My wife and I recently attended a class on making green smoothies. I have to admit, I was a bit apprehensive beforehand. OK, actually I was a LOT apprehensive!
I had flashbacks to the days when wheat grass and carrot juice drinks were popular. My memories of those? Blecchh!!! I am happy to say I was very pleasantly surprised at the smoothies we made. None of them were at all nasty tasting, and some of them were downright yummy! It is definitely a taste that grows on you.
Green smoothies are now all the rage in the raw food movement. Proponents claim a plethora of health benefits come from drinking them. There’s no doubt they are high in fiber and loaded with antioxidants and phytochemicals. Many greens are also high in Omega-3 fatty acids, and blending the greens helps the body digest and assimilate the nutrients more easily.
The general recipe is to mix 60% fruit with 40% greens, and blend in a good strong blender with water or other liquid. The Vita-Mix blenders are popular, but our Osterizer does a good job too. Any mix of fruits and greens can be used. My goal is to get more fruit and greens in my diet, so variety is a good thing. The smoothie in the above photo had apple, banana, and mango for fruit (the banana and mango were frozen), and raw turnips greens and arugula (fresh from the garden). The taste was amazing! I used about 1 cup of cold water for the liquid.
Green smoothies don’t always look green. If you use blueberries or blackberries, the resulting smoothie may wind up purple or even brown. While a nice green color may be visually appealing, it really doesn’t matter. A purple, red or brown smoothie is good for you too!
Basic Green Smoothie Recipe 
A powerful blender like a VitaMix is best, but any blender will do. The resulting smoothie may just not be as smooth.
- Add 1 cup cold water
- Add 2-3 fruits, totalling about 2-3 cups. Common fruits are apple, banana, peach, pear, mango, papaya, pineapple and berries like strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, etc.
- Finally, add about 2 cups of chopped greens. Mild tasting greens include spinach, lettuce, kale, celery, Swiss Chard and parsley. Stronger greens include turnips greens, broccoli leaves, endive, arugula, chicory, cabbage and mustard greens.
- Blend until smooth. (use short bursts if necessary)
- Drink and enjoy!
The green smoothie makes for a great liquid lunch, or do like my wife and I do and have it for an afternoon snack. It fills you up without filling you out!