I normally have oatmeal for breakfast and I prefer this non-ice cream non-dairy ice cream as a snack, but you can have it for breakfast, if you like. In fact, the reason why I thought about this is because one of my patients told me that she makes something along this line (I don’t know her healthy recipe) for her kids sometimes, and they think she’s the coolest mom around when she gives it at breakfast time! 

In TCM’s way of thinking, ice cream is the ultimate bad boy of food. It’s too sweet, too cold, and too phlegmy (dairy is phlegm-creating). I’m okay to leave ice cream (mostly) off my food roster. Part of my reason for that is that one of my first jobs as a teenager was at Baskin Robbins. I could try mini scoops of ice cream at every work shift, but I kind of learned to dislike ice cream. Everything in the store had to be cleaned of its stickiness–“How did customers manage to get ice cream there?” was something I often thought. I hated having to go to the big freezer room to find a tub of the flavour that had just run out in front–it seemed the flavour I wanted was always buried underneath several other massive tubs. And my arms ached from trying to scoop ice cream just out of that freezer room. Oh, and bubble gum ice cream–just wrong and so hard to actually eat.

Anyway, that was a number of years ago, so I’m over that. Mostly.

Healthy Recipe Non Dairy Ice Cream

I was actually going to make a smoothie bowl healthy recipe because I had a banana that was getting over-ripe. But, when my husband tried it he thought it was like ice cream, so you decide…is it a smoothie bowl or is it like ice cream?

Either way, here’s a non-dairy, no added sugar healthy recipe dessert (or breakfast) that you could even brag to your nutritionist about. 

Ingredients

• 1 cup frozen berries
• 1 frozen banana or avocado (if you slice and freeze it in advance, that’s easiest)
• 1 scoop protein powder 
• 3-5 Tbsp of non-dairy milk, e.g. oat, coconut, almond, soy, etc. 
• optional to add in for flavour and nutrition: ground flaxseed, matcha powder, cacao powder
• optional to top with: cut fruit, coconut flakes, cacao nibs, chia seeds, hemp seeds, granola

Directions

1. Blend berries, banana or avocado, protein powder, and optional add-in ingredients with a powerful blender
2. Add in as much non-dairy milk as needed to allow it to blend, while still keeping its consistency thick
3. Top with whatever ingredients you want

So simple!

But here’s the thing. From a TCM perspective, this recipe is best to have if you have “Heat” signs and not too much “Dampness.” Heat signs include feeling warm, red face, red tongue, yellow coating on tongue (aside from after drinking coffee or tea or other staining food), dry stools, thirst, sweating. Dampness signs include bloating, loose stools, foggy headedness, feeling body is weighted down, swelling or puffiness, edema, and phlegm. I tend towards feeling cold and accumulating Dampness signs, so I only have smoothies and smoothie bowls when it’s warm out or not as my first meal of the day, and I include other warming foods to balance it out.