Fuel Up: Harness the Power of Your Blender and "Cheat" Your Way to Good Health

Copyright © 2024 by Colin Sapire and Dana G. Cohen

Published in the United States by: Hay House LLC: www.hayhouse.com®

Published in Australia by: Hay House Australia Publishing Pty Ltd: www.hayhouse.com.au

Published in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK Ltd: www.hayhouse.co.uk

Published in India by: Hay House Publishers (India) Pvt Ltd: www.hayhouse.co.in

Indexer: J S Editorial, LLC

Cover and Interior design: Julie Davison

Interior photos: Images used under license from Shutterstock.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Beast® is a registered trademark of Beast Health, LLC.

NutriBullet® is a trademark of Capbrand Holdings, LLC. There is no affiliation between Beast Health, LLC and Capbrand Holdings, LLC.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-7734-4

E-book ISBN: 978-1-4019-7735-1

Audiobook ISBN: 978-1-4019-7736-8

Dr. Dana

For my husband, Henry

Colin

For my family

Contents

Quick-Start Guide

Introduction: Healthy Eating Shouldn’t Be So Hard

CHAPTER 1: Make Blending a Habit

CHAPTER 2: Consume More Foods as Nature Intended

CHAPTER 3: Variety Variety Variety

CHAPTER 4: Hydration as Fuel

CHAPTER 5: Play with Your Food

CHAPTER 6: The 7-Day Beast Blending Lifestyle Plan

CHAPTER 7: Blends with Benefits Recipes

Smoothies with Benefits

Level 1: Starter Smoothies

Level 2: Step Up Your Smoothie Game

Level 3: Challenge Your Taste Buds

Warm Breakfast Bowls

Healthy Meal Enhancements

Sauces and Marinades

Pestos

Salad Dressings

Condiments

Broths, Soups, and Stews

Enhanced Broths

Hearty Soups and Stews

Satiating Snacks

Spreads, Salsas, and Dips

Salad Shooters

Sweets and Treats

No-Cook Puddings and Dessert Smoothies

Frozen Desserts

Baked Treats

Beverages

Enhanced Water Infusions

Hydration Blends

Pick-Me-Ups and Mocktails

Unexpected Blender Recipes

Wraps, Crackers, and Breads

Lunch Spreads

Afterword: Continue Fueling Up for Years to Come

Index

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Resources and Recommendations

Worksheets

Notes

Empower You: Unlimited Audio Mobile App

Continue Your Journey with Hay House

Quick-Start Guide

Establishing and sticking to healthy eating habits can be hard, so we are starting you off with two Fuel Up Habits that are good for you, easy to do, and can make a real difference in how you feel—all at the same time! They are the kind of simple things that will help you cheat your way to good health.

Even if you read no further (though we certainly hope you will!), you can start feeling the benefits of fueling up right away by doing these two things:

Start Your Day with Water:Drink a large glass of water when you wake up in the mornings, maybe with a squeeze of lemon juice and/or a pinch of salt (we’ll explain why in the book). Do this before you consume anything else.

Enjoy a Smoothie with Benefits for Breakfast:Designed as delicious and satisfying meals in themselves, our Smoothie with Benefits recipes are packed with a wide variety of nutrients and include protein, a healthy fat, and a generous dose of fiber—all things you need to start your day feeling energized and fully fueled. Recipes begin in Chapter 7, and there are plenty to choose from, so pick one that tantalizes your taste buds!

INTRODUCTION

Healthy Eating Shouldn’t Be So Hard

Healthy eating was always a challenge for Colin. He describes himself as a supertaster—someone with a heightened sense of taste—which, for him, meant he grew up despising the taste of vegetables. This was particularly true of the bitter ones that are supposed to be so good for you. Broccoli, spinach, cauliflower—they all turned his stomach. Instead, his tastes ran more toward burgers and fries. He could plop down on the couch to watch television and polish off a whole box of cookies in one go, but a green salad . . . not a chance.

