I think I’d enjoy fruit smoothies if it wasn’t for the taste and smell of bananas. I like eating a raw banana, but have this weird intolerance to any other form of the fruit - pureed, mashed or horror of horrors - artifical banana flavour.
All the smoothies in my local juice bar contain bananas. Is this common? There must be other fruits that can give body to a smoothie. They look really tasty but as soon as I get that banana smell I can’t drink them.
Yes - frozen yoghurt and skim milk plus anything mild enough in its acid content so the stuff doesn’t curdle. Bananas are great that way, if you like them, but strawberries, raspberries, papayas, mangoes, watermelon - the list can go on.
Similar is a Lassi, which can come plain or mango flavoured.
My wife is the same as you - even the tiniest trace of banana smell on the cutting board is enough to make her stomach do flips. For this reason, she tells me to tell you to avoid the ones at Starbucks, as they all tend to be banana based. Cultures is a chain in SW Ontario that makes excellent smoothies, with or without bananas.
Strawberries, melon, and pineapple are all good.
You might want to try using frozen fruit–that will add body and coldness to your smoothie. In addition, the frozen fruit is cheaper and keeps longer than fresh fruit. Try blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, etc. Hope this helps.
I make mine with frozen fruit, usually strawberries, but sometimes mixed berries or peaches, yogurt, milk, and orange juice. One time, I was out of orange juice, but had a lime and cranberry juice. I nixed the milk and yogurt and just used frozen strawberries, half a lime, and cranberry juice. It was tart, but very good. Tequila would have made it perfect. Smoothies are insanely easy to make and a pretty forgiving snack to fool around with. Just toss fruit and some sort of liquid in the blender and see what comes out.
Bananas are “pulpless”. They give a good body to the smoothies.
The banana aversion isn’t too uncommon. I’m sure your juice bar would have no problem leaving the banana out of whatever you want to order. And yes, it’s just as good.