Beet and raspberry "Grink" smoothie

Still struggling with the color of your green smoothie? Yet trying to increase you or your kids' s vegetable intake? I've got the perfect combination smoothie for you!

Try this:
1 raw beet, peeled and sliced
1 nectarine or peach
1 cup frozen raspberries
3-4 cups kale, swiss chard or spinach
juice of 1/2 lemon
2tbsp chia seeds
2-3 cups water
sweeten to taste with stevia powder or any other natural sweetener (except sugar)

Blend until you obtain a creamy smooth texture. Your smoothie will look something like this:

So even though you have lots of greens in there, the beet and the raspberry definitely win and give it a beautiful bright pink color.

If you think beets have an earthy taste and you usually avoid them like pest, now is the time to try this recipe. The fruits and stevia counterbalance the earthy taste and the lemon juice gives it a nice tangy twist. You can also add more fruits to your smoothie if you are extra sensitive to that taste. Beets are an excellent source of iron, magnesium, calcium, and phosperous! They are also considered a fiber food and contain vitamins A and C as well as niacin! 

Beets contain folic acid which is necessary for the production and maintenance of new cells. This is especially important for pregnant women or anyone undergoing physical healing. And lastly, they are an excellent immunity booster, detoxifier and a cancer fighting food.

And did you know that you can also eat the beet leaves? They are excellent, sauteed in the pan with a little bit of olive oil, garlic and salt. Not bitter at all. 

So no excuse, go and buy yourself some beets and try that smoothie. Look at what happened to ours:

A little heads up though: if you have a regular blender, like my Ninja Master Prep, or an Oster or something like that, it might be hard to get a really smooth texture, because the beet is a really hard vegetable. Make sure you blend long enough and add more liquid or a little bit of orange juice if you like.

For a perfectly sweet smoothie, check out the 3hp Omni V blender, by clicking on the logo in the right margin of this page. This will blend as well as a Vitamix or Blendtec for about half the price. I'm saving up for one and will do video demos once I have it in my kitchen!

Creamiest Green Smoothie... in Pink!

For those of you who tried the creamiest green smoothie but couldn't get over the color, I tried it the other day with raspberries and blueberries instead of mango and this is what it looked like: 

So here is what was in it:

a bunch of swiss chard

1/2 avocado

1 banana

3/4 cup frozen raspberries

3/4 cup frozen blueberries

2tbsp chia seeds, soaked

water

Creamiest green smoothie ever

Have you heard of green smoothies, tried them and found them disgusting or hard to get used to? Is it the color, the smell, or the texture that turns you off? Or is it in your mind? Perhaps you have decided it looks like swamp and is very unappetizing....

I have never had that problem, but my kids certainly have. So I've had to come up with little tricks to make those more appetizing. At first, it was the color. I figured that if I put frozen raspberries, cherries or strawberries, or a mixed berry blend in their smoothie, the color turned red, pink or burgundy, and that helped. I could "lie" and tell them it was a strawberry smoothie, when in fact I had also put a bunch of kale or collard greens in it. Little by little, they got used to it.

Then one day, I handed them a green looking smoothie that tasted really sweet. Because of the color, my oldest son refused to try it. I kept telling him it tasted really sweet, told him about all the fruits that were in it, but he was categorical: NO!
Then I had his little brother try it, and since he is more willing (at times), he took a big gulp, then another one, then another one... which was convincing enough for my oldest to try it. Much to his surprise, it WAS delicious, and he finished the whole thing in no time. 

Another strategy I have for them is that they have to take a "no thank you bite" of everything that is on their plate. Most of the time, they take that bite and say "no thank you", but on rare occasions, they are pleasantly surprised. This was one of them.

Ever since then, the color hasn't been so much an issue. However, the texture has. So I had to come up with other combinations of foods. Unless you have a Vitamix or a Blendtec, it can be difficult to turn kale into a very smooth drink. I noticed that kale and collard greens are harder than spinach or swiss chard.
Since we have a truckload of swiss chard growing in the backyard, I use it a lot in my smoothies. This recipe is the creamiest I have ever tasted, and the kids love it! So if you are sensitive to texture, try it out! Because of the ingredients, it will fill you up real quick too :) Good option for a healthy breakfast. 

If you are sensitive to color, add some berries in it, or substitute the mango for some berries.


Swiss chard avocado smoothie:

A bunch of swiss chard (as many as you can)
1/2 banana
1/2 avocado
1 cup of frozen or fresh mango
2 tbsp chia seeds, soaked in water (or thrown directly into the blender, but it gets creamier if they have been soaked)

Blend everything until you reach a smooth, creamy texture. You can add more greens, or put a whole banana in it for a richer smoothie, or a sprinkle of stevia for a sweeter taste, but I think the banana and mango make it plenty sweet.

Cheers!

En Francais:

une poignee de cotes de bettes
1/2 banane
1/2 avocat
1 tasse de mangue fraiche ou congelee
2 cs de graines de chia, gonflees dans l'eau pendant la nuit, ou mises direct dans le mixer, mais la texture sera moins cremeuse.
Si vous etes sensibles a la couleur, rajouter des baies, ou remplacer la mangue par des baies our des fraises.

Sante!

Drink your greens!

One of the first changes I implemented was to introduce a daily green smoothie into my diet. For breakfast, I used to have a bowl of all brans with fat free milk, or some oat meal with hot water and splenda (yikes!) and some blueberries or something like that. Now that I know I am allergic to wheat, and possibly also dairy, those breakfasts don't sound appealing at all (not to mention all the unpronounceable and probably artificial and modified ingredients in boxed cereals and splenda).


However,  I didn't know about my allergies when I went on the elimination diet for the first time. I was just trying to figure out some digestive issues.
Green smoothies changed my life. And now, what I have for breakfast almost every single day, is a wonderful, nutrient and super food packed, homemade green smoothie.

Here is what I usually put in mine:

- a few leaves of kale, collard greens, chard, spinach, or a mixture of those
- 1-2 cabbage leaves
- a piece of fresh ginger (1/2 inch), because it is an anti-inflamatory food
- 2 tbsp of chia seeds, preferably soaked for 30 min or the night before, but it's ok if they are not.
- a cup or more of frozen fruits, either raspberries, blueberries, mangoes or a mix of them.
- juice of half a lemon
- water, and or carrot juice if I have some on hand.


If I have it on hand, I also add a handful of parsley, which is a wonderful superfood. It is jam-packed with vitamins and antioxidants, and it has been shown to inhibit tumor formation in animal studies. It can help neutralize certain carcinogens, and helps reduce the risk of heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

I started doing green smoothies by following recipes on this blog, but then I became more comfortable creating my own variations. I do not own a Vitamix or Blendtec blender, which are the rolls royce of blenders. I have a Ninja Master Prep blender that I bought online for $40-50 that works perfectly fine. For kale leaves though, it doesn't always turn out very smooth and can stay a bit chunky, which I am sure a better blender could fix. But I personally don't mind so much.

Here is a youtube clip on how to make a green smoothie. You will be surprised how many servings of fruits and veggies you can sneak into a smoothie. And as she says in the clip, if you don't make any other changes in your diet, drinking one green smoothie a day will make a huge difference for your health.


so go ahead, drink your greens :)

For