Green Smootie Recipe??

[SnowBunny]

Does anyone have a good green smoothie recipe they wouldn't mind posting? I looked in the smoothie section on this site and there isn't one. I keep hearing about drinking them and I've made some pretty funky concoctions!

Thanks in advance

[rawhippie]

4-6 leaves kale
2 bananas
2 oranges
1 heaping teaspoon of ground flax seed
about 1 cup of good water

i love this, came up with it myself (although i'm sure it's in some book somewhere!) while trying to use up fruit that was about to go bad, and i just love it.
it's very sweet and tasty, hits the spot in the morning for me with a good kick start.
ENJOY!!!

[greenbunny]

Hey Hippie,

Have you ever gone through a period where you didn't mix fruits with veggies to feel the difference?

I can mix fruits and veggies in juices because there is no fiber to process, but usually when I mix fruits and veggies in any other way it reduces my vitality.

I plan on trying your recipe as an experiment. Does it work in a regular blender or do you need a high powered machine for it to work?

I've been into food combining for so long that it's going to be a stretch for me, but it sounds like the smoothies with greens really work for you, so I'll be daring.

Greenbunny

[rawhippie]

GREAT!!
you know, personally, i know nothing about food combining. what i do know is how i feel after green smoothies, and it is such a noticable burst of energy and well being that i totally notice it when i haven't had one in a few days. the one thing someone once told me that has kind of stuck with me on my journey is "as long as the food is raw, your body will know exactly what to do with it." following that "montra" if you will, has not steered me wrong yet. when i first started, i would pig out on raw food because my body knew when to stop as it was all nutricious and digestable. over time, i lost a lot of weight and my appetite mellowed out.

but back to the smoothies, this book has been recommended on this site a lot by myself and others, and i continue to recommend it, "green for life" by victoria boutenko, it is such an eye opening book, as are all her other books. she is a fantastic writer and writes from her own experiences and experiements. check it out!

greenbunny, good luck with the smoothie! it's super delicious.
i use my vitamix for this recipe, but only because i like my smoothies cold and add ice. if you leave out the ice, i'm sure a regular blender is just fine.
peace
hippie

[rawhippie]

oh, forgot...
yes i have kept fruit and vegetables separate and notice nothing extremely different. i digest fine and all, but the green smoothies are a noticable shot of vitality.

in the book mentioned above, it is mentioned that there is not enough research done on greens. victoria had done her own research and compiled different study papers from universities and other places and found that all the nutrients that greens have to offer actually offer us the same amount of protein as meat! we humans throw away the greens ie: the tops of beets, carrots, etc. and are actually throwing away the most benefical part of the food. we do this because the greens are not as palatable and sweet as the root. and here's where the green smoothies come in! adding things to the greens like fruit and dates, or anything sweet, makes it palatable for us to like and we get the proper nutritional balance.
the differnece between eating greens in a salad and blending them (as outlined in victoria's book) is that humans have evolved to a point where we are unable to chew the greens into a creamy state in order to assimilate all the nutrition. see, all the beneficial stuff is held within the cell walls of the greens, within the stems, and we do not have the capacity the break that down in our mouths, but a blender can "chew" them for us and release all that goodness!
okay, now i'm done, just get the book!
peace
hippie

[SnowBunny]

I tried the smoothie... well I didn't have everything on your list, so I improvised!

I dad chard instead of kale (kale makes me really sick anyways) and I don't eat banannas so I had to skip on those and only had one orange. So... basically I ended up making my own recipe! But yours helped in the creation!!

Greenbunny - I did it in a regular blender and I ended up chewing a couple pieces since it's pretty chunky. But I didn't mind it

Thanks RawHippie

[rawhippie]

any time i'm able to help, i'll be sure to chime in.
any time, snowbunny!
peace

[greenbunny]

I haven't been able to get myself to try such a recipe. Just the idea of mixing citrus and bananas or fruit and greens... Oh, that will take some courage. It will have to be on a day when if I feel sick I won't have anything planned. I don't think I've mixed any foods like that for 15 years at least.

