Green Smoothie Magic - 132+ Delicious Green Smoothie Recipes That Trim And Slim (11 page)

There are MANY claims that are on the internet that are unfounded. There are also many claims that are there simply because people find information, copy and paste it and voilà, it ends up being considered as fact, simply due to its popularity.

I recommend you develop critical thinking skills and be very careful not to accept everything you read just because you’ve read it a few times.

When it comes to health issues you want to take a pragmatic approach.

Will getting on the bandwagon and buying the latest greatest expensive sundried (but never above 108 degrees Fahrenheit) powdered fruit from the mountains of some South American country (which in order to purchase you need to take out another home loan) make a significant difference?

Maybe, maybe not.

What I can assure you though is that if you’ve been on anything that’s similar to the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) or you’ve been eating mainly cooked food and or processed food then it makes PERFECT SENSE that moving towards a diet that is FULL of fresh fruit and vegetables that are mostly raw and in their wholefood state, that are not processed IS going to make a significant difference. Period.

Taking extra superfoods like acai or camu camu or maca or whatever would just be a bonus. You can create the healthy you you want by sticking to the basic foods available so long as you have good variety.

Give It To Me Straight. What Are Superfoods?

One’s definition of ‘superfoods’ is going to change depending on your beliefs.

In writing this book I had to examine my own beliefs. I had to examine what I was holding true and finding out on what I was basing those beliefs. When I write a book, I want to be responsible for publishing verifiable and reliable information.

I discovered much information from the raw foodists’ camp that sounds as though it is full of fact. It’s often hard to determine what is based on researched facts and studies and what is simply ‘pseudo-science’. I found some information that is based on unsubstantiated claims and repeated information.

I also found that I myself had been guilty of repeating some of that information without ever having questioned or having searched for the facts.

Depending on where you look for this information say, about sprouts and microgreens, you will find completely conflicting information. And I mean polar opposite. This is definitely a time to question what you really believe and why.

Marketing is very persuasive. There are MANY new superfoods out there. It seems their panache and seductive powers can often have a LOT to do with the fact that you’ve not heard of them before.

This is just my opinion, but if you can’t afford the expensive superfoods that you can find in many health food stores out there on the streets or in your computer then opt for the freshest, cleanest wholefoods that you can.

I have deliberately NOT added modern-day marketed superfoods to these recipes. You can add them to your heart’s content. I want to make it EASY for you to find ingredients.

So for the sake of being ultra-pragmatic I believe you should not only eat loads and loads of raw fruit and vegetables but that you should also balance that with a small quantity of a variety of sprouts. More about sprouts and microgreens in a moment or two.

I also believe that you should use color as your guide. Make sure that you eat a wide variety of colorful foods. If you’re only eating berries then you need to find green, yellow, paler colors and purple to balance it out. Make your plate (and your smoothie ingredients!) colorful and you will be on the right track.

My firm belief is that wholefoods beat processed foods hands down.
To rely only on expensive ‘superfoods’ that sound exotic, as the key to your health seems to me to be misguided.
Start with the basics. Start with good organic or pesticide free, fresh local produce (do your best on as many counts as you can) and go from there.

Superfoods Are Within Your Reach

Me? I believe that superfoods are everywhere. A superfood is really something that is nutritionally dense and contains higher than average amounts of nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, enzymes, fatty acids or amino acids.

If you have been eating store bought vegetables and fruit that have been treated with insecticides and selective herbicides and then cooked, perhaps your benefits will come from making the significant lifestyle change and eating raw organic vegetables in their whole form. Simple really.

Just making the switch from processed foods to wholefoods is your own move to superfoods. It’s all relative. The change will really reflect the superfood qualities that you’re after. The alchemy of ingredients of your unadulterated foods is definitely understated.

Furthermore, to call a couple dozen particular foods ‘superfoods’ may not actually be the belief you want to engender. Don’t you think it would be better to consider all your well-chosen foods that you decide to put into your body as superfoods? That’s the way I like to look at it.

You wouldn’t call a jar of pasta sauce a superfood but you may like to think of traditionally grown fresh ‘heirloom’ tomatoes (ones that are grown from seeds passed down from generation to generation, naturally pollinated) organic garlic and basil (picked just this morning) in that way. Should you put some exotic sounding or difficult to pronounce substance on a pedestal?

