18 Green Days untill GJF!!!

Yum! Who knew green smoothies could taste this good?

For a chlorophyll-rich start to your day, throw all the following in your blender:
3 leaves romaine lettuce (we say add the whole head of romaine!)
1 cup water
1/2 honeydew melon, cut up into cubestables
bunch fresh mint
chopped fresh ginger, to taste.
From Weezie

Hi!

So, we didn't end up going into Tucson today because we discovered that the bike store I wanted to go to isn't open on Mondays. So, we will go tomorrow!

How would you like to talk about Green Smoothies?

Let me start by saying that Victoria Boutenko is one of my heros and I love her very much. If you don't yet have her book Green For Life, be sure to add it to your "must get very soon" list of books.

When I first began to eat raw foods, I was very on and off with it for a year (then I came to The Tree of Life and met David, and I have been 100% ON ever since.) For the first six months of my first year of raw, I did not know about green smoothies, and if I did, I somehow didn't try to make one.

I was very subborn about appliances (as in not wanting them) and I wasn't yet convinced that a blender could possibly be worth the price of a Vita Mix, and all I had was a hand held Braun blender wand. Then, I got Victoria's magical book, and I realized I just had to join the Green Smoothie Revolution.

So, I had this little $7 juicer from the thrift store, and in my dedication to the green smoothie, I would first put all my greens into the juicer, then I would put both the pulp and the juice into another container and blend it the rest of the way with my dinky hand held Braun. With the equipment I had, it was the only way I could get the greens blended down enough, and I was so excited about green smoothies that I over looked the time and clean up that this method took (hey, I was using about $20 worth of equipment, and I was loving it!)

The results were SO worth it! I cannot emphasise enough how important green smoothies (and all ways of eating greens) are. Even when I was still eating cooked food, as long as I included a green smoothie in the morning, I was set. I can honestly say that green smoothies created the bridge I needed to cross into raw foods. I now know that the price of a Vita Mix is worth the cost of addmition, it will become your best loved appliance I promise.

~Not only will green smoothies become a very important part of your diet after your Juice Feast, but by adding them in today you will be training your body (and your taste buds) to love the taste of green. We have heard from many people who simply can't palate their green juice, and this is only because they haven't spent enough time getting to know greens (if this is you, don't worry, you will learn to love greens!) On a Juice Feast it is very important to drink green juice, and it is very important to enjoy your juice, so lets practice with green smoothies.~

Here is a bit of what Victoria says about learning to love greens:

Naturally, one question comes to mind. Why don't greens taste good to us? Isn't our body wise enough to intuitively crave what it needs? .... It seems clear to me that if we do crave the foods with stimulants, like sugar, caffeine, white flour, it means that our intricate bodily homeostasis has become distorted.

In the last few centuries, the human body has changed. The foods that have more stimulating tastes have become more appetizing to us than natural, unproscessed foods.

Remarkably, green smoothies are not only nutritious, but also delightfully palatable even to children.

I strongly believe that it is possible to restore our ability to like and crave healthy foods. We could learn to live on a natural, healthy diet, even though we have developed some powerful, unnatural cravings.

I will encourage you to get Victoria's book for more information on WHY greens are SO important - and they are REALLY important - but sufice it to say here that they are our most NUTRIENT DENSE FOODS and that is what we are looking for when we are looking for health and well being. I will attest to the fact that you can, and will learn to love and crave greens....I have never been turned off by greens, and have always been a big salad eater (every day!), BUT, I have noticed that my love for greens has continued to go up and up.

The magic of a green smoothie of course is that it doesn't taste so green. By mixing fruit with your greens, you get something sweet and fresh tasting. I have yet to meet someone who doesn't love a green smoothie. My whole family (Oma, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, everyone!) had green smoothies for breakfast at Christmas, and guess what? My beautiful cousin-in-law just emailed me to say that she is still going strong on green smoothies and has been almost 100% raw since Jan. 7th!!!

How do you make one? Here is where it gets fun and yummy.

Take some greens, some fruit, and some water, blend it up and ENJOY!!

Really, it is that simple, and you are loading your body with amazing nutrition (and training your little taste buds to love your green juice.)

Check out Victoria's site for some specific recipes, and of course her book has lots too.

Most mornings will find David and I with a green smoothie. This morning's had 1 large bunch of Lactancia Kale, 1lb of blueberries, 1 banana, 1 TBS spirulina, 1 TBS bee pollen, and enough water to fill the blender. Another favorite is 1lb of spinach, 1lb of mango, 1 banana, spirulina and bee pollen. But you really can add anything! Spinach/orange/grape/blueberry is also really yum. So is mango/cilantro.

A bit like making juices, let your super creative taste powers guide you in making what ever mix feels yummy to you, and don't go easy on the greens!! (you can to begin with, but bulk up on them ASAP!)

An important note that Victoria makes is that if you leave fat out of your green smoothie, you will assimilate all the nutrition from the greens much better, so we make our green smoothies fat free. This means no flax, coconut, cacao, or oils.

A question from a dear reader:

Looking forward to begining the Green thing. Question.. Can you give suggestions on how to plan for the greens?? Do you buy every day or like two heads of romaine and this will last all week?

Because we live in the Arizona desert, we buy our greens right now (although we do have some plans for growing some soon.) We tend to buy enough greens for 4-7 days at a time, and this will ussually make the check-out person's eyes bug out a bit. David and I try to get in at least a pound of greens each every day. Next time you are at the grocery store, weigh out a pound of greens, times it by two if you are like us, and then buy enough to last you until your next market trip. In our case, two heads of romaine would not last a day let alone a week! When we were up in B.C. for christmas, my mom brought out the camping coolers to store all our greens in because there just wasn't enough room in the fridge! Same at my dad's house, we had bags of greens all over the back porch (it is cold up there at this time of year as I may have mentioned, so the porch became a fridge.) Remember, there are four excellent ways to get your greens (AKA The Four Means To Get Your Greens coined by David Rain) eat them in a salad, blend them into a soup, blend them into a smoothie, or juice them. If you do 3 out of these 4 things every day, you will be getting in close to a pound of greens, and this is SPECTACULAR!!

So what's for breakfast tomorrow? GREEN SMOOTHIE!!!!

I just noticed that my sister Heather joined GlobalJuiceFeast.com! And my dad is there too!! Can't wait to see YOU there darling reader, it is going to be fun.

Good night, sleep tight, wake up bright in the morning light, to do what's right with all your might!!!

Love and Hugs,

Katrina and David

PS. We are often asked in regard to Juice Feasting "What about fibre? Wouldn't it be better to do green smoothies, and keep the fibre in? Don't you need fibre?" The answer is a resounding YES you need fibre, but on a Juice Feast we are very mindfully, and with purpose taking the fibre out for a specific period of time so that your body can go into a cleansing physiology. After your Juice Feast, smoothie it up!

PPS. We have some new blogging Juice Feasters with us! Please welcome Peggy, Destiny's Child and Karen! You can find links to their blogs under the Now Juice Feasting list of blogs. Love**