Trying to maintain a healthy diet? If your daily intake is 2,000 calories, you’ll need 2 cups of fruit and 2½ cups of vegetables, according to Harvard University’s School of Public Health.

As a college student, it’s a daunting task to fill your body with that many fruits and veggies on a daily basis with all the tempting, unhealthy fast-food choices. However, smoothies packed with vegetables and fruits are a simple, quick way to help get your recommended daily serving of these nutritious foods.

We talked with Priscilla Bloom, registered dietitian at Hy-Vee in Springfield, to learn a smoothie recipe and a few tips on how to make your homemade smoothies nutritious and delicious.

“When we have classes at Hy-Vee about making healthy smoothies, we share our smoothie formula with others so they have a better foundation for making smoothies,” Bloom says.

According to Hy-Vee, the smoothie formula is simple: 1-2 cups of a liquid base, 1 cup of fruit, and 1 cup of veggies.

With the smoothie formula in mind, we created our own smoothie with the help of a recipe from Hy-Vee.

Not Easy Being Green (Blender required)

Serving: 1
1 cup of water
1 green apple
1 cup of spinach (I used frozen spinach)
Half-inch of fresh ginger
Half of a whole ripened avocado
1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lime juice

First, measure 1 cup of water, and pour into in your blender.

Then, take your apple, and cut it into eight slices. I highly recommend using an apple corer during this process; it streamlines cutting time and creates even-looking apples. After you cut your eight slices, cut them into halves; that way, they’ll easily blend later on. Once you’re done cutting, add the apples to your blender.

Next, measure 1 cup of spinach. I already had frozen, chopped spinach from prior meals, so I used that. I microwaved it, measured it, and dumped the cup of spinach into the blender.

After adding the spinach, peel the skin off your half-inch ginger with a potato peeler. Once you’re done peeling the ginger, it should look something similar to this:

Now, it’s time to add avocado. Cut it in half, open it up, scoop one of the halves into your blender. If it’s ripe, it should be fairly easy to scoop the avocado out of its skin and into your blender. Refrigerate and save the other half of your avocado for a snack in the near future.

The last thing to add in is freshly squeezed lime. I held my tablespoon over the blender with one hand and squeezed the lime into the tablespoon to eliminate a sticky mess.

Next, firmly press the lid on top of the blender, and press the blend button. Be patient throughout the blending process, as it takes a few minutes depending on your quality of blender. Once it’s a blended liquid, pour into a cup and serve.