Hemp4Victory
Well-Known Member
This post was meant for a blog I'm starting about living healthy happy and naturally, but I figured I'd put it here too.
The Ultimate Green Smoothie Recipe:
Green smoothies are perfect for people looking to lose weight, have more energy, eat more fruits and vegetables, don't have time to sit and eat a huge salad, or just need something nutritious that you can easily grab and go. With a little practice you can have one made in less than 15 minutes and with very few dishes to worry about afterwards.
Regular consumption of a good green smoothie is an absolutely essential part of a healthy lifestyle. Blending a mixture of fruits and vegetables gives you an easily digestible, extremely nutritious, portable, and filling meal that is quick and easy to prepare. One of these wonderful drinks each day helps you instantly increase your daily intake of fresh fruits and vegetables which can be quite difficult to do when you are living today's fast paced lifestyle. You will find yourself full of lasting energy and ready to handle anything that comes your way. Your skin will begin to glow and your body will feel better and better every single day. The health benefits of regular green smoothies are so powerful that they will almost seem like a magic potion.
There is a very simple recipe or formula that anyone can follow to make amazing delicious and nutritious green smoothies every single time. All you need to do is learn the basic components of a green smoothie and then with those in mind let your imagination run wild.
The most important building blocks to an awesome green smoothie are:
- using FRESH high quality leafy greens
- using ingredients that are high in soluble fiber
- adding grains for extra protein and extra dietary fiber
- using clean fresh water
That's all there is to it. If you can effectively accomplish those four things I can almost guarantee that you will have success with any assortment of ingredients you choose.
Greens:
Choosing the right leafy green vegetable for the job is like setting your house on a sturdy foundation. If this part isn't done right the entire remainder of the project will be compromised. Fortunately choosing the right one is VERY simple. The right leafy green vegetable is the one that is freshest and most readily available to you. My personal favorites are Kale and Swiss Chard because they are both very easy for me to grow in my garden at home. Not everyone has the time, energy, or space to grow greens at home, but that is okay because there is an excellent assortment available for purchase at your nearest grocery store or farmers market. In most cases Spinach will be the best choice because it is readily available and considerably high in important nutrients such as protein, iron, and Vitamins K & A. You can start small with the amount of greens you use in your smoothie, but you will find that the more you make them the more greens you'll want to add. I usually use 1 massive handful and I always put it in my blender first so the leaves are right on the blades and blend thoroughly.
Experimenting with different leafy greens is very important because it gives your body a wide assortment of beneficial nutrients to work with. You want to avoid using the same leafy green for extended periods of time and switch them up on occasion or use a variety of greens in every smoothie you make. Some leafy greens I recommend you try are, Swiss Chard, Kale, Spinach, Arugula, Watercress, Parsley, Lettuce, Bok Choy, Collards, Carrot/Beet/Radish Tops, and Dandelion Greens. Using a wide variety of ingredients is a very important part of a healthy diet and it helps you avoid getting stuck in a rut.
It is not necessary to strictly buy organic products for your smoothies as this can get very expensive, but it is certainly worth considering since you will be taking in so many fruits and vegetables. You want them to be as clean and wholesome as possible. If there is one ingredient I would make sure to buy organic as often as possible it would be the leafy greens. Because greens grow so close to the ground they have a large group of potential pests meaning they often have the most pesticides used during their growth. Choosing organically grown food helps you avoid harmful commercial pesticides and promotes good sustainable farming practices.
Soluble vs. Insoluble Fiber:
Most people have heard that we could use more fiber in our diets. What many may not know is that there are two kinds of fiber soluble and insoluble. Soluble fibers dissolve in water and insoluble fibers do not. Both are very important for your body and play different roles. Soluble fibers are particularly important to green smoothies because they help bind the water and the solid ingredients together creating a very smooth and enjoyable texture. A green smoothie with not enough soluble fiber will have a very gritty texture and will seem like a glass of water with blended things floating in it. This is not very pleasing to the pallet and can instantly turn you off of this wonderful food source. The leafy greens and the grains added will be very high in insoluble fibers so it is very important to choose some fruits and vegetables that contain lots of soluble fiber to help balance things out.
