10 Ways To Make Health Drinks Less Boring (Slideshow)

Sometimes we forget about these powerful, medicinal little plants that lend their gorgeous flavor and aroma. Run herbs through your juicer like you would with greens. Mint, chocolate mint, spearmint, and others are beautiful in combination with sweet fruits or greens, and have a cooling effect. I love mint with cucumber, spinach, ruby red grapefruit, and apple. Fennel is another wonderful addition, and whether you're using the stalks, blub, or fronds (or all three), it will flavor your juice with the sweet and herbal taste of anise. And don't forget about the savory herbs, basil, thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, dill, and one and on. These add depth to savory vegetable juices and complexity to sweet and citrusy juices. Look for fresh herbs in your garden, your farmers market, co-op, and grocery store. There's a lot you can do with a little bit of herbs. One of my favorite summer juices stars lemongrass, which wafts like a bright and sultry perfume through watermelon, Asian pear, and pineapple.

Click here for our Lemongrass and Asian Pear Juice

These are the comic book heroes and heroines of the food world — they all have their superpowers and strengths, and they make everything a lot more exciting. Lucuma powder is my very favorite superfood. It's super healthy, yes, but more importantly it tastes like ice cream and transforms your smoothies into decadent desserts, especially when mixed with vanilla and raw cacao, another superfood. Then there are the fruity do-gooders, acai, goji berries, goldenberries, and the like that add major antioxidants and unique flavors to your smoothies. The super-greens, like spirulina, E3Live, and chlorella, have a mild taste (similar to green tea), pack big nutrition, and color your beverages beautiful, rich greens, blues, and turquoises. And lastly, there are the superfoods that add texture, like chia seeds and Irish Moss. Both need to be soaked before consumed, and both transform into a gel, giving whatever they are blended with a gel-like consistency. Chia seeds, unground and unblended, make a smoothie like tapioca whereas Irish Moss gel makes a light and airy mousse. Sometimes texture alone is enough to spruce up a dish — why not make that chocolate smoothie into a chocolate mousse?

Umami is the fifth flavor that our palate can detect: there is sweetness, bitterness, sourness, saltiness, and umami, which is separate from all of those tastes but enhanced by saltiness. Umami is difficult to describe, but it is more or less a meaty, brothy flavor, like from marrow, mushrooms, aged cheeses, meat, spinach, and the like. Sometimes sweet smoothies just aren't doing it for me and I crave a savory meal. That's when I hit the raw soups, and what makes raw soups delicious is umami flavor with a touch of salt. Nutritional yeast flakes loaded with B vitamins (which are extra essential for vegans) and fermented bean paste (like miso), are two delicious umami flavor enhancers and I use them in practically every raw soup I make, like this carrot, ginger, and basil miso soup.

Click here for our Carrot, Ginger, and Basil Soup Recipe

Your own ancestry might be your next big inspiration for our smoothie or juice. I draw on my mixed Romani ("Gypsy") heritage to fuel my culinary creativity, which is especially rewarding since Gypsy cuisine is so rich, diverse, and yet distinctly Romani. In my savory soups, I'm liberal with the paprika, a popular spice in Romani cooking, I'm passionate about my tea, and I use a lot of baxtale xajmata or "auspicious foods," which are usually pungent or strongly flavored like garlic, lemon, pickles, and peppers. I also like to use Indian Ayurvedic medicinal herbs and spices. There is overwhelming evidence from DNA, linguistics, anthropology, etc., that the Romani people originated in India, and tracing the similarities between Indians and Roma connects me to my Romani roots and the very ancient roots of my ancestors, and makes preparing and enjoying food and drink something akin to a spiritual experience.

So climb around your family tree if you're in a smoothie slump. Think about your favorite Persian, Mexican, Croatian, Irish, Vietnamese, or Malaysian spices, fruits, vegetables, and flavors and see what moves you. Turn to your grandparents' recipes and see which elements you could reclaim for your healthy elixirs. Or, if that isn't infusing your juice with anything particularly new, take a walk around the globe to some place you've never been, always wanted to go, or wish you could visit again, and evoke the flavors of that culture, country, or region. Also, it's a great opportunity for cultural exchange, which is different from cultural appropriation. For example, the word Gypsy, a racial slur (e.g.: she gypped me!), is misused and appropriated so often that people often don't realize that Gypsies are an oppressed ethnic group. Some Roma choose to reclaim the word "Gypsy," but if you are not Romani, using the word to refer to yourself, your brand, your lifestyle, or naming your pets or child "Gypsy," is cultural appropriation in the same way that wearing a Gypsy costume is appropriation, even if it isn't meant maliciously. Respectfully exploring Romani food, arts, and culture without exoticizing or claiming it, however, would fall under cultural exchange.