the tips below the recipe to get the most out of this brain cleaning cilantro blueberry smoothie recipe.
Cilantro Blueberry Detox Smoothie
If you want to clean out your brain and getting it working even better, here's a raw vegan cilantro blueberry detox smoothie that tastes pretty amazing!
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Makes: 900 ml
Calories per serve: 113kcal
Ingredients
- 2 med bananas , peeled (300g) or 3 small bananas
- 1 small orange , peeled (130g) or half a large orange
- 1 cup wild blueberries , frozen (140g)
- 1 tsp spirulina (5ml)
- 1/2 bunch fresh coriander / cilantro , rinsed (30g)
- 2 cubes ice (50g)
- 1 cup water (250ml)
Method
- Add all of the ingredients to a blender jug in the order listed
- Blend smoothie ingredients until there are no lumps or different coloured parts of the smoothie left (make sure it stays cold).
- Pour the detox smoothie into glasses and drink immediately.
Preparation
- Before: -
- During: 7 mins
- After: -
- Need: High speed blender, glasses, reusable straws (optional)
Nutrition Information
Serving: 300g; Calories: 113kcal; Carbohydrates: 28g; Protein: 2g; Fat: 0.4g; Saturated Fat: 0.1g; Sodium: 16mg; Potassium: 365mg; Fiber: 4.2g; Sugar: 16.8g; Calcium: 22mg; Iron: 1mg
Tips for this smoothie recipe
- As with most of my recipes, this detox smoothie recipe is very forgiving. If you don’t have exact ingredients, it’s OK to change quantities or substitute things. Just get as many of these great brain cleaning ingredients in there as you can, in as wholefood a form as possible.
- I like to use reasonably ripe bananas for my smoothies generally, as it just makes for a nicer texture and a better, sweeter flavour. You can use less ripe bananas, but if they get too green, you’ll end up with a smoothie that’s furry on the tongue and may even set like pudding in the glass.
- Bananas are simply not a standard size, so I’ve made this cilantro blueberry detox smoothie with anything from four tiny bananas up to two huge ones, so don’t worry too much about the size of your bananas. Just aim for 250g to 350g of banana, and you’ll be fine.
- I break my bananas in half before adding them to the blender jug, just to help them break up faster.
- I started out making this recipe with half a large orange, because that’s all I had on hand. And now, I only have small oranges, so I’m using a whole one. Again, because oranges don’t come in standard sizes, don’t worry too much about how much orange flesh you’re adding to the smoothie. Just aim for 100g to 150g and you’ll be fine.
- The orange helps to balance out the flavour of the cilantro, so you can adjust the amount of orange if you find the cilantro flavour still too much.
- When you’re cutting the peel off your oranges, don’t worry about cutting off the pith. Orange pith is actually quite good for you, so just cut a think layer off to remove most of the hard orange peel and leave the rest.
- I like to cut my oranges into half (at a minimum) because I’ve had lots of experiences where a whole orange gets stuck over the blender blade and just doesn’t break up properly. So cut your oranges into chunks, OK?
- I wasn’t aware of wild blueberries as a thing until I read Medical Medium but then I found them easily at my local health food store, in more than one brand. I haven’t spent the effort to confirm that my wild blueberries are from Maine, as he recommends in the book, but I figure wild blueberries is a big step in the right direction.
- I’ve been adding just under a cup (133g) of wild blueberries to my smoothies, because it divides beautifully into 500g and 1kg, which are the size of the bags I’ve been getting. And of course a “cup” of round thingies is kind of hard to measure, which is why I actually weigh everything (that and I just can’t be unscientific about these things). So again an approximate amount is fine.
- I’ve noticed quite a few “flecks” in my cilantro blueberry detox smoothie, and I think they come from the blueberries. So don’t fret if you see these small red-purple-blue bits in your drank. It’s cool.
- I’ve been “eating” spirulina in my breakfast smoothie for years (along with a bunch of other green powders), and I love finding ways to have more of it. I always buy organic spirulina, and cheapest is not always best when it comes to these concentrated green powders. Make sure you’re getting a good quality one for maximum effect.
- I’ve been using half a bunch of cilantro for this smoothie for a while because that seemed to be a good amount based on the bunches I was getting from my organic greengrocer at the time. More recently the bunches seem to have been getting smaller, so I’ve been using closer to 3/4 of a bunch. Just add as much as you can without it becoming overpowering.
- The bunches of cilantro I get always seem to be covered in dirt. I always chop off the roots, but then the stems and even the leaves can still be quite dirty. The other day I found an entire lump of soil in my bunch! So make sure you get as much dirt out as you can, either by rinsing the cilantro, chopping off more of the stems, or sorting through the stems and shaking off the dirt.