The best place to start is by adding a Banana. Bananas are available year round at the grocery store and are an excellent source of soluble fiber. Another added bonus of bananas is that they have a strong flavor that often overpowers all other ingredients in your smoothie. Other good sources of soluble fiber are blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, pears, apples, mangoes, chia seeds, tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, carrots, almonds, walnuts, and so many other great foods. It is very easy to get a good amount of soluble fiber into any smoothie. Increasing your intake of fiber will help you lose unwanted weight, keep you full, clean out your digestive system, maintain a healthy heart, manage cholesterol levels, and improve so many other aspects of your body.
Grains:
This is one important ingredient that is often forgotten about when considering making a smoothie. Using a variety of grains in your diet carries so many health benefits that I could create an entirely different post discussing them and likely will. Adding grains to your smoothie helps add crucial nutrients such as proteins, healthy fats, more fiber, and assorted trace vitamins and minerals. The more grain you add to your smoothie the more full it will make you feel as well which helps transform them from a refreshing snack into a serious meal. All the added fiber and good fats will help you feel full and nourished for hours. You also get the added bonus of giving your body some easily digestible proteins which it can use to repair and build new muscle tissue. This will be important because all the excess energy these smoothies will give you will have to be put to use some how.
When adding grains to your smoothie it is best to grind them up. This will help keep a smooth consistency and make certain grains such as flax, which your body doesn't break down well, become more digestive system friendly. There is one major point to consider when using ground grains. It is important that they be freshly ground because the nutrients in them become very fragile and start to break down rapidly once they have been ground up. Because of this I like to keep a coffee grinder on hand near my blender. Another option instead of grinding grains is to use ones that are easy to digest without being ground. The best examples of such grains are hemp seeds, chia seeds, and oats. Hemp and chia seeds are my two first choices when I make my green smoothies because they have an excellent nutritional content and they digest well without being ground. This saves time and dishes when making your smoothies, but still gives you the optimal nutrition that adding grains does. It is also worth mentioning that you should rotate your grains for the same reason you should rotate your greens. Rotating will give you a variety of different vitamins and minerals for your body to work with.
Water:
Good clean pure water is a very simple, but important part of a healthy green smoothie. Water is the most essential part of life and good clean water is the best thing anyone can give their body. For added nutrition you can try making your smoothie with other healthy liquids such as almond milk, coconut water, or other nut milks. It is best to start with just enough water to cover most of the greens at the bottom of the blender. You don't need to add very much often 1 cup or less is enough to get everything blending nicely. You can always add more liquids if needed, but compensating for too much liquid is much more difficult so start slow and add if necessary.
If you follow these simple guidelines you will have great success making tasty green smoothies and you will have an amazing new addition to your diet. Fresh dark leafy greens, a couple sources of soluble fiber, some freshly ground grains, and good clean water is all it takes to make something wonderful and nutritious.
The following recipe is just a guideline to get you started making your own green smoothies. The potential combinations are endless. The more vegetables you can include the more gradually your body will use the energy from this meal helping you avoid unwanted spikes and crashes.
1 large handful of assorted leafy greens
1 banana frozen or fresh
1 handful of assorted berries
1 pear
3/4 cup of water/almond milk
2-5 tbsp of assorted ground grains (hemp seed, chia seed, pumpkin seed, flax etc.)
dash of cinnamon
honey to taste
Blend until everything is nicely mixed together and the texture is smooth. Pour into a nice glass and enjoy it casually at home or pour it into some kind of container such as a mason jar or a coffee mug with a large opening and take it with you wherever it is you have to go. Use a spoon or a spatula to scrape all that yummy goodness off the sides of your blender before rinsing it and make sure to rinse it right away. It will make clean up much much easier than if you let it sit and dry. Everything gets stuck to the edges and it makes for a minor headache trust me I've learned that the hard way
Once you've got the basics down you can start experimenting. Ingredients like herbs and spices can add interesting flavor variations. Green herbs like mint, lemon balm, rosemary, and oregano are particularly useful and each carry great health benefits. Mangoes are an excellent substitute for the banana as they are also very flavorful and loaded with soluble fiber. Powdered superfoods such as raw cacao, maca powder, and spirulina are also awesome ways to pack even more nutrition into an already abundantly nutritious meal.
