The Deliciousness of Green Stuff

8:35 PM

Ever done a green smoothie cleanse?  Apparently you can do month-long fasts, eating only raw green and fruit smoothies.  Not really my cup of tea.  Sometimes I need a grilled -cheese sandwich (I am actually looking into the GAPS diet, but that's a whole other post). I like to do wimpy cleanses that only take a day--24 hours of raw vegan food in the form of green smoothies and some handfuls of raw nuts to make sure I'm getting enough protein and fat.  I feel lighter and cleaned out by the end of the day, and it can help knock a sugar binge out of my head.  When I'm organized enough, I have a green smoothie for breakfast, and I drink the other half with dinner.  I've made smoothies several times for my family as the vegetable with our dinner and they've been consumed with gusto, even when they're more green than fruity.  And if my two year old will eat it, you know it's family-friendly.

Here are some ideas for creating your own green smoothie (taken from various places, some of which are linked at the bottom, and some from an iPhone app called Green Smoothies that I highly, highly recommend):

1. Start slow! You won't want to keep drinking them if you have to force them down.  A good ratio to start with is 3 parts fruit to 1 part greens.  You may worry about the sugar, but you're probably getting much more nutrition from that smoothie than you would with a limp pile of steamed green beans.
2. Greens that are great: kale, spinach, swiss chard, lettuce (all kinds), beet greens, celery (not my favorite, but some people like celery), parsley (in limited amounts! Find a recipe!), and pretty much anything you would put in a salad.  Make sure to rotate your greens--if you eat spinach for a week straight your body is going to have buildup of alkaloids that can be harmful.  Read here for more information.  Also, with chard and kale, make sure you don't add the stems or thick ribs--they're very bitter.  Greens can be frozen in ziploc bags if they're starting to wilt, and only take a few minutes to thaw out for a smoothie.  The nutrients won't be AS good, but it's still better than something canned (in my humble opinion).

3. Fruit that's great: mangos (make it nice and sweet and add a great texture), bananas (perfect for texture), peaches, pears (a good sweetener), apples (they make things a little chunky, like applesauce, but are good for sweetening things up), pineapple (great paired with mango and/or banana), berries (blackberries and raspberries can be pretty seedy so avoid those if you don't like that), and pretty much any fruit that you love to eat.  Frozen fruit works well too.  A word of warning: persimmons will eat your blender alive if you don't have a really good one.  They will turn your smoothie into a weird, mucousy texture that gets so thick it can bind up the blade on even an upper middle-class blender.
4. Order of operations: This is what I've found to work for me, using my regular non-fancy blender.  I add the cut up fruit first, with a little water if it won't mix well.  Then I add the leaves slowly, occasionally taste-testing to get it just right.  Then I blend on a higher speed (the smoothie setting usually) for about a minute to make sure it's as smooth as I can get it.  Then I pour it into a quart mason jar and screw on a plastic lid so I can shake it before I pour it if I need to.  I've found that the gravy shaker thing that my mother-in-law gave me years ago is perfect for keeping a smoothie shaken up while on the go.

Last but not least, here' s one of my favorite recipes:

2 mangos

1 banana

1 pear

2 cups spinach

(I add more spinach now, but it's still quite yummy!)

Core the pears. Blend it all together into a blender full of DELICIOUS HEALTHINESS. Enjoy!