What's green, tastes great and is so good for you? Green smoothies! Green smoothies are quickly sweeping the nation as the best health drink that anyone can make at home. I personally have been making and drinking green smoothies for the last year. I started out with a regular blender and it was pretty good at blending up the ingredients but it left some pieces that I would have to chew up. I dealt with that because I love green smoothies and the positives outweighed the negatives. I finally bought myself a new blender specifically made for blending up greens and fruits and nuts called The Nutribullet. It is by far the best blender I have ever owned. It is able to blend greens,fruits and nuts into a smooth silkiness that would rival even the Vitamix (another blender brand).
Let's take a look at how green smoothies are so easy to make and incorporate into your life: Borrowed from the Raw Foods Witch website
1. All you need is a blender and an open mind.
The great thing about green smoothies is that it doesn’t require much to get started. (You could
invest in a Vitamix for silky-smooth shakes, but that’s totally optional.) My biggest suggestion is to give green smoothies a try before you get a better blender. That way you’ll be convinced of their effectiveness.
2. Green Smoothies are quick to make.
If you’re in a rush you can get a green smoothie ready and blended in less than 13 minutes. You can just blend and go while you drink the green smoothie on the run. You could even make a green smoothie ahead of time. Then store half of it in the refrigerator using a glass mason jar and it will still taste great one day later.
3. You get a steady stream of energy. (No crashing!)
You won’t experience the up-and-down spikes that you might from an all fruit smoothie when you make it a green one. That’s because the fiber rich greens slow down the absorption of fruit sugars, providing you with just the right amount of energy and nutrition at a pace that your body really loves.
4. Green smoothies can be enjoyed year round.
When
your garden is overflowing with greens, just whip up a couple of batches of green smoothies and enjoy these inexpensive nutritional drinks. You can also benefit from green smoothies in the winter, by using frozen fruits and greens that you might have preserved from the summer. Green smoothies provide you with a lot of options all year round.
5. Green smoothies are ideal for weight loss.
Whenever you feel a craving coming on, make yourself a green smoothie instead of indulging your craving. Green smoothies help cut cravings because they are satisfying and provide your body with tons of nutrition.
6. Greens are the most Under-appreciated Superfoods.
We all know green tea is great as an antioxidant. What is green tea made of, if it’s not greens? Skip the middleman and just increase your intake of greens. Green leafy veggies are great because they have tons of cancer fighting properties, immune system boosting vitamins and minerals. Upping green leaf intake has been shown to reduce heart disease and prevent other degenerative diseases. That’s what I call super.
7. Satisfy every taste bud.
If you have a sweet tooth you’ll enjoy making green smoothies with lots of fruit. If you want something a little edgier, you can add some
Raw Chocolate powder and make it a nutritiously devious dessert. If you want to replace a meal, you can make savory green smoothies using ingredients like tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, and even spices to make it a satisfying hearty meal.
The Basic Green Smoothie Recipe
Feel free to use this basic green smoothie base and experiment.
- 1 Banana
- 1 Peach
- 5 Strawberries
- Handful Spinach (increase greens gradually over time, and you’ll find you crave more of them!)
- 1 cup water
Taken from the Living in the Real World website, we can see how wonderful green smoothies are for people of all ages:
- Green smoothies promote weight loss. Naturally if you exclusively eat one thing for a few days, you’re probably going to lose weight simply because it’s difficult to over-eat on one type of food – you get tired/bored of it. But green smoothies are particularly good for weight loss because the high water content and the potentially high fibre content fill you up. They provide a lot of sustenance, and depending on the ingredients you use they can also be a very low-calorie snack/meal. I’ve had trials of green smoothie “fasts” several times now, and each time I notice a weight loss of a couple pounds within just a few days. The weight will stay off as long as you eat normally in the days that follow. If you overeat, you’ll regain the weight. If you eat proper-sized portions of foods, that weight will stay off.
- Green smoothies help the body stay hydrated. Hydration is so important for keeping our energy levels up, for good brain and muscular functions, to help the immune system, and to help get rid of any toxins and waste in the body. Unfortunately, most people don’t drink nearly enough water. If your urine isn’t an extremely pale yellow or nearly clear colour, you likely aren’t drinking enough water. If you’re thirsty, that’s the body’s way of telling you that you’re already showing the first signs of dehydration. The reasons for not drinking enough water are numerous, including that people don’t like the taste of water, they don’t have time to drink water regularly throughout the day, they forget to drink water or that they consume too many other things which are dehydrating. Green smoothies can help with that! Generally if I use one cup of water in a smoothie and add some fruit and leafy greens, once blended the volume increases to about 1.5 or 2 cups of liquid. Drink green smoothies to stay hydrated and you’ll find that you feel a million times better.
- Green smoothies promote good digestion. They help to break down the food so that our bodies can access nutrients. Some scientific research points to the reality that many people have poor pH levels in their stomachs. This means that, due to evolution, dietary patterns or changing health in general, our bodies may not be as efficient and adept at breaking down food to acquire nutrients as they once were. Plants are made of extraordinarily strong materials and if we cannot properly break down the greens in our digestive system, we will not be extracting all of the precious nutrients. That’s where the blender comes in. By drinking our leafy greens, the cells have already been broken down so that the nutrients will be more accessible. Awesome! This also means that if you find it difficult to eat greens because they make you bloat or cause indigestion, the green smoothies will be much kinder on your system and you will be able to consume leafy greens without any uncomfortable side effects.
- Green smoothies provide a ton of nutrients. As a general rule, we don’t get enough leafy greens in our diets. Some health professionals even suggest that leafy should be an entire category on their own, separate from the fruit/vegetable food group, because of the bountiful nutrients that they provide. Victoria Boutenko provides detailed analysis of the nutritional profile of greens, offering an impressive amount of evidence that leafy greens “are the primary food group that matches human nutritional needs most completely” (Boutenko, 35). And yes, leafy greens provide a lot of protein as well. If you continue to rotate the types of leafy greens that you use in your smoothies, you will be getting all of the essential amino acids into your diet. They’re the single most important food to include in our diet, and yet they are incredibly under-used in the Standard American Diet.
- Green smoothies are an appealing way to eat greens. Okay, so this isn’t so much a “health” benefit, but it’s still a beneficial way for people to consume their greens! We should be consuming a pound or two of leafy greens every day to reap amazing nutritional benefits, and green smoothies can help us to meet that goal. Many people dislike salads or find it just plain challenging to eat large quantities of salad or other forms of greens. Smoothies, however, can be mixed with fruit, cocoa powder or flavoured protein powder and the like to turn it into a sweet treat. In this way you could have a smoothie for breakfast, a smoothie as a pre- or post-workout snack and a smoothie for dessert in the evening. Three smoothies right there! You can add any kind of leafy green, or different kinds of powdered sea greens and herbs for a good variety.
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Some of my favorite green smoothie recipes are so simple, anyone can do it!
Just follow these basic 4 steps:
- Fill blender with 50% leafy greens (kale, spinach, romaine, Swiss chard, collard greens, ect...)plus 50% fruits (apples, pears, berries, oranges, plums, strawberries blueberries, ect...)
- Pour water or almond milk or coconut milk to the top of mixture
- Add a teaspoon of nuts/seeds if you desire (sunflower seeds, chopped almonds, cashews, ect...)
- Blend until smooth! ENJOY!!!