As Colin grew older, his need for better nutrition grew more important. His career as an entrepreneur was often hectic and demanding, and he found that he needed regular exercise to keep up with it all. To this day, if he doesn’t sweat in the mornings, he just doesn’t feel like he has the energy, outlook, or confidence he needs to be productive. He’s also a longtime runner, and by the time he reached his 40s, he had found that burgers and cookies were no longer cutting it to fuel his runs. He began choking down a small salad before his usual dinner to provide at least some of the nutrients he’d been missing, but it just didn’t feel like enough. It didn’t feel practical or sustainable either, because he really didn’t like that salad.

This was a big part of what motivated Colin to develop the hugely popular NutriBullet® blender and, more recently, the Beast® blender, which launched in 2021. These were more than just business ventures for him. They were also ways to make the healthy foods he had been avoiding more palatable and easier to consume in larger quantities.

Colin knew that to live the life he wanted to live and to feel the way he wanted to feel, he needed better fuel. He needed to find ways to consume all the healthy foods that would help him feel energized and alert on a daily basis and that would help to stave off illness and disease in the long run.

Colin started by making smoothies in his blender and sneaking in those less tasty but nutrient-rich ingredients with ones he enjoyed. Dates have always been a favorite, and they obscure the flavor of most greens. He experimented and found that foods like apples, citrus, and nut butters also did the trick. He now has a veggie-packed smoothie every morning, and that’s in addition to enjoying (key to making this sustainable) other nutrient-rich blended recipes throughout the day, like soups, marinades for meat, and even desserts. He calls it cheating—his way of quickly, easily, and deliciously upleveling the nutrition in his meals so he gets all the high-quality fuel he needs to be at his best.

It has been a sustainable cheat too. He has been eating like this for 15 years, and along the way, something interesting happened. He has become something of a veggie convert. He consumes, and even kind of likes(!), a greater variety of vegetables, the kind that used to turn his stomach. He even started an edible garden in his backyard that he picks from each morning for his blends. He still has a burger and fries sometimes, but that’s just one part of an overall healthy eating pattern that works for him. Now in his 60s, he has never felt better in his life!

Why We Need to Cheat

People often use the word cheat as a way of admonishing themselves or expressing guilt about the foods they have chosen. I was bad today—I cheated on my diet by having a donut. Or, Today is my cheat day, when I get to eat the things I actually like!

We think that’s a pretty disempowering way of thinking about food, so we would like to redefine the concept of cheating when it comes to what you eat. Instead of making you feel bad, we would like to turn it into a strategy that you can actually embrace. For us, a cheat is any tool or strategy that makes it easier, more satisfying, tastier, or more sustainable to eat healthier. That’s because we all know that we should be eating healthy foods, but just because we know something doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.

Colin’s quest for better fuel led him to consider whether he was hydrating well enough to keep up with his active lifestyle and whether his blender could help. He met Dr. Dana when he contacted her about a book she had co-authored on the subject. Blending can be a great tool for staying hydrated, of course, but Dr. Dana was equally interested in how Colin was using it to uplevel his nutrition.

As an integrative physician, Dr. Dana spends a lot of time talking with patients about what they eat, and she has witnessed the profound difference that healthier habits can make in their lives. She has also seen how confusing media messages and the persistent influence of diet culture have failed people. Early in her career, she worked for the famed Dr. Atkins, the first to popularize a high-protein, low-carb way of eating, and she saw firsthand how his and similar methods just don’t work long term. Too often the focus is on weight loss over health (they are not one and the same), and the weight people do lose rarely stays off for long. In fact, these kinds of diets often lead to unhealthy patterns of gaining and losing, gaining and losing, which obscures the true goal of healthy eating—which is to give our bodies the fuel they need to function well and feel good! What she really wanted for her patients—and for herself!—was to find ways to help her patients eat better that actually worked for them. And not just for the duration of a diet, but over the course of their entire lives.

Of course, that goal can be challenging for so many of us. As a culture we have a complicated relationship with food. We have so much: visit most grocery stores, and you will find a dizzying array of options from around the globe—so many, in fact, that it can be mind-boggling to figure out what to buy. We consume so much—to the point where, as we all know by now, a majority of Americans are classified as overweight or obese. And yet, despite all this abundance, most of us are actually undernourished.

