On a pro metabolic diet and want a quick and delicious way to down your daily dose of milk and orange juice? This Ray Peat inspired, pro-metabolic smoothie is a fabulous and delectable way to get a fast leg up on your daily macros.
With a ton of high quality animal protein, bounties of healthy carbohydrates, just enough saturated fat, and loads of metabolism-boosting vitamins and minerals, this smoothie is the high power rocket fuel your sluggish morning metabolism has always been waiting for.
Table of Contents
WHY THIS SMOOTHIE IS PRO METABOLIC
ZERO PUFA’S
No PUFA’s were harmed in the making of this smoothie.
Seriously though, all the fat in this smoothie is almost completely saturated. Which is great from a pro-metabolic perspective because, in the words of Ray Peat himself, “Saturated fatty acids terminate the stress reactions, polyunsaturated fatty acids amplify them.”
So uncork your keg of cream and drink up (within reason, of course…)
MINERAL-RICH
Ray Peat dieters have become notorious for pushing orange juice and milk.
And for good reason. “The reason I talk so much about milk and orange juice,” Ray Peat said, “is that they…have the most components that tend to shut down excess cortisol production, lower adrenaline, reduce serotonin, nitric oxide, all of the harmful mediators of inflammation and stress.”
These components include calcium, potassium, and lots of other important minerals vital to healthy metabolic function.
Since stress down-regulates metabolic function, these foods are a pro metabolic warrior’s best friends.
BALANCED MACROS
This smoothie is perfectly engineered to contain the precise balance of carbohydrates, fat, and protein that optimizes metabolix function and glucose burning at the cellular level.
INGREDIENTS & NOTES
Ingredients pictured clockwise, from left to right: milk, whey protein concentrate, oranges (really, orange juice, but represented here by orange slices for lofty aesthetic purposes), collagen peptide powder, honey (in the spoon), sea salt, and in the center, cocnut butter. Not pictured: vanilla extract.
Orange Juice
Orange juice can be a tricky one for those with sensitive digestion because commercial orange juice goes through a heavy industrial processing, during which some of the volatile compounds that make fresh oranges taste and smell the way they do are lost and are often captured and added back into the juice as part of a “flavor pack.”
In my experience, some people have much lower tolerance for commercial orange juice than fresh squeezed, possibly because of this heavy processing.
So if you’re sensitive, choose a cold-pressed, organic orange juice that hasn’t been put through heavy industrial processing. Or, best of all, juice your own ripe, organic oranges.
Also, it’s best to buy organic fruit from a pro metabolic standpoint because healthier agricultural practices often produce riper, more nutrient-dense fruit, and the extra nutrition supports vital metabolic processes.
The nutritional difference between organic and conventional produce is often really obvious when you compare for flavor and sweetness. Dunno about you, but I feel like conventional fruit sometimes tastes so nasty I can’t help but wonder if it was 3-D printed. But organic produce, thank God, usually actually tastes like real food. Best of all is local food from your Saturday morning farmers market, of course.
Milk
According to Ray Peat, saturated fat consumption is an important part of a pro metabolic diet. So make sure and buy whole milk!
Also, grass-fed milk is does have an advantage because grain-feeding skews the lipid profile towards a higher omega six to omega three ratio. And grass-fed milk contains higher levels of other important nutrients, like Vitamin K2.
If you’re wondering what Ray Peat says about raw versus pasteurized milk, it’s confusing. In one 2011 interview, he says raw milk is “definitely nutritionally better”, and elsewhere that fresher milk is probably superior. But in another email response to the same question, he says the difference isn’t enough to worry about.
He did often comment that in his experience some people actually tolerate ultra-pasteurized milk better than raw milk and speculated that it might be because the bacterial content of raw milk could be irritating for some people.
At the end of the day, his position was that any kind of milk you can tolerate is better than no milk. And since above all else, a healthy metabolism requires keeping your stress hormones low, if I were you I just wouldn’t stress about it.
That said, I personally drink only raw, local, grass-fed milk or regenerative, low-heat pasteurized grass-fed milk from Alexandre Farms. Partially because I’m still kind of orthorexic (working on that) but also because after much experimentation I’ve found these kinds of milk TASTE LIKE A DREAM YUUUUMMMMM
HONEY
Ray Peat recommended honey as the a preferred source of dietary carbohydrate after fruit, but didn’t think heating or pasteurization temperatures were harmful to honey.
