If you want to pack lots of fruits and vegetables into one meal, make a smoothie. For example, you can blend pear, kale, homemade almond milk, bananas, chia seeds, and alcohol-free vanilla extract and it will taste like a milkshake. It all depends on the strong flavors that you use. In the case of this smoothie, avocado is the base, which give this smoothie a beautiful creamy texture. The avocado delivers lots of healthy fats, magnesium, and potassium, and it doesn’t get in the way of flavor. The rest of the ingredients in the smoothie form a harmonious marriage to create a smoothie that tastes like a chocolate shake.

We want to clarify that this recipe calls for raw cacao powder, not cocoa powder. It’s easy to mix these up, but they are not interchangeable or even the same, especially while you are cleansing. Because the raw cacao powder exhibits that signature, bitter dark chocolate flavor, you have to balance it out with sweetness. The grade A maple syrup tames the bitterness, as does the slightly sweet raspberries, which also bring subtle tartness to the party. The homemade almond milk helps to give this smoothie a luxurious texture that you want to enjoy day after day. It’s the rug that ties the room together, so to speak. Any Lebowski fans out there?

Now, you are left with one decision to make: do you include banana in the smoothie? Some people tire of adding bananas to smoothies, and they do play a prominent role in many recipes. Bananas provide both sweetness and creaminess, so adding a banana will enhance the milkshake quality of this smoothie. If you want to experiment without bananas, we encourage you to do so. Besides, if you taste the smoothie and realize that you want banana, pour it back into the blender with a banana, blend, and then enjoy.