You read that right. We still have widespread nutritional deficits in our culture. Consuming more and having more food options has simply not led to better nourishment, or fuel, in much of the Western world. Consider that:

Just 10 percent of Americans eat enough vegetables to fully fuel themselves.¹

Just 12 percent of Americans eat enough fruit to get all the nutrients they need.²

Just 1 in 20 Americans get the amount of fiber their bodies require.³

These statistics are pretty surprising when you think about it. We have so much in this country, and yet practically no one is getting everything they need from their food. And these kinds of deficits have real consequences. Our bodies are amazing machines. All on their own, they can ward off pathogens, clear toxins from our systems, heal our wounds, power us through our days, and more, but they need a continual supply of nutrients to perform these remarkable feats.

For example, magnesium—which can be found in a wide variety of plant foods like seeds, nuts, grains, and leafy greens—is crucial for energy production and plays a key role in how our bodies handle stress—and yet, magnesium shortfalls are not uncommon.⁴ Another example is fiber, which is present in many fruits, whole grains, and legumes. It feeds our microbiome, which, as we are becoming increasingly aware, is linked to both our physical and our mental health—and yet hardly anyone gets enough of it.

We could provide a hundred such examples. When left unchecked, being undernourished and underfueled leads to an increased risk of a host of chronic conditions, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. There is evidence that nutrient deficits are contributing to the skyrocketing number of autoimmune diseases and nondescript and formal gut issues being diagnosed in so many people today.⁵ Research suggests that eating the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables is associated with a reduced risk of everything from migraines to infections to eczema and more.⁶ It has even been estimated that one in five deaths across the globe is attributable to a less-than-optimal diet—more than any other risk factor, including tobacco.⁷

But this is about more than just disease prevention. It’s also about how you feel on a daily basis, which is surely not at your best if you are chronically underfueled. There is even some evidence to suggest that a healthy diet is linked to happiness!⁸, ⁹, ¹⁰ More research is needed on that front, but we do know that poor-quality fuel can result in fatigue, brain fog, lousy sleep, diminished immunity, and so much more that essentially amounts to a diminished quality of life.

Like a car running on fumes, when people are underfueled, they simply don’t have what they need to run the way they are meant to. And it really doesn’t have to be that way.

Your Blender as Delivery System for Good Health

The problem is clear, and we believe that blending is the solution—that it can be the ultimate tool for cheating your way to good health!

For most of us, changing our diet is the fastest way to improve our health because it empowers us to provide our remarkable bodies with the fuel they need to do their jobs. We know we should be eating better. (It was the top New Year’s resolution for 2022.¹¹) We know there are risks if we don’t. We know that many of us walk around feeling less than our best too much of the time, and we know that we want to feel better. But all that falls firmly into the category of easier said than done.

Here’s why the humble blender can make a real difference: we believe your blender is the easiest, most effective, and most accessible delivery system for the nutrients your body needs to perform at its best. If you know how to use it strategically, your blender can be a fast track to good health. That’s because blending has some built-in health benefits, including:

Increasing Nutrient Volume: Federal recommendations say that adults need at least 1½ to 2 cups of fruit and 2 to 3 cups of vegetables each day.¹² They also say that most adults need between 22 to 34 grams of fiber each day¹³ (though Dr. Dana believes it should be even more than that). All that is a challenge for most of us to consume, but when broken down and concentrated in a smoothie, sauce, or condiment, it’s much easier to meet your daily requirements—which is what you need, not only for your overall health, but also to reduce cravings since you are less likely to reach for unhealthy stuff when you feel full and nourished. Blending also makes it easier to sneak in those healthy ingredients that you or your kids may not like. Despite its much-touted benefits, a lot of people don’t really like kale, for example, but blend it with apple for sweetness or pineapple for tartness, and it suddenly becomes more than palatable. It becomes something people actually take pleasure in consuming—and pleasure is key to sustainable habits.