It would be an absolute sin to throw away all the scraps that making these wonderful drinks creates. Now that you're going to have all these banana peels and other fruit and vegetable scraps it is probably time to look at starting up a compost pile or a worm farm. This may sound like a very hard and time consuming task, but that is absolutely not true. Check out my posts on both these topics to learn more about how you can easily start turning your food scraps into brown gold for your garden.
If you don't have a garden you can also check out my posts on starting your own simple veggie plots and who knows maybe even start growing some of your own leafy green vegetables. They require very little space and minimum sun exposure, but once you get them started they will help cut down your smoothie costs exponentially and you will know they are good, clean, fresh, organic, and full of nutrients. You could also try planting some of the herbs I mentioned as well to add extra tastes to your smoothies and your other meals.
If you're interested in green smoothies because they are a great starting point for converting to a diet aimed at a large amount of raw foods you will definitely want to check out this amazing ebook by a man named Yuri Elkaim. The book is called Eating for Energy and it will absolutely change your outlook on food. This book has helped me create and awesome way of life that is largely focused on raw meals.
http://www.eatingforenergy.ca/go.php?offer=organicnut&pid=1&u=ultimateenergydiet.com/start
Click below to see how Yuri can start helping you go raw and make sure to check out my post on raw foods as well.
http://www.eatingforenergy.ca/go.php?offer=organicnut&pid=1&u=ultimateenergydiet.com/start
Hopefully you can use what you've learned here as a stepping stone to start yourjourney to healthy natural organic living.
If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments.
The Ultimate Green Smoothie Recipe:
Green smoothies are perfect for people looking to lose weight, have more energy, eat more fruits and vegetables, don't have time to sit and eat a huge salad, or just need something nutritious that you can easily grab and go. With a little practice you can have one made in less than 15 minutes and with very few dishes to worry about afterwards.
Regular consumption of a good green smoothie is an absolutely essential part of a healthy lifestyle. Blending a mixture of fruits and vegetables gives you an easily digestible, extremely nutritious, portable, and filling meal that is quick and easy to prepare. One of these wonderful drinks each day helps you instantly increase your daily intake of fresh fruits and vegetables which can be quite difficult to do when you are living today's fast paced lifestyle. You will find yourself full of lasting energy and ready to handle anything that comes your way. Your skin will begin to glow and your body will feel better and better every single day. The health benefits of regular green smoothies are so powerful that they will almost seem like a magic potion.
There is a very simple recipe or formula that anyone can follow to make amazing delicious and nutritious green smoothies every single time. All you need to do is learn the basic components of a green smoothie and then with those in mind let your imagination run wild.
The most important building blocks to an awesome green smoothie are:
- using FRESH high quality leafy greens
- using ingredients that are high in soluble fiber
- adding grains for extra protein and extra dietary fiber
- using clean fresh water
That's all there is to it. If you can effectively accomplish those four things I can almost guarantee that you will have success with any assortment of ingredients you choose.
Greens:
Choosing the right leafy green vegetable for the job is like setting your house on a sturdy foundation. If this part isn't done right the entire remainder of the project will be compromised. Fortunately choosing the right one is VERY simple. The right leafy green vegetable is the one that is freshest and most readily available to you. My personal favorites are Kale and Swiss Chard because they are both very easy for me to grow in my garden at home. Not everyone has the time, energy, or space to grow greens at home, but that is okay because there is an excellent assortment available for purchase at your nearest grocery store or farmers market. In most cases Spinach will be the best choice because it is readily available and considerably high in important nutrients such as protein, iron, and Vitamins K & A. You can start small with the amount of greens you use in your smoothie, but you will find that the more you make them the more greens you'll want to add. I usually use 1 massive handful and I always put it in my blender first so the leaves are right on the blades and blend thoroughly.
