One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies. (Nothing to Lose -- when Martin Lawrence tries the sour fruity twist.) I mention it because I think maybe my taste buds have adjusted to my sugar/dairy/wheat-free lifestyle. Cuz I'm making brown smoothies like there's no tomorrow. I'm packin' 'em full of vegetables I previously shunned and actually enjoying them. What up with that? Just this morning...well, right now, I'm enjoying an olive drab smoothie of red bell pepper, cucumber, celery, kale, Swiss chard, tomato, carrot, onion, ginger, lemon, spirulina, ground flax seed, banana, apple, mango, and raspberry. Whew! That's a lot of fruit and veg. And, while it may look kind of thick and unappealing, it actually tastes quite good. And there's no getting around how good I feel when I drink these things. I feel awake and energetic and I think I'm actually starting to crave them! I went camping last weekend and the first thing I wanted when I got home was a big ol' brown smoothie. (FYI, they're usually brown because I like red fruits and veg, and (Art101) green + red = brown.) You can begin to understand why these things are good for you if you read up on nutrition and watch shows like Forks Over Knives and Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. Americans eat relatively few vegetables and veggies provide the nutrients our bodies need to function properly. I thought I was eating "healthy" for 48 years. And then I started researching and it turns out I wasn't eating healthy. So I changed my life. And now at almost-50 I look and feel better than I've ever felt. I'm down to 98 pounds -- my high school weight. And I don't have to work out (although I definitely feel more like working out now) or count calories or try to restrict my intake to maintain the weight loss effortlessly. I haven't ever tried to lose weight since I changed my diet -- it just melts away and stays gone.
I keep trying to share this information with my small world of friends and family, but people are amazingly resistant to this information. They absolutely do not care that they can lose weight and get healthy and avoid the diseases of Western civilization by changing their diet. They want to keep eating breads and dairy and sugar and then get a pill (multiple pills, I'm sure at some point) from the doctor to treat the symptoms of their diseases (because there is nothing your doctor can give you to prevent or cure your obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, etc.). That just makes no sense to me when you can make yourself healthy for free and stay healthy and never need to battle the bulge or any of the associated illnesses. But that seems to be the way it is. People just don't want to know. Or they don't want to believe -- they write it off as wacky, because it's inconsistent with what we've been told our whole lives and our doctors would have told us, right? But I'm not giving up -- if you do anything for yourself this year, watch Forks Over Knives and read Why We Get Fat (WWGF is the lay version of Good Calories Bad Calories, which is awesome, but GCBC is over 450 pages of detailed technical discussion, and, let's just admit, he gets a bit repetitive in there).
So, in case anyone else is remotely interested in getting crazy healthy, I thought I'd give you the basics of the brown smoothie in two easy steps.
Let's begin.
What you need:
Best blender you can afford. I got some turbo thing that cost about $300 when I got into smoothies. (A Waring Xtreme commercial blender.) But you can start with anything, and blenders are as cheap as $15. Just know that the more powerful the blender, the better the result -- we're chopping up some tough fibrous veggies here and the more you can pulverize those particles, the more palatable it will be.
Every organic veg and fruit you have in the house. I mean this. It does not matter what organic vegetables you use, as long as you make at least 40-60% of the smoothie with organic fruit. The fruits' sweetness will cover all the vegetable flavors and you won't even know that you're eating vegetables. (Same principle as V8 Fusion. But better -- your smoothie is made with nothing but organic whole fruits and vegetables, including the fiber, and no preservatives.) So even if you can't think of a reason to buy cucumbers or some other veg, get them anyway -- you can use them in smoothies. And there are plenty of vegetables that are sweet by themselves, like carrots and red bell peppers. I like to include ginger and lemon for flavor, and you could easily add basil and mint and other herbs to give it more flavor. And herbs like ginger and ginko and other things are good for you. I basically wind up doing a treasure hunt through the fridge, the freezer, and my backyard garden. Note that frozen fruits and vegetables are great for this, because they keep well and will make the smoothie cold without the need for ice.
What to do:
Liquefy. Yes, just throw it all into the blender with plenty of water (do not use cow's milk - milk isn't good for you -- it's got a lot of lactose (sugar), no more calcium than the veg you're about to consume, and actually draws calcium from your system in order to digest the milk), and add ice if you need to make it colder. Do not add sugar, or honey or any sweetener. The fruit has plenty of sugar and the point is to be healthy. Then blend it until it's as smooth as possible, and drink up. I find it doesn't store well, because the pulverized plants start to oxidize. So you'll want to drink it shortly after you make it. |
| Okay, so this one is actually green! Don't be put off -- a healthy smoothie can be delicious in any color! |
And that's it. The brown smoothie. Please drink responsibly.
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