Increasing Nutrient Variety: Blending not only allows us to get more good stuff into our diets; it also allows us to get a greater variety of good stuff. As we all know, different foods provide different nutrients, and in fact, new research suggests that consuming 30 different kinds of plants each week can have real health benefits.¹⁴ Blending makes it more likely that you will get all the many different micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) and phytonutrients (plant-based nutrients) you need to fully fuel your body. It can be a pain to make a couple different vegetable sides for your rotisserie chicken, for example, but it’s not at all difficult to throw 3, 5, 7, even 17 different plants into a blender and hit blend. To make a sauce. A soup. A dip. A smoothie. By using your blender, you can layer on different plants, getting a greater variety of different nutrients in the process. The blending recipes in this book will provide you with options for getting the full spectrum of nutrients that your body wants and needs.

Enhancing Nutrient Absorption: Just because we swallow the nutrients we need doesn’t always mean that our bodies fully absorb them. This is the problem with many supplements, for example—they can go right through us! There’s evidence to suggest that blending might increase the bioavailability of food by breaking it down into smaller particles, thereby allowing you to absorb more of the nutrients inside.¹⁵ There’s even some evidence that the act of wounding plant foods prior to consumption—through cutting, grating, or use of a blender blade—may release beneficial compounds.¹⁶ More research is needed to draw any firm conclusion on these topics, but what we do know is that digestion begins in the mouth, when you chew up your food to break it down. The problem is that we live in a grab-gulp-swallow-and-go culture, so often forgetting to fully chew our food, which can be taxing on the digestive system. Blending can compensate for a lack of chewing, breaking up particles so they can be more easily digested. We’re not going to ask you to blend all your food, of course, but blending some of it may help with nutrient absorption.

Better Hydration: Getting and staying hydrated may be the best way to cheat your way to good health. From proper digestion to immune function, our bodies need to be well hydrated to work properly. Plus, it’s another great way to keep cravings in check. Did you know that the symptoms we read as hunger are often really a result of being thirsty? And yet, so many of us are not well hydrated, and the old adage of drinking eight glasses is nothing more than myth. Blending works better. Fruits and veggies, herbs and greens—these things are made mostly of water, so you can help meet your hydration requirements by releasing the water already in plants through blending. Our collection of recipes for what we call Enhanced Water Infusions and Hydration Blends provide additional and, we believe, better hydration options that taste great too!

Fast-and-Easy Healthy Meals: A blender is not an air fryer or an Instant Pot. You don’t need a manual to learn how to use it or hours to wait before something is ready to eat. In fact, a blender doesn’t take a lot of time or effort at all. You can simply throw ingredients in without measuring (a great cheat) and make recipes like smoothies that don’t involve cooking at all (another cheat!) in order to create healthy, well-balanced meals that taste great too. It’s a versatile tool that busy people can work into their lives without a lot of fuss. Plus, it’s cost-effective. Most people already have a blender in their kitchens, and for those who don’t, it’s a relatively inexpensive addition. Sure, there are a lot of high-end versions on the market these days, which have their advantages. We are Beast users ourselves, of course, but the strategies and recipes in this book will work with any blender.

The Fuel Up Approach

We want you to eat well because of the many benefits it can bring to your health and well-being. But, to accomplish that easier-said-than-done goal, we understand that people need healthy eating strategies that are accessible, appealing, and even fun—otherwise, they are simply being set up to fail, like so many diets have done to them for so many years.

As we mentioned, Dr. Dana has seen many, many people fail and worse, yo-yo up and down over the years on various diets, which leaves them feeling hopeless, disempowered, and even shameful about being unable to stick with something without cheating (in the traditional sense of the word). And she knows what that feels like. She had her own experience with feeling like a failure when she was a young doctor who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. She was so ashamed of her habit that she hid it from her colleagues. She was a doctor, after all, so she knew how detrimental smoking could be to someone’s health, but she had been doing it since she was a teenager and she just didn’t feel like she could stop.

Dr. Dana tried and failed and tried and failed to kick the habit, until she finally went to a psychologist who specialized in a treatment approach called harm reduction. The psychologist suggested that she stop beating herself up about smoking and, instead, start from