PBJ

Not the Easton store

At 27 I can feel my metabolism slowing to a crawl.

I decided I could either watch my weight slowly creep up, or I could find a way to eat less calories and feel good about it.

So I tried in my extravagant lunches at Northstar Cafe and Chipotle for something lighter that turned out to be even better. An old vegan classic:

The PBJ.



But not PBJ in the traditional, bread and spread sense - a modern reinterpretation of the Peanut Butter and Jelly.

A wise fellow vegan pointed me in the direction of Planet Smoothie.

In it's original state, the PBJ smoothie is not vegan. It's basically a milkshake. If you ordered it the way Planet Smoothie created it, it would be strawberries (sweetened), bananas, peanut butter, vanilla, frozen yogurt and milk.

Clearly not vegan.

But after veganizing it, I can't imagine you gain anything by adding all that fat and dairy to it. So when you order it, just order it no dairy.

For no-sugar vegans, you can take it even further and swap out the strawberries for the unsweetened blueberries and have them hold their liquid sweetener and substitute it with a splash of Grape Juice. I've never had it this way, but another vegan tells me it's still amazing.

This meal-replacing smoothie is incredible. It sounded gross when I first heard of it, but I've replaced a meal a day with it and the extra couple of pounds I added have disappeared.

Aside from that, it's good to infuse fruit in your diet. In my experience as a vegan, it's easy to miss out on your daily servings of fruit. Especially if you enjoy eating out like I do.

Give it a try. With a location at Easton and a location at Polaris, next time you're shopping, swap your big lunch out with a PBJ smoothie.