Experimenting with different leafy greens is very important because it gives your body a wide assortment of beneficial nutrients to work with. You want to avoid using the same leafy green for extended periods of time and switch them up on occasion or use a variety of greens in every smoothie you make. Some leafy greens I recommend you try are, Swiss Chard, Kale, Spinach, Arugula, Watercress, Parsley, Lettuce, Bok Choy, Collards, Carrot/Beet/Radish Tops, and Dandelion Greens. Using a wide variety of ingredients is a very important part of a healthy diet and it helps you avoid getting stuck in a rut.
It is not necessary to strictly buy organic products for your smoothies as this can get very expensive, but it is certainly worth considering since you will be taking in so many fruits and vegetables. You want them to be as clean and wholesome as possible. If there is one ingredient I would make sure to buy organic as often as possible it would be the leafy greens. Because greens grow so close to the ground they have a large group of potential pests meaning they often have the most pesticides used during their growth. Choosing organically grown food helps you avoid harmful commercial pesticides and promotes good sustainable farming practices.
Soluble vs. Insoluble Fiber:
Most people have heard that we could use more fiber in our diets. What many may not know is that there are two kinds of fiber soluble and insoluble. Soluble fibers dissolve in water and insoluble fibers do not. Both are very important for your body and play different roles. Soluble fibers are particularly important to green smoothies because they help bind the water and the solid ingredients together creating a very smooth and enjoyable texture. A green smoothie with not enough soluble fiber will have a very gritty texture and will seem like a glass of water with blended things floating in it. This is not very pleasing to the pallet and can instantly turn you off of this wonderful food source. The leafy greens and the grains added will be very high in insoluble fibers so it is very important to choose some fruits and vegetables that contain lots of soluble fiber to help balance things out.
The best place to start is by adding a Banana. Bananas are available year round at the grocery store and are an excellent source of soluble fiber. Another added bonus of bananas is that they have a strong flavor that often overpowers all other ingredients in your smoothie. Other good sources of soluble fiber are blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, pears, apples, mangoes, chia seeds, tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, carrots, almonds, walnuts, and so many other great foods. It is very easy to get a good amount of soluble fiber into any smoothie. Increasing your intake of fiber will help you lose unwanted weight, keep you full, clean out your digestive system, maintain a healthy heart, manage cholesterol levels, and improve so many other aspects of your body.
Grains:
This is one important ingredient that is often forgotten about when considering making a smoothie. Using a variety of grains in your diet carries so many health benefits that I could create an entirely different post discussing them and likely will. Adding grains to your smoothie helps add crucial nutrients such as proteins, healthy fats, more fiber, and assorted trace vitamins and minerals. The more grain you add to your smoothie the more full it will make you feel as well which helps transform them from a refreshing snack into a serious meal. All the added fiber and good fats will help you feel full and nourished for hours. You also get the added bonus of giving your body some easily digestible proteins which it can use to repair and build new muscle tissue. This will be important because all the excess energy these smoothies will give you will have to be put to use some how.
When adding grains to your smoothie it is best to grind them up. This will help keep a smooth consistency and make certain grains such as flax, which your body doesn't break down well, become more digestive system friendly. There is one major point to consider when using ground grains. It is important that they be freshly ground because the nutrients in them become very fragile and start to break down rapidly once they have been ground up. Because of this I like to keep a coffee grinder on hand near my blender. Another option instead of grinding grains is to use ones that are easy to digest without being ground. The best examples of such grains are hemp seeds, chia seeds, and oats. Hemp and chia seeds are my two first choices when I make my green smoothies because they have an excellent nutritional content and they digest well without being ground. This saves time and dishes when making your smoothies, but still gives you the optimal nutrition that adding grains does. It is also worth mentioning that you should rotate your grains for the same reason you should rotate your greens. Rotating will give you a variety of different vitamins and minerals for your body to work with.