The grass is not always greener over there!

Should You Eat Superfoods?

For the purposes of this section, we’ll refer to the following foods, those often expensive and exclusive foods as ‘superfoods’. We can refer to the humble rest as the simple miracles of nature. LOL!

As I implied before, to me an apple is a superfood. A beautiful fresh fruit, vegetable, green leafy, nut, seed and so on. They’re all superfoods when you can eat them in their natural state and particularly when you can afford what seems to be in the modern age, the luxury of organic produce.

By the way, I have several smoothie recipes in the book that include using the wholefood raw (unroasted) cacao nibs. I am sure there are some out there who would say that it is one of those marketed superfoods. You would be right.

Let’s consider that the cocoa powder that we’ve probably all bought over the years is actually a processed food. For the purposes of this book I will refer to cocoa as the processed product and cacao as the unprocessed one so that we can have some clarity. The alkalizing process they put cacao through to produce cocoa takes out the bitterness and contributes to a reduction in the nutrition.

Depending on the processing of the cocoa some will still maintain a reasonable nutritional profile while, if it is heavily processed, it will remove almost all the antioxidants that this superfood is known for.

Cacao is an unadulterated product from the cacao bean. The powder is just one of the products. It’s been my experience in dozens of ‘chocolate green smoothie’ recipes that the bitterness of raw cacao powder can sometimes be overwhelming. For MANY testers it has been an acquired taste. Once they like it then they enjoy their choc green smoothie more.

However what I definitely found was that when I added raw cacao nibs to the smoothie (especially thrown in towards the end of blending) that they complement the flavor without overpowering the smoothie. You get to taste more of the ingredients. Plus you get a little extra ‘mouth feel’ component which I think is important for variety.

It becomes very same-old same-old if every smoothie you ever drink is well, um, too smooth :)

Here’s a guide for you to add the OTHER ‘superfoods’ (and I will recap cacao too)!

The Superfoods In
Green Smoothie Magic

Will I ask you to go out and buy lucuma or maca powder or mesquite? I think you realize that no, I won’t! After all this book is penned so that you can make
Green Smoothie Magic
with easy to find ingredients!

If you’re into ‘superfoods’ such as spirulina and other algaes, barley grass, wheatgrass, broccoli sprout powder, maca, lucuma, goji berries, acai berries, cacao, hemp, coconut, camu camu, bee products, noni and so on then do your research and make the purchase and then add it to whatever you like. But if you can’t afford these ‘superfoods’ don’t sweat it.

‘Ordinary Ingredients’ Have Magic Too

To call 2 dozen ingredients superfoods takes the focus from the life-giving properties of dozens and dozens of other wonderful foods that if treated well and remain relatively unprocessed also have extremely high merit. So don’t forget the
supposedly
ordinary ingredients.

You may believe (as I do) that spirulina is well worth taking but you can’t justify the expense of camu camu or lucuma. You may find some great benefits to your hormonal system taking maca powder but can’t for the life of you find anything worth forking up the big bucks for some mesquite.

You may decide that coconut really is a miracle food (as many have attested) and you want to add some to your diet every day.

There are certain ‘superfoods’ that give you more value for your dollar. If you’re considering more of nature’s bounty as superfoods then you’ll feel super (pardon the pun) when you add apples or almonds, broccoli and brazils, herbs and spices, berries and celery, dried fruits and leafy greens. Choose the best ingredients you can find within your budget.

So, Can You Put ‘Superfoods’ In Your Smoothies?

Heck yes! Why not, I say. Go ahead and add them in. My recipes are designed without needing any (sometimes prohibitively expensive) ‘superfoods’ because frankly there is still a LOT of contention about how much extra nutritional benefit one gets from these foods (above and beyond what you can get from other pure sources).

Use all my recipes as a base. Pop in some lucuma or maca or spirulina or acai or sprouted rice protein powder to your heart’s content.

First make the smoothie and
then
add the extras that you want. The superfood will change the flavor somewhat. Maca for example, has a strong taste that is pretty hard to mask. It tastes a little bitter to me. Others will complement flavors very well. My ‘
Vanilla Pudding Smoothie
’ or the ‘
Carob Pudding Smoothie
’ will enjoy a little mesquite and or lucuma.