Buckthorn protein smoothie

Here in Finland and overall here in the Nordic countries, we have a lot of healthy berries in nature. We have lingonberries, blueberries, cranberries, etc…. And then there is buckthorn, or sea buckthorn as they are called.

Buckthorn is a orange sour berry, with hard black seeds that you also can eat. They say that one berry has as much vitamin C as an orange. And not only that, but the berry also has vitamin A, E, K, B, and B12. And also omega 7.

Both the berries and leaves have been used for medical purposes for thousands of years and in China, it is still used to help with digestive problems.

Sometimes I ask myself, why do we import all these exotic berries like goji, when we have enough of healthy berries here? And sometimes you can find them for free in nature 🙂

The berries I have are from my mom’s garden. She has been growing them for many years. They are not fun to pick because the plant has thorns that will hurt your hands, but it is worth it 😉

Protein smoothie

Since the berry has a lot of health benefits then it is a perfect ingredient in a smoothie. The recipe I share here is a very easy refreshing smoothie. Not a lot of ingredients, just basic stuff, for us here in the Nordics.

The smoothie also has kvarg (Quark). I actually don’t know if this is available in the USA for example. Kvarg is a type of curd cheese. It is kind of like a thicker Turkish yogurt. In this recipe, you can Turkish yogurt instead, or any other thicker yogurt. Kvarg has a lot of protein.