Drink Your Greens

Many of you know that drinking green juices and green smoothies is one of the tastiest, easiest and most satisfying ways to help get optimum amounts of mineral-rich, alkalizing LIVING greens into your daily diet.

The word LIVING is capitalized in the previous paragraph (and this one, come to think of it) for an important reason. We need to consume life to generate life. If we consume only lifeless food, we must give up our own life force to turn something dead into something that can support vitality. Of the foodstuffs we consume, only raw living foods provide life force -- as living cells, active enzymes and stored solar energy -- direct to our body.

A new book, Catching Fire, argues that one reason humans started cooking food was to cut down on chewing time (thereby adding more productive tool-inventing, brain-developing hours to the day). Even if this were true, we must admit that just because our ancestral cave-men and -women, in all their primal wisdom (and I mean that), started a trend a million or so years ago doesn’t make that trend the best choice for health.

Yes, chewing pounds of leaves daily can be tedious work. And the hard cell walls of certain plants do inhibit nutrient absorption in some cases. Nevertheless, cooking all of our veggies down to a limp squish is NOT the only alternative! Scientifically, it is well known that cooking leafy greens and other plant foods diminishes or destroys many of their health-giving properties -- from their precious, living vibrational energy force to their proteins, vitamins, delicate phytonutrients and so on.

There must be a solution to the "must I eat these mounds of leafy greens again, Ma?" problem. Enter the BLENDER. Blenders make short work of kale, spinach, chard, parsley and any fresh leafy green you can name. Blending greens yields a product wherein no chewing is required to break down fibers. (It's still a good idea to "chew" your smoothies, to commence digestive action via salivary enzymes.) And JUICERS take the process a step further by removing all fiber from the final product without damaging nutrients or enzymes and enabling almost direct absorption into body cells. Who knows – if cavemen had access to these modern kitchen tools, perhaps they never would have invented cooking in the first place!

I love drinking vegetable juices (what Kristen Suzanne vampirously, and with a wink, calls “plant blood”) for the pure hit of liquid solar energy they provide. And smoothies offer the convenience of a delicious and satisfying meal in a glass – especially filling when they include a handful of goji berries, chia seeds or other whole food soluble fiber source.

Smoothies also provide an ideal vehicle with which to indulge your inner alchemist, as you may add any number of nourishing superfoods and medicinal botanicals to your potion -- think golden berries, green foods, maca, MSM, raw cacao, bee pollen, milk thistle, pau dArco, Reishi mushrooms, and on… and on….

If you are interested in learning more about Green Smoothies, do consider reading Victoria Boutenko’s Green for Life, the book which started it all. For rationale and ideas on juicing, anything by Norman Walker or Natalia Rose’s excellent Raw Food Life Force Energy are sure to inform, inspire and delight.

Very Green Super Chocolate
Hemp Seed Smoothie

1 banana
1 soft pitted date
4 leaves kale
10 raw almonds (small handful)
2 teaspoons hemp seeds*
1 teaspoon chia seeds*
1 Tablespoon raw cacao powder*
1 level teaspoon spirulina powder*
1 scant teaspoon MSM powder (3 grams)*
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper or more, to taste
½ teaspoon cinnamon or more, to taste
1 cup leftover herb tea or water
2-4 ice cubes

Add everything to the blender and blend on high speed till well combined. Pour into a glass and drink. Will thicken up as it sits so be sure to add enough liquid at the beginning.

*These items available at a significant savings to clients and local readers by pre-order and in person at my new discount superfood store, Community Superfoods!