Green Smoothies for Life

The other day I was having a facebook chat with a friend about health and nutrition, my new favorite subjects.  I was sharing with him my thoughts on leafy greens and the astounding health benefits contained within.  Leafy greens or as I like to call them leafies (your friends always have nicknames) contain large amounts of Vitamins, calcium, phytonutrients, and minerals.  In comparison, my diet of hamburgers and pizza in 2010 had none of these things.  As a matter of fact, I can't say that my prior 40 years on this planet had much if any leafies.

After starting this journey, some months in, I started to incorporate leafy greens more and more into my diet.  I tried different recipes with kale like massaged kale and marinated kale and they were good.  I've made a great white bean, turkey sausage and kale soup that was excellent.  More and more I was looking for ways to incorporate these nutrient powerhouses.  About 6 months into 2011, a friend of mine asked me if I had ever tried a green smoothie.  "No", I replied but I was intrigued with the thought of blending kale, spinach, chard, collards and other leafies with fruits and possibly other veggies.  That's when I tried out my first green smoothie.  My friend forwarded several basic recipes for green smoothies and it was on!

At first it was just add some bananas and some strawberries and a few spinach leaves and I called it a green smoothie.  Then as I became more comfortable with the idea I refined it to include both the flavor combinations I loved and nutrient combinations my body craved.  I've also added greens like parsley for kidney detox and repair and dandelion leaves along with the kale or spinach or other green leafy.  Celery is also a great blood purifier.  I know what you may be thinking at this point.  Kale and bananas?  Yuck!  That is actually far from the truth.  With the right flavor combinations you typically don't taste the green.  Another percieved roadblock I hear a lot is "I don't have the right blender to make green smoothies".  This is a misconception as any standard blender will do.  I have a perfectly good Black and Decker blender that came from Target and it works great!  Of course, the big fancy ones will do a lot more than just blend a smoothie but you don't have to wait till you get one to start blending.   

Why would I want to drink a green smoothie?  Ok thats a perfectly good question.  First its a filler upper.  These smoothies will fill you up and leave you satisfied for hours.  You'll be able to forgo the urges that typically happen a couple of hours after a meal.  The next reason is my main motivator.  I drink green smoothies for the nutrition aspect of it.  When I think of the hundreds of bodily processes that occur everyday to include transference and use of minerals, amino acids, vitamins and nutrients and how much nutrition is in our overly processed foods (very little if any), I know the body needs some assistance.  A green smoothie is a tasty and extremely easy way to get this nutrition to your body.  Yes you could probably take 16 different supplements to simulate the nutrition you get from kale but why do that when there is an easier way.  It takes less than 5 minutes to make a green smoothie.  Your body will thank you for it.

Here's my favorite Green Smoothie Recipe:
In a blender add 1 ripe banana,
pour in coconut milk, rice milk, almond milk, water, or other liquid to cover banana then blend to a liquid,
add 1 heaping spoonful of raw almond butter and blend,
add 1 cup (or more) of chopped spinach, kale, chard, collard, romaine or other leafy green,
add more liquid aka water or milk to help blend the greens and blend till greens are finely chopped (tiny)
(optional) add parsley for kidneys (3-4 sprigs chopped) or dandelion or chopped celery
(optional) but I add this every time RAW Honey about 1-2 tablespoons it cuts the greeness and has beneficial healing properties itself
Once everything is blended together add 2 or more cups of ice and blend till smoothie consistancy is achieved
Makes 2 large servings

Blending in this order will ensure that your greens are thoroughly blended up and will be much easier for your digestive system to utilize the nutrients in the smoothie. 
Cheers to Health!