Water:
Good clean pure water is a very simple, but important part of a healthy green smoothie. Water is the most essential part of life and good clean water is the best thing anyone can give their body. For added nutrition you can try making your smoothie with other healthy liquids such as almond milk, coconut water, or other nut milks. It is best to start with just enough water to cover most of the greens at the bottom of the blender. You don't need to add very much often 1 cup or less is enough to get everything blending nicely. You can always add more liquids if needed, but compensating for too much liquid is much more difficult so start slow and add if necessary.
If you follow these simple guidelines you will have great success making tasty green smoothies and you will have an amazing new addition to your diet. Fresh dark leafy greens, a couple sources of soluble fiber, some freshly ground grains, and good clean water is all it takes to make something wonderful and nutritious.
The following recipe is just a guideline to get you started making your own green smoothies. The potential combinations are endless. The more vegetables you can include the more gradually your body will use the energy from this meal helping you avoid unwanted spikes and crashes.
1 large handful of assorted leafy greens
1 banana frozen or fresh
1 handful of assorted berries
1 pear
3/4 cup of water/almond milk
2-5 tbsp of assorted ground grains (hemp seed, chia seed, pumpkin seed, flax etc.)
dash of cinnamon
honey to taste
Blend until everything is nicely mixed together and the texture is smooth. Pour into a nice glass and enjoy it casually at home or pour it into some kind of container such as a mason jar or a coffee mug with a large opening and take it with you wherever it is you have to go. Use a spoon or a spatula to scrape all that yummy goodness off the sides of your blender before rinsing it and make sure to rinse it right away. It will make clean up much much easier than if you let it sit and dry. Everything gets stuck to the edges and it makes for a minor headache trust me I've learned that the hard way
Once you've got the basics down you can start experimenting. Ingredients like herbs and spices can add interesting flavor variations. Green herbs like mint, lemon balm, rosemary, and oregano are particularly useful and each carry great health benefits. Mangoes are an excellent substitute for the banana as they are also very flavorful and loaded with soluble fiber. Powdered superfoods such as raw cacao, maca powder, and spirulina are also awesome ways to pack even more nutrition into an already abundantly nutritious meal.
It would be an absolute sin to throw away all the scraps that making these wonderful drinks creates. Now that you're going to have all these banana peels and other fruit and vegetable scraps it is probably time to look at starting up a compost pile or a worm farm. This may sound like a very hard and time consuming task, but that is absolutely not true. Check out my posts on both these topics to learn more about how you can easily start turning your food scraps into brown gold for your garden.
If you don't have a garden you can also check out my posts on starting your own simple veggie plots and who knows maybe even start growing some of your own leafy green vegetables. They require very little space and minimum sun exposure, but once you get them started they will help cut down your smoothie costs exponentially and you will know they are good, clean, fresh, organic, and full of nutrients. You could also try planting some of the herbs I mentioned as well to add extra tastes to your smoothies and your other meals.
If you're interested in green smoothies because they are a great starting point for converting to a diet aimed at a large amount of raw foods you will definitely want to check out this amazing ebook by a man named Yuri Elkaim. The book is called Eating for Energy and it will absolutely change your outlook on food. This book has helped me create and awesome way of life that is largely focused on raw meals.
http://www.eatingforenergy.ca/go.php?offer=organicnut&pid=1&u=ultimateenergydiet.com/start
Click below to see how Yuri can start helping you go raw and make sure to check out my post on raw foods as well.
http://www.eatingforenergy.ca/go.php?offer=organicnut&pid=1&u=ultimateenergydiet.com/start
Hopefully you can use what you've learned here as a stepping stone to start yourjourney to healthy natural organic living.
If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments.
