Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Re: Lovin' the green smoothies

Q: What is our recipe?
A: 2 cups filtered water, then gradually add chopped up greens (Kale, spinach, chard, or collards) pulse the blender to mix them all, keep adding greens until you get the blender up to the 2 1/2 cups mark.
Blend 90 seconds on high.
Then add a banana and 3 other servings of fruit.
Blend on high another 90 seconds.
If the end product doesn't taste like an awesome fruit smoothie, add another banana or 5-6 drops of stevia and that usually fixes it.

Today we had collards with 1 banana, a handful of strawberries, and 3 plums. I usually use whatever kind of fruit is on sale and often buy and freeze the over-ripe bananas. I also freeze the greens if I can't use them up fast enough. I like our smoothies, but I've heard the texture and flavor is better in a professional quality blender like vitamix. Other possible greens include (lettuce, parsley, beet greens, turnip greens, dandelion(not sprayed or near roadways), purslane(not sprayed or near roadways).

Q: Does Smoothie improve temperement, behavior, learning?A: In the last month, we've had smoothie about 5 times per week along with dramatically reduced amounts of junkfood and a probiotic for J.
Results:
1)no more wall climbing and less standing on heads (it used to be incessant).
2)J has been healthy for a month straight, the first time he's been healthy that long in a year.
3)J has much more energy than usual.
4)AP and Dad had the flu which we assume they got at Church since he went to Nursery with her, but amazingly no one else got it!!! Dad doesn't drink smoothie and still eats lots of fast food, but he hasn't had a caffeinated drink in two weeks, yay!
5)Tantruming has stayed the same, unfortunately.

About the Color
I shared green smoothie with my friend Danika's kids in Albuquerque once, they weren't put off by the color (if you don't use a red fruit, it can be quite pretty), but it was 50% greens and that was too much for the first taste, so they didn't really care for it. If you try green smoothie, use much less greens and more fruit and work your way up.

2 comments:

Andrea said...

We've been trying green smoothies too. Only at our house they're called "Dragons". We've tried:
Green: (romaine and banana)
Red: (strawberry, grape, banana and mung bean sprouts)
Purple: (mixed berries, banana and spinach)
Orange: (orange, banana, carrot, bean sprouts and iceberg lettuce)

I've been serving salad more often. I used to think I was the only one who would eat it, but surprise j and e both like salad. Once that was all j ate! Little a and dad will eat it sometimes too.

I usually feel much better on days I eat more greens and go to sleep on time.

Living Lavallee said...

Thanks for the recipe. The improvement in some behaviors is, of course, fascinating, as is the better health.