- I add ice to my smoothie recipes to make sure that they stay cold while the blender does its work. Being a high-speed blender, it does warm things up through friction from the blades against the ingredients, and the ice keeps everything cool while it blends to a smooth enough consistency.
- The cup of water makes a moderately thick, but still drinkable through a straw, smoothie. I’m trying to pack as much of the good stuff into one glass as possible, so it does end up being quite thick, which I like.
- The only reason this recipe makes three serves was that I simply couldn’t make a smaller one with the ingredients I had without it getting kind of silly (1/4 of a large orange? Uh, no.) and as an added bonus it means that three of us get to drink it every day. Feel free to adjust the recipe size to suit your needs.
- You won’t get as much of the detox ingredients as you might want to from one serve, so feel free to drink the whole thing yourself. There’s no added oils, so it’s low in fat and calories, and is also quite high in fibre. And all that fresh fruit is great for you too!
- I don’t recommend storing this detox smoothie, because of all of the fresh ingredients. I recommend that you drink it straight away to get the maximum benefit, especially if you’ve used barely ripe bananas. You might be able to store it in smoothie bottles and drink them throughout the day, but fresher is better.
Substitutes for cilantro blueberry smoothie ingredients
- If you don’t like bananas, you could use mango as the base for this recipe (very creamy and delicious), or lots more oranges (more watery, but still tasty, add more berries if you do this). You can also use coconut cream, avocado or even oats (not gluten free) to make the smoothie creamier without bananas, although I wouldn’t recommend adding grains to a brain detox smoothie in case they make it less effective.
- The coriander/cilantro, wild blueberries and spirulina are central to this recipe, so I wouldn’t recommend substituting them for anything else. That said, if you can’t get one of the ingredients, it’s still worth having the others. An imperfect brain cleanse is still better than no detox at all.
Smoothie variations
- Add more spirulina: If you can stand the taste, you can definitely increase the amount of spirulina in this smoothie. My rule with “green” smoothies is, increase the healthy ingredients only as much as you can while still making something that’s delicious. In other words, don’t add to much or you’ll stop drinking it entirely, and something is better than nothing.
- Add more cilantro: When I first made this smoothie, it didn’t have the orange in it at all, and the cilantro flavour was quite overpowering. But if you like cilantro (my husband definitely does not!) you can always add more
My inspiration for creating this detox smoothie
This recipe was inspired by the list of brain detox foods in the book Medical Medium by Anthony William.
I love this book and was re-reading the chapter on brain detox, because I’ve been focusing heavily on improving the brain function of our family recently.
The chapter on ADHD and autism talks about the importance of cleaning out heavy metals from the the cerebral midline as treatment for autism, and especially before the age of 18, before it closes up.
My son is 16 and a half years old right now, and I realised that I had 18 months to clear out as much of the heavy metals out of his brain as possible.
Although my son does not have autism he has struggled with specificlements of brain processing for his whole life, especially turning thoughts into words, so I figured if there was a chance that he had heavy metals in his midline, then I wanted to get as many of them out as possible and quick smart!
I read the list of the top foods for detoxing heavy metals and designed a smoothie that used as many of the ingredients as possible, while still remaining palatable.
And we’ve been drinking this every afternoon for the last couple of months.
I only realised afterwards that there’s actually a similar brain detox smoothie recipe in the Medical Medium book itself, but I like mine better because it uses entirely whole foods.
Great minds think alike ;)
And I love knowing that my brain is getting cleaner and happier every time I drink this delicious detox smoothie.
Cilantro blueberry smoothie resources
Of course, my number one recommendation to get more out of this smoothie recipe is to read the original book:
- Medical Medium by Anthony William
There’s so much more in there about creating amazing health naturally, and I’m working through implementing as much of it as I can.
If you want to know more about the detoxification properties of cilantro (coriander) and heavy metal chelation, here’s some helpful articles:
- How to Use Cilantro to Detox Mercury from Your Body by Beauty & Well Being
- Chelation: Harnessing and Enhancing Heavy Metal Detoxification—A Review at PubMed Central
Spirulina is such a great food / supplement to add to your diet, and here’s some more info about it:
And if you want to know more about wild blueberries, here’s some great reading for you as well:
Have fun cleaning out your brain!
And have a fantastic day.
I studied Biochemistry and Genetics at Monash University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science, with Honours.
I've always had a passion for natural health, having grown up with asthma, eczema and numerous food allergies, and I wanted to help my kids avoid the same issues.
I love blending science and alternative approaches to find the best of both worlds, and I'm always looking for ways to create more amazing health and happiness in my life.
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