The Blender Girl: Go Green with Smoothies

Benefits Of Green Smoothies

Today is Green Smoothie Day. The perfect day to share my favourite green food and health tip – Raw Green Smoothies. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy a delicious cold smoothie. So why not Go Green and throw in some green leafy vegetables to the blend to make it more nutritious?

Now “green” might be a fashionable lifestyle choice as far as building a home, purchasing a car, wearing stylish eco clothing, or recycling and carrying a funky tote to the grocery store. But how many of us are actually “taking green in”? Why aren’t we all consuming vast amounts of greens even though mainstream medical research tells us that green leafy vegetables are incredibly good for us? Why is it that most of us find a gorgeous lush green field gorgeous, but not a lush green smoothie? If you have never tried a delicious green smoothie do yourself a favour and get with the green smoothie program!

Greens are rich in vitamins and minerals; contain powerful antioxidants and vital live enzymes, are loaded with amino acids (protein), and are low in calories. They really are the perfect food. I know a lot of children and adults are “allergic” to greens, but I find that blending greens with fruit, vegan milks, vegetables, nuts, seeds and natural flavourings creates all kinds of delicious combinations that make it incredibly easy and enjoyable for anyone to get their daily dose of greens! Be open minded and experiment with different blends, and I think you will find that you can make green smoothies not only palatable, but downright delicious!

Green smoothies are a fantastic way to sneak extra greens into children and “green phobic” adults. My favourite sneaky green treat is a chocolate spinach green smoothie that anyone can enjoy. It tastes just like a decadent chocolate shake and you can’t even taste the greens. Another introductory favourite blend is a tropical mango banana green smoothie! YUMMO! You can also make healthier alkaline green smoothies. Check out Dr Robert O Young’s alkaline green smoothie recipe that I make every week.

Green smoothies really were the missing link for me in my health regime. Going green with my blender literally changed my life. After having embraced many whole foods principles from Macrobiotics, Ayurveda, Chinese theories of Yin and Yan, Veganism, Vegetarianism, Raw Living Foods, Body Ecology, and Acid/Alkaline Principles, I had still not found my “perfect blend” – the right diet and balance that kept my body at optimum health all year round. I still struggled with candida and lethargy. Green smoothies brought me back to optimum health. I have never been healthier or had more vitality.

Green smoothies are not a new concept. Ann Wigmore advocated what she called “raw energy soups” many years ago in her books. This was when I was first introduced to green smoothies. However, it wasn’t until I read Victoria Boutenko’s fantastic book, “Green For Life” that I really understood the power of green smoothies and embraced them in my daily health regime.

Victoria discovered the “green secret” whilst reading about the lifestyle and dietary habits of wild chimpanzees laid out by Jane Goodall. She found it fascinating that wild chimps hardly ever got sick, and most of them died of natural causes. It occurred to Victoria, that if humans and wild chimpanzees shared 99.6% of the same genes, then it stands to reason that humans would also thrive from eating in a similar way to their chimpanzee relatives.

Victoria, through her studies, estimated that the average person needed to consume two large bunches (about ½ kg) of greens per day, in conjunction with a whole foods diet, in order to maintain optimum health. Now seriously, who has time to chomp down on that many greens? So, the miraculous blender saves the day again! I know I know, any chance to tout the wonders of blenders. But hey, I am The Blender Girl! If you blend raw greens with some fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices, vegan milks, nuts, and filtered water, you break down the cellulose, and make large amounts of greens immediately available and accessible to the body.

Trust me, by mixing 40% green leaves with 60% fruit, (and some filtered water to get it to a drinkable consistency) you get a delicious smoothie that you can happily drink all day long. Yes! We can all eat two bunches of greens a day thanks to our blenders, that makes the impossible, possible!

Here are some of the health benefits of green smoothies.

