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Green Smoothies
I’ve been reading raw food cookbooks for about the last two years, and I try to make sure that half the food we eat each day is raw. We all know that we’re supposed to be eating leafy dark greens, and I’ve tried hard (especially since I’ve been pregnant) to make sure we eat at least a little every day. But I would find myself struggling to figure out ways to prepare them.
Then a few weeks ago, I got this book out of the library. The author reiterates how important leafy dark greens are, and then she describes what seems to be the best way I’ve ever seen to incorporate them into our diets. Green smoothies. Every morning and evening now, I put a whole bunch of organic greens (spinach, chard, beet tops, kale - whatever I have) in my food processor with a little water and some frozen organic berries. Then I let the food processor do its thing for about three minutes. Viola! Green smoothies that have dramatically increased our consumption of dark greens. It doesn’t get much easier as far as food prep goes, and they’re surprisingly tasty - even my husband agrees.
So I don’t have to think about how I’m going to add leafy greens to our meals anymore, and I haven’t eaten salad dressing in three weeks. I do have to go to the store more often now, since I like using very fresh greens in my smoothies. But I make sure that I go straight to the produce section, get my greens (whatever organic variety is on sale) and get out - no wandering the grocery store and picking up random things here and there. Since I can walk to the grocery store from our house, it’s not inconvenient to shop for greens a few times a week. If we lived out in the country, I would probably switch to frozen greens for my smoothies.
I’m already thinking about spring time when we can plant our little patch of chard out back and I’ll be able to make free smoothies all summer!
What is the book? The link doesn’t take me to the title. Thanks!
January 14th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Oops! Thanks for the heads up Lisa - I fixed the link. The book is called “12 Steps To Raw Food - How to End Your Dependancy On Cooked Food” by Victoria Boutenko.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Wow! That sounds awesome. I’ll have to try my hand at making green smoothies.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Ill look for that book, thanks!
January 15th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Hey! So I first heard about this on your blog and did some research and decided to give this a try and I love, love, love them! BUT, in the month or so that I’ve been doing this, I’ve gone through two brand new blenders (not very frugal). The first was a slightly lower-end model so I thought ok, fine, let me replace it with some thing a bit nicer. But that broke, too (it was a Black & Decker blender that automatically turned off when the motor got overheated). Green smoothies seem relatively popular and not everyone out there can have bought a vitamix for a few hundred dollars to enjoy the, right?
March 9th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Jess,
I use a Cuisinart food processor that I got for about $150 (it was on sale, I think they’re normally about $200). I use it every day for the green smoothies, and about 4 or 5 times a week for other stuff, and it works great. I’ve had it for about two years and haven’t had any problems with it at all. I’ve read that the Vitamix is awesome, but I already had the food processor and it does the job. I think most blenders are just not that tough - we stopped using ours when we got the food processor.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:45 pm