Smoothies are GREAT! I love a good GREEN smoothie every morning for its wonderful health benefits and to help keep my body slim ... I started getting involved with Green Smoothies, or as we like to call them ‘round these parts, Green Monstahs, because I was healing from Lymes Disease and I read the work of Anne Wigmore, who created the Hippocrates Diet for cancer patients. She also promoted the use of Wheatgrass, which I will discuss at another time. Anne was an amazing woman and really helped a lot of people to heal naturally, as she believed in the medicinal properties of food. I also believe in the healing properties of food and Anne’s work brought me to the living food movement and finally raw veganism, which is based loosely on her work. While it really helped me to heal in the short term, raw veganism did not work for me as a long term lifestyle, though I took many individual ideas from the lifestyle and I have continued to incorporate them into my “middle of the road” attitude.
Blended foods, especially green smoothies are one of the basics of my healthy lifestyle program. While juicing is good for “detox” and can help someone who is very sick, Juicing has its problems. The juicer removes all of the pulp and fiber from the juice, which was incorporated into the fruit or vegetable to help keep the blood sugar even while incorporating natural fructose into the body. Sugar surges and adrenal issues are common in long term juicers. Digestion also suffers when you juice long term as you have changed the intestinal flora by feeding them on pure sugar with no fiber to move the food along. Blended foods, on the other hand, take the entire fruit and vegetable and pulverize it so that you are getting all the vitamins, mineral, fiber, juice and all the other things in the living food that we don’t even know about yet—all those secret factors that are combined to make the living natural plant matter!
Blending, on a daily basis will create vibrant health. I have been doing it for quite some time, and I am never hungry or have cravings if I have had my smoothie in the morning. It is densely packed with vital nutrition and it keeps me happy and energetic for hours and hours. I was strongly reminded of this when on vacation, as we couldn’t fit the blender in our tightly packed car. While we ate healthy meals, I felt much more hungry after “eating” breakfast than I did when I “drink” it. I was glad to get home to my beloved vitamix and my morning Monstah cocktail!
Here is a great vegan smoothie recipe and you can use any of the additions at the end if you want more protien or if you eat dairy. This smoothie recipe is Gluten Free as well for those with wheat intolerances. If you can afford a Vitamix blender and Organic produce do it—if not, wash and clean all produce well and use a regular blender, but you may have to cut the pieces smaller and add more water to make it smooth.
Green Monstah Smoothie Recipe
1 frozen very ripe banana—I buy them green and let them ripen VERY well on the counter and then I peel them and put them in a bag in the freezer.
1 cup mixed frozen berries-Trader Joes sells some great combinations at a reasonable price.
1 cup frozen pineapple, papaya or mango, or a combination of the three
1 apple
1 carrot
1 small piece ginger, peeled
1 stalk celery
1/2 cucumber with skin on
1 cup sprouts if you have them
1 cup dark leafy greens like kale, chard, arugula, or romaine lettuce (Remember to alternate greens over a few days as they contain compounds that can affect your health if eaten in concentration over many days. I eat two days of a green and then switch. There are so many greens that you are always healthy and happy!)
2 tablespoons whole flax seed.
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon coconut shreds