I don’t totally agree with him here. I’m a big believer in raw, local honey over pasteurized. From an ancestral and folk perspective, raw honey contains medicinal compounds that are lost or altered when the honey is heated (this is taught in both Traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medical textbooks).
Modern science confirms that heating honey can alter its enzymes, phenolic compounds, antioxidant activity, and other properties.
Again, not that eating heated honey is the end of the world. It’s not. Eating enough carbohydrate is better than not eating enough carbohydrate, in whatever form it takes.
But if you want the whole food, ancestral, real life, full throttle deal, go buy some local raw honey at the farmers market (or buy Really Raw Honey online or at your health food store, it is soooooo delectable and my favorite on-the-shelf version of truly raw and fully ancestral honey).
Also, Peat notes that some varieties of honey can be allergenic for some people depending on what plants the bees fed on. In my experience, lighter-colored honey tends to be less reactive for some people than darker-colored honey.
Whey Protein
Whey protein is a fabulous source of high-quality, complete protein, providing all nine essential amino acids (including lots of leucine) needed to support muscle protein synthesis and the maintenance and growth of lean mass. Which makes it a prime food for a pro-metabolic diet and lifestyle, which aims at increasing lean mass to optimize metabolic function.
I use whey concentrate because it iI use whey concentrate because it’s less extensively processed than whey isolate and retains more of the milk’s naturally occurring compounds than whey isolate.
Whey isolate, however, is sometimes better tolerated by those with very sensitive digestions precisely because they contain less lactose and fewer milk components in general, so as with everything, context is king.
There’s just no way to get around the necessity of experimentation in discovering what works for your unique digestion and physiology.
No influencer, no matter how hot, no matter how ripped, no matter how many tens of thousands he or she may have, can tell you how your unique physiology is going to respond to whey isolate versus whey concentrate.
So buckle up and take a ride, friend. I promise you you’ll never regret ditching b******* instagram platitudes about what you should be eating and starting to trust the inerrant wisdom of your own beautiful body instead.
COLLAGEN PEPTIDES
Collagen is not a complete protein, but is in my opinion in indispensable addition to a well balanced ancestral, pro metabolic diet.
It contains high levels of the amino acids glycine and proline, which are not only vital for synthesizing hair, skin, nails, and connective tissue, but also (in the case of glycine) is an important in teh conjugation of bile acids, which are vital for healthy digestion.
Ray Peat was a super fan of glycine and gelatin rich foods, and recommended them as a helpful, if not indisepnsible, adjunct to muscle meats in meeting a healthy person’s daily protein requirements.
He was also particularly enthused about glycine, saying, “The simplest, nonessential, amino acid, glycine, has been found to protect against carcinogenesis, inflammation, fibrosis, neurological damage, shock, asthma, and hypertension.”
In the same article, he describes glycine as having an inhibitory/“quieting” effect and associated it with what he considered the protective effects of gelatin-rich traditional diets.
So don’t dis collagen and down those peptides, my Peatian friends.
DIRECTIONS & TIPS
STEP ONE: MIX
Mix all ingredients together in a blender or in a wide-mouth jar if you happen to have an immersion blender.
TWO: BLEND
Blend everything together until smooth, about sixty seconds.
THREE: ENJOY
Slurp your pro metabolic smoothie on the way to work, or take it for an easy, drinkable lunch.
This Orange Julius inspired powerhouse of a smoothie is guaranteed to provide all the macros and micros you need for a vital, vibrant, and metabolically masterful morning.
STORAGE
This smoothie is best enjoyed immediately, especially if you’re using fresh-squeezed orange juice.
If you need to make it ahead, store it in a tightly sealed glass jar or container in the refrigerator and drink within twenty hours. Give it a good shake or stir beforehand, since the whole food ingredients may naturally separate.
If you’re using fresh orange juice and raw milk, maybe be even more conservative and make sure to drink it up that morning.
PRO METABOLIC SMOOTHIE
Ingredients
- 1 cup cold orange juice
- ¾ cup whole milk
- 2 Tbsp coconut butter or 2 TBS heavy whipping cream
- 20 g whey protein concentrate
- 10 g collagen peptides
- 1½ tbsp honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tiny pinch of salt
- ½ cup ice 70-80g
Instructions
- Add everything to the blender.
- Blend on high for 30–45 seconds until completely smooth and frothy.
- Drink immediately.