A Beginner’s Guide to Green SmoothiesLooking for a way to squeeze some extra raw vegetables into your diet? Green smoothies are the perfect solution!
If you’ve never had one before, it can take a little while to get acclimated to the green smoothie. Here are some tips to get you going. The Basics To get started, you’ll need something for the base of your smoothie. Bananas or avocados work really well for this. On top of that, you’ll toss your choice of fresh or frozen fruit, a few ice cubes, and your greens. Fill out the smoothie with your favorite milk (dairy or non-dairy), and you’re ready to whirl! Blend everything up really well, and enjoy! When you’re just getting started, don’t push it with the greens. I’ll explain why in the next section. Green Content The key is to increase the amount of greens over time. If you try to make your very first smoothie half greens and half fruit, you’re probably not going to enjoy it. Take things slowly, and you’re more likely to stick with it! To start, you’ll probably just want to use one leaf of kale or Swiss chard with the rib removed or a small handful of baby spinach. As your palette gets used to the greens, though, you’ll be able to reduce the fruit and up the amount of healthy greens in each serving. Before you know it, you’ll be grabbing handfuls of greens and using only a few small pieces of fruit to flesh things out. Variations Part of the fun of a green smoothie is experimenting. Try adding different types of fruit or different leafy greens. Here are some smoothie combinations I’ve really dug:
Some of you are probably green smoothie fans already! Do you have a favorite combination? I’d love to hear your smoothie recipes in the comments! Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by Natural Mom Go Green
3 handfuls of spinach 1 granny smith apple 1 cucumber Fresh parsley to taste (half handful) Benefits of Spinach Everyone talks about the benefits of spinach in nourishing the eyes and building bones. What few know is that it also very good for digestion. Spinach eases constipation and protects the mucus lining of the stomach, so that you stay free of ulcers. It also flushes out toxins from the colon. Another lesser known benefit of spinach is its role in skin care. The bounty of vitamins and minerals in spinach can bring you quick relief from dry, itchy skin and lavish you with a radiant complexion. Regular consumption of fresh, organic spinach juice has been shown to improve skin health dramatically. Here are some basic juicing recipes to get you started juicing everyday, providing concentrated liquid nutrition to your body and blood. You don't necessarily need a juicer to juice. We'll give you another technique for making juice with a blender.
Visit our juicing recipes page: http://bit.ly/12gOfYC or our page on Types of Juicers: http://bit.ly/1dql0DN Source: http://www.justonjuice.com/banana-boost-juice-recipe/
Banana Boost Juice Recipe 1 small Chiquita Banana 1 Granny Smith Apple 5 Mango Chunks (or Pineapple) 1 handful of Pomegranate Seeds (or Raspberries) 2 Full sized Carrots 2 Handfuls of Spinach 2 Celery Stalks 1 Cucumber I start by juicing the apple and mango first and then move on to the pomegranate seeds and banana. After that I juice the carrots, spinach, celery and then finally the cucumber. I typically juice cucumbers last to push out any other juices that haven’t yet made it out of the juicer. I usually offer substitutions on all my recipes but this banana boost juice recipe should be enjoyed just as it is. But if you can’t get a hold of pomegranate seeds they could be replaced with raspberries as they offer a close similarity. http://www.melissawest.com/fruits-and...
Click on the link above for show notes and photos Fruits and Veggies that are Good to Juice ... and ones that are best left for your high speed blender! It has been amazing to watch all of you get turned on to the world of juicing over the last few weeks. As I've watched you acquire your juicers and try them out I've been observing your learning curve as you discover which fruits and veggies work well in your juicers and which ones are best left to your high speed blenders. I've also had a lot of questions about the best fruits and veggies for juicing so I thought I would spend some time this week sharing my favourites for the juicer. I like to focus on fruits and veggies that give a high yield - that is the most juice and that taste good too! :) Hard fruits and veggies like pears, apples, carrots, beets, and fennel work great in the juicer. Fruits and veggies with a high water content give you lots of juice like cucumbers, celery, and citrus fruits. As for leafy greens, I like to stick with heartier firm leafy greens like kale, collards, beet and kohlrabi tops for juicing as they seem to produce a better yield in my juicer. Spinach and micro greens for example just seem to do better in smoothies. Here are my top Veggie picks for juicing: beets (including the stems and greens) kohlrabi greens collard greens swiss chard (I like the taste of it in juice but not in smoothies) leaf lettuce (again, I like the taste of it in juice, but not in smoothies) celery cucumber fennel radishes (including leaves) carrots cabbage broccoli sweet potato herbs (ginger, mint, parsley, cilantro, etc.) wheatgrass Here are my top Fruit picks for juicing: apples pears oranges, grapefruits, limes, lemons pineapple (with rind) watermelon (with rind) Fruits and Veggies Best Left for the Blender: bananas mangoes papaya berries (just not high enough juice yield in my opinion for their nutritional density) avocado spinach micro greens/baby leaf lettuce greens Lime Mint Refresher 2 apples 1 lime with skin left on if organic ginger according to taste Greens according to taste Mint 1/4 cup |