What happens to you snowbunny and rawhippie when you eat something that isn't good for you? Do either of y'all still eat cooked food? The last time I went all raw I was raw awhile and then had some cooked food (winter squash I think - it was last fall I think) my body just refused to allow it and I instantly threw up. Any time I ate cooked food after that the same thing happened to me. My body just wanted that garbage out! I couldn't go back to eating cook food at this point if I wanted to. My body has made its decision. If I eat even raw foods that aren't fully fresh or right or combined correctly, or good for me at the moment, my body lets me know immediately.

It's going to be an interesting experiment these green smoothies. I'm willing to try it just because there's such a big to-do about them.

I must say that the arguments about humans devolving so as not to have teeth to grind greens and such doesn't make any logical sense. We evolved from fruitivores, not herbivores. The herbivores like cows have multiple stomachs to digest heavy fibers and animals such as rabbits re-ingest some forms of their feces in order to take it through again to have it more digestible. The species that are designed to eat mostly fruit like the primates (we are primates along with the apes and monkeys) don't have and never have had teeth or digestive systems designed to process densely fibrous materials.

Our primary ideal food source under perfect conditions is fruit.
We are omnivores when faced with a lack of our ideal food source.

Much like when dogs eat grass when sick, greens and herbs are medicine. Eating grass, bark or leaves isn't what we are most attracted to in the wild. We love sweet things and don't want to eat bitter greens because we are biologically geared to know that sweet things mean good food. We are fruitivores by nature. Green things and bitter things are medicine. Now, that doesn't mean by a long shot that we don't need them, especially in the toxic and stressful modern world that we live in. The thing is, if you mix all these things together it's harder to know if they are reallly good for you or not. Here, I'll give you an example:

Echinacea and golden seal are fabulous herbs that help to strengthen the immune system and are very bitter. There is a tincture called Ensure that is a mixture of these two herbs with some others that is a great immune booster but is also a fairly intense flavor. When I am well it taste extremely bitter and awful, but when I am sick and need it it actually taste really good to me. I crave it. It's yummy.

Some times I just want to eat greens, lots of them. I'll go after the garnishes in restaurants. I want the tough bitter stuff. Then, they will stop appealing. I healed what I need to heal and will go back to just wanting food - mostly fruit.

There was a while there that I really wanted lots and lots of chlorella - you know - green algae. I would take handfulls of pills. It was very clear that I needed that medicine. Then it stopped.

There is just something inside of me that says, "Hey, if I needed those greens, then they would taste good to me and I'd be attracted to eating them." Hiding them in fruit... hmmmm.... I have my doubts. Having to hid kale or chard.... hmmmm..... Are you telling me that you really never like eating chard or kale on its own???? There have been periods of my life, a year or three, I don't remember how long, when I wanted to eat almost nothing else but plain kale and chard. I almost lived on it along with the dandelions from the yard. I ate almost nothing but greens. I had no problem digesting them whatsoever. They were raw. They had enzymes. They basically digested themselves.

I really wonder if greens aren't digestable to people because their bodies don't want them. If your body doesn't want to go munch on a chard, why hide it in the food that your body does want?!

Well, I will try your green smoothies, I will. I'm going to research this more for myself.

I tend not to believe what I read just because someone wrote it. I eat raw because I think and question and experiment. So I've now thought and questioned, so all that's left is the experiment. Courage!!!!

Greenbunny

[rawhippie]

alright, greenbunny, since you're such the curious person and need to know everyting, you inparticular NEED to read "green for life" by victoria boutenko!

first of all, the Evolving that happened to us really has to do with the fact that our sapien, chromagnon, and neanthradal ancestors had much larger heads, jaws, more teeth, and more muscle strength. over evolution all of those things decreased, we have smaller jaws, less teeth, and much less muscular ability.

the primates that we are closest to (chimpanzees) are one chromosom away from our own DNA. research has been done on their diet to see what the first humans probably ate as a full diet. this study has shown that they eat 50% fruit, 40% greens, and the other ten percent is mixed: bark, seeds, small game when necessary, etc.

we NEED greens. they are digestable. however, our body chemistry has been soooo morphed by the introduction of processed foods over the last 50+ years.

now, combine that with americans extreme laziness, and you get people who cannot listen to their bodies and look at you sideways when you say such a thing.

bottom line, we are very much supposed to eat greens, they are not palatable to me in large quantiites, though. in order for us to get the daily requirement of greens, green smoothies are the best way to do that.....sanely.

hope that helps clear up some things about "unpalatable" greens.

peace
hippie