Loving the BITE: Blended Watermelon

I’m filling in for Kelli one more week as she recovers and spends some good quality time with that new baby of hers.  She’ll be back again next week and is sure to be full of some great Loving the BITE posts in the weeks to come.  But for this week, it’s my turn again.

This week’s Loving the BITE is a super simple one….but oh so tasty and refreshing.  If it’s hot over there like it is over here, you’re going to love to chill out with one of these.

Blended Watermelon Drink

My Wife and I first came across this amazing drink while in Grenada last year.  We absolutely loved it and knew that it would be very simple to re-create at home.  We were reminded how good it was while in Belize a couple of months ago, and since we’ve been home there have been glasses and glasses of Watermelon drink being pumped out of the kitchen.

Seeing as its prime season for watermelon right now, you should be able to find lots of it at a great price.

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of Sliced Watermelon
• 1-2 Cups ice (depending on how slushy you like it)

Yep, that’s it.  Well, one more thing is very helpful if you can swing it.  It’s not really an ingredient, but if you have a VitaMix blender it sure does make the mixing super easy.  Otherwise any good quality blender will do the trick.

Directions:

Simple put the watermelon and ice in the blender and mix.  Start off on slow and use a tamper if you have one.  Increase the speed and blend until nice and smooth (or slushy).

Pour into your favorite beverage glass, and a straw (and one of those tiny umbrellas) and you’re good to go.

Makes one big serving or about 1 1/2 regular sized servings.

Comments:

You’ll be surprised how incredible this tastes and there is no need for any added ingredients.  I’m not a nutritionist of expert like Kelli so I’m relying on the knowledge of WHFoods to provide all the goodness that Watermelon has to offer.

Sweet, juicy watermelon is actually packed with some of the most important antioxidants in nature. Watermelon is an excellent source of vitamin C and a very good source of vitamin A, notably through its concentration of beta-carotene. Pink watermelon is also a source of the potent carotenoid antioxidant, lycopene. These powerful antioxidants travel through the body neutralizing free radicals. Free radicals are substances in the body that can cause a great deal of damage. A cup of watermelon provides 24.3% of the daily value for vitamin C, and, through its beta-carotene, 11.1% of the DV for vitamin A.

Watermelon is also a very concentrated source of the carotenoid, lycopene. Well known for being abundant in tomatoes and particularly well absorbed from cooked tomato products containing a little fat such as olive oil, lycopene is also present in high amounts in watermelon and mangoes. Lycopene has been extensively studied for its antioxidant and cancer-preventing properties. In contrast to many other food phytonutrients, whose effects have only been studied in animals, lycopene has been repeatedly studied in humans and found to be protective against a growing list of cancers. These cancers now include prostate cancer, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, lung cancer and colorectal cancers. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that in patients with colorectal adenomas, a type of polyp that is the precursor for most colorectal cancers, blood levels of lycopene were 35% lower compared to study subjects with no polyps. Blood levels of beta-carotene also tended to be 25.5% lower, although according to researchers, this difference was not significant. In their final (multiple logistic regression) analysis, only low levels of plasma lycopene (less than 70 microgram per liter) and smoking increased the likelihood of colorectal adenomas, but the increase in risk was quite substantial: low levels of lycopene increased risk by 230% and smoking by 302%. The antioxidant function of lycopene—its ability to help protect cells and other structures in the body from oxygen damage—has been linked in human research to prevention of heart disease. Protection of DNA (our genetic material) inside of white blood cells has also been shown to be an antioxidant role of lycopene.

Watermelon is rich in the B vitamins necessary for energy production. Our food ranking system also qualified watermelon as a very good source of vitamin B6 and a good source of vitamin B1, magnesium, and potassium. Part of this high ranking was due to the higher nutrient richness of watermelon. Because this food has a higher water content and lower calorie content than many other fruits (a whole cup of watermelon contains only 48 calories), it delivers more nutrients per calorie—an outstanding health benefit.

One more reason to enjoy watermelon before summer ends: this sweet, crunchy, cooling fruit is exceptionally high in citrulline, an amino acid our bodies use to make another amino acid, arginine, which is used in the urea cycle to remove ammonia from the body, and by the cells lining our blood vessels to make nitric oxide. Nitric oxide not only relaxes blood vessels, lowering high blood pressure, it is the compound whose production is enhanced by Viagra to prevent erectile dysfunction.

Fuel Your Ride.  Nourish Your Body.

Tags: Blended Watermelon Drink