crazyrawlife
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green smoothies should be all about FRUIT
Day 2 of my transition to a more 80/10/10 style of eating and I have already had my first ‘ah-ha’ moment! Actually, I probably had my first one last week when I did a day of all fruit, but it will take some courage to write about that one, so will save it for a day I’m feeling a little more brave.
Anyways… back to my ah-ha. {…drum-roll…} Green smoothies should be all about FRUIT!
Simple, I know, but for the longest time (or at least two years) I have desperately wanted to fall in love with green smoothies but couldn’t. They tasted gross. They had too many overpowering greens in them, or called for too many ‘additions’, or I always felt under pressure to have more greens than fruit because of the sugar etc, blah, and blah. Despite a hefty investment in a Blendtec blender to get them totally smooth, I just couldn’t make them anything other than bananas with almond butter, vanilla, and spinach, edible.
That didn’t stop me successfully selling the benefits of them though, so much did I believe in the benefits and want to love them. My mother has been having one every day for goodness knows how long, and she loves to tell me how, by sharing a little with her assistant at work each day, she got her hooked too! Her friends started telling her she was looking much healthier and asked her what she had changed… the only thing was the small daily addition of mum’s green smoothie. She is now the proud owner of a blender too. Powerful stuff right?!? Still, I couldn’t do it.
Then today, totally by accident, I figured it out. FRUIT! Last night, I was so full from the first course of my 80/10/10 meal plan’s dinner menu (a whole pineapple and 2 tangerine smoothie) that I didn’t get to the two romaine lettuces I was supposed to eat – first in a soup, then in a salad. Then, this morning when I was blending up my breakfast smoothie (a whole pineapple + 6 kiwi fruit), I thought (reluctantly) that I should try adding one of the romaines… Success. The thing filled my 32oz nalgene to the brim, I took it to work, drank it really quickly because it was so good (so no grazing and more time with Invisalign in – my dentist will be happy) and it kept me full for hours. And it was delicious. And green!
I’m going to try another one tomorrow and I’m excited. I have been liberated. I have permission to indulge in fruit. What a stupid, nonsense thing for someone who loves fruit to say, but it really is true. I had some funny hang-up about it and now it’s gone. Fruit, masses and masses of fruit.
I just wish summer would hurry up and get here so I could buy some fun stuff!
What’s your fav. crazy-fruity-green-no additives smoothie recipe??
xx
4 Comments on “green smoothies should be all about FRUIT”
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I LOVE love love this smoothie: juice of 1 lemon, 2 celery stalks, 2 cups water, 1 cup cilantro, 1 cup parsley, 1 apple – sometimes I add mango instead of apple … SO good. I got it from the Raw Family green smoothie app, they also have a website version of the app. http://greensmoothiesblog.com/recipes/ – it’s free, you just have to create an account. So many good smoothies and you can sort by ingredients/categories/etc. I would never have believed that this was a good smoothie but I’m adventurous and I liked all the ingredients just wasn’t sure about them together so I tried it. I’ve since brought this to volunteer events to share and everyone has loved it and they’re not even people interested in healthy things necessarily. Green cheers!
Ahhh… see this is where I fall down on green smoothies! It has more than three ingredients:) Trust your judgement though so will give it a go when I’m feeling more comfortable about the whole green smoothie thing…
Thanks for sharing!!
xx
bananas or mangoes nice and creamy. I usually use a dark green. I like kale and chard, but spinach is more popular, and easier on my budget. The key is starting with the fruit, then adding the greens. Just add greens till you can just barely taste them, then drink! Don’t try to make it all at once, you can probably tolerate more greens ina smoothie than you think, but less than recipes youve read call for
Yep, it’s all about balance and harmony of fruit to veggie ratio, I’ve started to learn that as well. Or pairing the right veggies with the right fruits so both the taste and color mesh well. I still try to be careful about going overboard on fruit, just because I watch my cal/sugar intake a lot, and like to reserve things like a granny smith apple for a snack during the day. But I’ve found the following make the most delectable smoothies for me. I follow this same recipe almost daily:
(or whatever green veggies you prefer)
1 cup of kale
1 cup of spinache
1/2 cup of peeled chopped cucumber
1/2 cup of celery
1 cup of coconut water
I blend all of that till it’s a puree’d green slime, then I actually strain out the juice where most hte nutrients are, so I’m not overloading my stomache with too much quantity/fiber. You don’t have to strain it, it’s just something I recently started doing since it’s the same idea behind juicing, and helps with texture/taste. Once I’ve strained all the juice out, which literally takes about 30 seconds with a wire mesh seive/strainer, I pour the juice back in the blender, and add the following.
1 pear cored , OR 1 cup of honeydew chopped (frozen chopped honeydew works great too)
1 scoop of vanilla protein
1/2 lime freshly squeezed
fresh vanilla beans stripped out of a vanilla pod, I only use about 1/8 tsp of the contents (i buy them in bulk on ebay and store them)
1/2 frozen banana (I break them up and freeze them in halfs)
Other optional add-ins:
1 kiwi
1 green apple
I blend up and add ice as neccessary.