Favorite Green Smoothie

Yesterday I promised that I would provide you with the recipe for my favorite green smoothie. I like to start the day with this smoothie for a number of reasons.

1) green veggies are calming. In the morning when I have a lot of energy and sometimes anxiety, the green smoothie helps to take off the edge.

2) by starting the day with this drink I know I am already getting the recommended number of fruit and vegetable servings. For people who can't seem to get their veggies in this is a simple and extremely nutritious way to do it.

3) I feel good.

I tried several green smoothies before settling on this one. For me it has just the right amount of fruits and vegetables - it doesn't feel too sweet or too bitter. The ingredients are:


Fruits:
1 apple (be sure to remove the seeds as they can be toxic - thanks for the tip Dennis!)
1 cucumber

Veggies:
3 medium size kale leaves (de-stemmed)
2 small to medium size chard leaves (or lettuce leaves)
1 stalk of celery (without the leaves - leaves make it taste more bitter)
1 handful of parsley

and a little piece of ginger

You can also add spirulina, blue green algae, hemp, maca, any number of super foods. I will get into more of that later.

Then you just put it all into the blender with 2 cups of water and blend. If you have a high speed blender like a VitaMix (can't imagine life without it at this point) it should be no problem. You can also juice all of this but I find blending to be so easy (and easy to clean!) and you get all of the fiber with the fruit and veggies.

All in all it makes a little over a quart. You can drink the whole thing or put some in the fridge for tomorrow.

I am not a huge fan, yet, of raw kale or chard but blending them in a smoothie tastes great.

Below is a picture of the final product. The picture at the top of this post is of the smoothie with my backyard behind it. I like that picture because it shows some of the garden where these veggies are grown.



Enjoy!

Pizza and raw food

I did an experiment today. After working for about seven straight hours (something I definitely do not recommend to clients) to finish all my preparations for the big day tomorrow and having eaten next to nothing, I was quite hungry when dinner rolled around. And what do you know - we ordered pizza for my kids. Mmm... raw food? pizza? raw food? pizza? Difficult decision. So I opted for the ultimate experiment.

How would my body react to pizza after eight days on almost all raw food? I figured, this was important information. A good way to assess data. Since I have no control group I am both the control and the experimental group. Therefore I must take on the difficult role of doing both.

If all of this sounds like a bunch of b.s. just to have some pizza - well, you are mostly right. I also opted for raw food. I made myself a very healthful green smoothie and between sips noshed on, all said, about 1/2 piece of pizza. I wish I could say it was good pizza but alas such was not my fate. Did I destroy my raw food adventure? Hardly. It's all part of it. It's all good.

If there is one thing I wish to communicate to anyone -whether I work with them or not - it's just that. It's only food. Let's enjoy it.

Next time though, I'm ordering better pizza.

Green Smoothies

Day Seven and I got my first, "your skin is looking good" comment!

One of the big things, apparently, about eating raw food is the "raw food glow." A certain glow the skin gets when a person eats raw food - hence "raw food glow." Truthfully, I don't see the glow myself and just as my friend was looking at me the sun was setting giving just about everything that rosy early evening hue. But hey, a compliment is a compliment.

I bought the book Green For Life yesterday.

Victoria Boutenko wrote this book after being raw for seven years (and curing her entire family of severe illnesses) only to notice certain symptoms of decreasing vitality. After completing months of intensive research, Victoria discovered she wasn't eating enough greens. In fact she was hardly eating any greens.

Despite her revulsion of the leafy green giant - feeling nauseous just at the smell (I'm sure a few of you can relate) - she continued to experiment with the food until she arrived at not just a palatable but a pleasurable solution: the green smoothie. By mixing greens like lettuce, kale and celery with bananas, apples and mango she was able to drink more than a daily portion of her body's nutritional requirements. After a month or two she even began craving what she had once despised. Of course, when one experiences such a transformation it is nearly impossible not to want to sing it from the rooftops. And that is what she did. Or more accurately, write it from her desktop and distribute it via planes over the rooftops to people around the world.
To learn more go to: www.greenforlife.com.

Given my love of veggies (I come from a rare breed) and my passion for nutrition I knew this was a book for me. And so today, having spent sufficient time yesterday reading and skimming recipes, I sampled two of Victoria's savory green smoothies - lettuce, lime, red onion, celery and avocado in one and kale, dill, garlic, and lime in the other. Suffice to say only one brave neighbor (a fellow green juicer) was even willing to try it. But I quite liked them both. I did, however, have to add dates to the latter as it was just a little too bitter for me (I do have a bit of a sweet tooth as you may recall).

I have wondered lately if, as adults, we don't intellectualize our taste buds. Knowing something is good for us and therefore wanting and even liking it. I mean if tomorrow someone told me kale, garlic, dill and lime wreaked havoc on my system, would I no longer appreciate the taste? Hard to say. I imagine thousands of people would, at the very least, be greatly relieved.

I'll make another tomorrow and take some pictures. You won't be able to taste it but at least you can see it and judge for yourself.

Day Three: Super Green Smoothie

So I decided to go for it. But I realized in hindsight that although it is not a small step, it isn't really as big as I'd made it out to sound. For years I have been modifying my diet, slowly cutting back on foods that don't benefit me and adding more of those that do. Nonetheless, it is still a step. And today's journey began with a super green smoothie. I took a picture of all the ingredients that went in to the smoothie so you could see exactly how I began the day. I have posted the recipe below (I left the bee pollen out of the picture - by accident).


I recently bought one of those super dooper VitaMix blenders that can do just about anything but mow the lawn. It is in this blender that I make my morning smoothie. If you don't have a strong blender then you may want to cut up some of these ingredients into fine pieces so that they can blend well. If you do have one of these mixers, well then... have a blast.

Here's the recipe:

1 T. Maca powder
1 T. Hemp protein
1 T. ground flax seed
1 T. Cacao nibs
1 T. Raw Cacao powder
1 T. Inca berries
2 T. Goji berries
1 t. bee pollen
1/4 tsp. blue green algae
1/4 tsp. cordyceps mushrooms
1 T. coconut butter
1 banana
1 cup mixed berries
2 dates
1 small beet
1 small zucchini
3 kale leaves (without the stem)
1 chard leaf
1 small piece ginger
2 cups water

Throw it all in the blender and blend till smooth. You may need to add more water to thin it out.
Yumm!

As the days go on I will go into more detail about the ingredients so you can understand why I am throwing all these crazy ingredients into one drink. For now you can go to: www.elementsforlife if you want to learn about the dry ingredients.

In all honesty I felt great for much of the day but started to crash around dinner time. I don't know why that is but at this very moment I am definitely feeling tired and a little down. Granted my mother-in-law is visiting for the week, but apart from the fact that her hearing is going (so you have to yell everything), she is really a lovely woman. Don't think that would explain the mood swing.

As I'm tired I am going to leave things for now and fill you in more in the morning.