1. Greens are the perfect food. Greens are rich in vitamins and minerals.
2. Greens contain powerful antioxidants and vital live enzymes.
3. Greens are loaded with amino acids (proteins).
4. Greens are easy to digest. When you blend greens most of the cells are ruptured, making the nutrients easy for the body to assimilate. You literally start absorbing them in your mouth.
5. Greens contain vast amounts of Chlorophyll. A molecule of chlorophyll closely resembles a molecule of human blood. So hop into those greens!
6. Greens are low in calories! Yipee!
7. Greens give you energy and vitality.
8. Greens are alkalizing. Boosting your alkaline buffers helps to reduce the stress on tissues and organs and helps combat disease and infection.
9. Greens contain powerful natural anti-inflammatories that can assist with aches and pains.
10. Bowel regularity. The fibre in raw greens, fruits and vegetables moves food through the intestinal tract and helps rid the body of toxins by binding and bulking them, and eliminating them through our very own garbage disposal.
11. Green smoothies are a low GI alternative to juices. The fibre in the whole vegetables slows down the assimilation of sugars into the bloodstream and help to stabilize blood sugar levels. Great for diabetics!
12. Greens help improve skin tone and reduce blemishes.
13. Greens assist with healthy nails making them stronger with less breaking, chipping and flaking.
14. Greens keep your hair healthy and shiny. I have experienced the pigment returning to grey hairs! Some friends have told me it has cleared up dandruff issues as well.
15. Green smoothies can reduce the cravings for sweet sugary foods. “Win win” I say!
16. Green smoothies can reduce the consumption of processed foods and hydrogenated fats.
17. Some studies suggest greens increase your sex drive. If that doesn’t make you grab for your blender I don’t know what will!
18. Green smoothies make less mess and take less time than juicing. Just throw everything in your blender and switch on!
19. Green smoothies are the quickest way to sneak greens into children and “green skeptic” adults.
20. Green smoothies are delicious and filling! They make a wonderful healthy meal.

By introducing a green smoothie a day into your lifetstyle, you will be giving yourself a healthy advantage like nothing else. If you are still not convinced, check this out: The Boutenkos conducted their own independent study called The Roseburg Study, where they supplied a cross section of people with one litre of green smoothie every day for a month.

Most of these people were eating a mainstream Standard American Diet and changed absolutely nothing else about their diet and lifestyle. Some were smokers; and many were in state of sub-health, complaining of symptoms of diabetes, heart conditions, depression, and many other ailments, that were extremely debilitating in some instances.

The testimonies about the radical change in health and reduction and eradication of symptoms from these people is astounding, and speak volumes about the extraordinary power of live raw greens to restore health. The big message from that study – even if you change nothing else about your life, you can reap enormous health benefits by blendinggreen smoothies. Of course, if you make other healthy changes, you will reap more rewards.

5 Tips for making delicious green smoothies

1. Rotate your greens. After all, variety is the spice of life! If you are concerned about the alkaloids in some leafy green vegetables like the oxalic acid in spinach, do not be concerned. The key to avoiding any possible toxic influences of excessive alkaloid intake is to use different greens every day. Choose from spinach, kale, silverbeet, parsley, basil, cilantro, beet greens, turnip greens, parsnip greens, carrot greens; and other phenomenal greens like wild edibles such as dandelion greens and lambsquarter.
2. Ask your local farmer’s market for “discarded” greens. Let’s face it, buying vast amounts of organic greens gets expensive. I noticed some time ago that most people were asking to have the greens cut off of their beets, turnips and carrots etc. Simply ask the vendors at you local farmer’s market if they have any tops they have cut off for other customers. These beet greens, carrot greens etc make wonderful additions to green smoothies and they are LOADED with nutrients.
3. Cream up your green smoothies with banana, avocado and raw coconut. Throw in an avocado, banana or some fresh raw coconut meat to create a creamy consistency that resembles a milk shake.
4. Be Bold and Experiment With Different Flavours. There are tons of phenomenal recipes for green smoothies out there. Check out other people’s yummy recipes and find your perfect blend! Try some unusual combinations and see what works for you. If your green smoothie is too sweet, add in some more greens. If it is not sweet enough, add in some more fruit! Too easy.
5. Start with Sweet Green Smoothies. Ease into green smoothies by starting with fruit smoothies and chocolate smoothies. Particularly for children. As your taste buds become accustomed to the taste of greens, start reducing the amount of sugar and increase the amount of greens and savoury green smoothies.

Go Green with your blender and you won’t be sorry.

Check out my favourite green smoothie recipes at Healthy Blender Recipes. 

Follow me on Twitter @theblendergirl and @tessmasters. 

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For delicious easy healthy green recipes check out my recipe blog, Healthy Blender Recipes.