Green Smoothie

Green Smoothie as seen July 5, 2011

on the Today Show

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups water

1 head organic romaine lettuce, chopped

3-4 stalks organic celery

1/2 head of a large bunch or 3/4 of a small bunch of spinach

1 organic apple, cored and chopped

1 organic pear, cored and chopped

1 organic banana

Juice of 1/2 fresh organic lemon

optional: 1/3 bunch organic cilantro (stems okay) 1/3 bunch organic parsley (stems okay)

Directions:

Add the water and chopped head of romaine to the blender. Starting the blender at low speed, mix until smoothi. Gradually moving to higher speeds, add the celery, apple and pear. Add the cilantro and parsley, if you are choosing to add them. Add the banana and lemon juice last.• Try to drink at least 16-24 ounces a day, if not more! Stir before you drink!

• Feel free to mix your greens and fruits, as greens and fruits food combine well together (except for melons). Be sure to balance the light and darker greens, so for instance, if you want to add some kale, be sure to balance with the lighter green of celery. Bill the anchor today, mentioned he didn’t like cilantro. No problem! Just leave it out and use another green instead, or up the quantities of the other greens.

• * If you are diabetic and prefer to cut out all high glycemic fruit, you can omit the banana. Otherwise, I suggest keeping it in, as it adds a nice consistency and taste.

• ** It is important to blend until all “chunks” are removed from the mixture. There are a lot of nutrients encased into the cell walls of the green plants, and these need to be ruptured so full nutrition is available upon consumption without much digestive work. If you don’t have a great blender, you may have to blend longer and the smoothie will get warm. In that case, be sure to make it the night before, so it will be nice and cool by breakfast time!

Breakfast Smoothies

Breakfast Smoothies

Breakfast smoothies come in all different flavors and compositions. Recently while visiting our children we learned their methods of making nutritious smoothies. Green smoothies are on breakfast menus everywhere. I did some research and learned the benefits of different vegetables to include when making your own smoothie.

Insulin-like qualities

Brussels sprouts

Green Beans

*

Cleanse

Spinach

Green leafy vegetables

Carrots

*

Pancreas Support

(silicon)

Alfalfa

Olives

Asparagus

Lettuce

Mustard Greens

Radishes

Cabbage

Cucumbers

(phytonutrients)

Cucumbers

Onion juices

Broccoli

Carrots

Celery

Lettuce

Spinach

Breakfast Smoothie

Breakfast Smoothie

Call it Vitamin Infusion, Fiber Optimum, or just plain delicious. We spent the weekend at Palm Dessert with our son. On the menu was a smoothie for the price of $6.50. Add tax and tip and rounded out it costs about$8.50. Buy yourself a Vita-mix blender and for the price of a little kale, spinach, banana, apple, strawberry, orange, kiwi, bell pepper, celery, carrot, and fruit juice whirled in the Vita-mix, you have your daily requirements of five vegetables and five fruits.

There is no set formula or recipe for a smoothie. It can be made more or less with what you have on hand. For years I made a fruit smoothie with yogurt, banana, orange juice and a frozen combination of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.

The benefit of healthy eating is usually returned with the years of good health. Try a breakfast smoothie tomorrow.

Our daughter Barbara sent the photos of her smoothie combination to share. Thank you Barbara.