I’m so excited to introduce a new member of the Green Smoothie Queen Blog Team, Lisa Simpson of Raw Liberty. Her articles will be featured on here every week and they will be chock-filled with great tips about greens! -GSQ
– by Lisa Simpson of Raw Liberty
The Benefits of Green Smoothies
We’ve all heard the sayings, “Eat Your Greens” and “Greens are good for you”, but do you really know how true it is? Greens provide us with one of the most perfect forms of nutrition we can consume. They are loaded with amino acids, (the building blocks of protein), minerals, vitamins, fibre & chlorophyll. In fact the chlorophyll – the green pigment of a plant – is biochemically almost identical to human blood! This just makes it our perfect food! According to Victoria Boutenko, the author of Green for Life, greens are the primary food group that match human nutritional needs most completely.
Our bodies require a certain amount of nutrients to thrive. In drinking or eating something that is packed with nutrients you will find that you will be satisfied throughout your day and your cravings will be reduced accordingly.
Greens can be combined with any other food and enhance digestion by stimulating enzyme production. Therefore, the combination of greens and fruit in green smoothies is an ideal combination.
Green Smoothies are smoothies that are made with blended fresh leafy greens. It’s as simple as that. Often the greens are blended with fruits, which provide you with a delicious meal bursting with nutrition! However, as fantastic as greens are, we would have to chew them for ages in order to get them to the creamy consistency that is necessary for us to be able to take full advantage of all the nutrition they hold – the nutrients are stored within the plant’s cells and their cell walls need to be ruptured in order to release them; that’s where the smoothies come in. By blending your greens in a high speed blender, they are broken down at a cellular level which not only releases more flavour, it also makes the bounty of nutrients more readily available for your body.
So, what can Green Smoothies do for you?
Drinking a green smoothie everyday will:
- boost your immune system
- boost your mental performance giving you clearer thought
- increase digestive efficiency
- support weight loss
- balance body PH
- give you more energy
- reduce body aches and pains
- reduce acne
- reduce illness
- promote easy weight loss
- reduce craving for coffee and caffiene
… and the positive benefits goes on.
Green smoothies do look green admittedly, but they taste delicious and tend to take on the taste of the fruit in them. It is generally recommended to use 40% greens and 60% fruit, but of course you can vary this depending on taste preferences! You can use any green – experiment yourself with combinations; however, don’t use the same green or fruit all the time. It is important to rotate your greens to get a variety of nutrients and to respect the seasons.
If you can’t grow your own greens, try to buy organic greens; they won’t contain pesticides and herbicides and will contain more nutrients than non-organic greens. If you can only buy non-organic, make sure you thoroughly wash them before blending.
This is my tried and tested recipe, specially for beginners.
Newbies Green Delight
In your blender place:
- 2 ripe bananas
- 1/2 cup of another fruit (pineapple, blueberry, apple, peach, or mango)
- 1 1/2 cups of fresh greens (kale, chard leaves, or spinach)
- 1 – 2 cups of water (or to desired consistency – I like to eat mine with a spoon from a large wine glass…oh so decadent!)
Blend, just long enough to make it smooth and creamy without heating it up and ENJOY!
By now, hopefully, you are excited by the positive benefits of green smoothies! So, I challenge you to replace at least one meal a day and learn more about green smoothies in the 3-day Green Smoothie Queen Challenge.
Good luck!