What the heck is a liquid salad?
Some might prefer to call it a green smoothie.
Some might prefer to call it a green smoothie.
Lately, my brother and baby sister have been all gung ho about juicing – and they are feeling healthier and losing weight. But it can be a difficult lifestyle to maintain indefinitely. My brother let me borrow his Vitamix and I did some experimenting with that (and then he took it back!) Then, my mom hopped on the bandwagon and got a Nutribullet – and now the family is crazy about smoothies. This weekend us gals went together to WalMart and my other sister and I both got Nutribullets. Then, we all went to Whole Foods and loaded up on some good stuff to use in them. Instead of lasagna, I think we’ll do smoothies for my birthday party in May…
On Easter when the family was together, I remembered that my mom hadn’t seen the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, so I brought it up on my Netflix and we all watched it together. My niece thought juicing/green smoothies were gross but I told her ‘would you rather sit and eat that giant salad on the TV, or turn it into juice and drink it down?’ – and that made sense to her. And it really does. Not all of us stay awake at night dreaming of greens and veggies and how much we really really really love them.
So there’s no law that says you have to drink the green smoothies 24/7 – some people do if they are desperate to kick off a weight loss or detox (like the guys in the movie). So how about ONE A DAY? Just one. And you can choose which meal as well. Baby steps – and you will see a difference!
My mom is 66 and she has her normal breakfast and then uses her Nutribullet to make a green smoothie for lunch each day. And she can feel the difference already – and her doctor can see it. And it shows on her scale too (and it hadn’t budged much for a while). Can you sit down and think about doing a green smoothie once a day?
I love breakfast, it’s my favorite meal of the day and I like a nice warm filling breakfast so I’ll go ahead and keep that one. I had a green smoothie for dinner tonight.
You could blend up a smoothie and
- take it to work in a travel mug for later; or
- make extra, pour them into bags and freeze them for later use; or
- take the frozen smoothies to work and remember to defrost one each day for lunch;
It tastes better than it looks. You use greens, some fruit and some boost along with some liquid and there you go. And you can make the combinations yourself and use what you like best. You can either blend it all up and drink it down or sit there with a plate of greens and fruit and take your sweet time chowing it all down.
Blender – You’re going to need something powerful enough to blend up the greens, chunks of apple, etc. If you don’t have something you could use, check on Amazon to see what’s within your budget and has the power to handle the job. Also, if your credit cards have ‘points’, use them on Amazon to purchase the blender or check the card’s points program to see if they have a blender you could get for free. I’m using the Nutribullet right now and it’s easy to operate and clean and works great.
Greens – start with spinach, it’s milder and blends up easily. You can work your way up to kale and collard greens and such. Or you can add some kale in with the spinach gradually.
Fruit – on P10 we not supposed to go overboard with the fruit so keep it to a single banana or around a cup of berries or about a dozen grapes. If you wash, cut up the fruit and then freeze them in pieces you can get a colder creamier smoothie.
Bananas end up being kind of bland so you’ll want to use something with a kick to it once you start drinking more smoothies.
Boost – now is the time to toss in some of those ‘superfoods’ we hear so much about. I’m partial to chia gel. You could also use goji berries, maca powder, raw almonds, cacao nibs, acai berries, etc. More on those later. I need to have some info for future posts!
Liquid – in the past I’ve been a big fan of almond milk and you could use that if you’d like. Nothing wrong with trying some nice clean water or even some coconut water if you’d like to have that extra ‘oomph’. I’m guessing about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of liquid, less for thicker, more for thinner – you choose.
Basic Beginner’s Smoothie
1 banana
2 cups spinach
1/4 cup chia gel
1 1/2 cups water
Combine until smooth and enjoy.
Makes one very large serving or two regular servings
