I can imagine what you are thinking: she must be living under a rock. The world has been drinking green smoothies for about a decade, and now she’s coming up with a recipe…yawn!!!
I won’t blame you. I do live under a rock in many respects. Although I was aware of the whole green smoothie movement. I have always lived by the rule that you shouldn’t drink your calories (red wine is the big exception here). Your satiety senses would be fooled by drinking a meal, as the drink would go down much quicker as EATING the same foods with fork & knife or spoon.
Several things happened that changed my mind. Recently, I read a lot about alkaline and acidic foods and their reactions on the body. Acid-forming foods are very pro-inflammatory and might be responsible for chronic inflammation in the body which then sets the stage for many lifestyle diseases, such as arthritis, diabetes or cancer. These foods include animal protein, grains (for their phytic acid content), fruit (for their sugar content), dairy, coffee, and needless to say, all processed foods, sweets, and alcohol.
Alkaline forming foods will be non-starchy vegetables, green leaves, nuts and seeds. Which would be a vegan diet without the fruit and grains. That leaves you with not much to eat. And if you have a day job, a family or a very energy-consuming hobby like my running you won’t have time to think about foods all day long.
My conclusion is a diet consisting of mainly vegetables and healthy plant fats coming from olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds combined with moderate amounts of animal protein and small amounts of fruit and dairy to keep the balance on the alkaline side.
You should have vegetables for each of the three main meals. So guess what comes in handy here? Yes, the smoothie. For me personally, a smoothie is not enough to be a whole meal. Due to my running, I need something more of the size of 500-600 calories to make it a main meal. My green avocado smoothie has around 200 calories. Just good enough for a snack, with spinach/parsley, cucumbers, avocado and flax seeds being very alkaline forming. with a large part of the energy coming from healthy fats. Coconut water is my favorite natural electrolyte. I have it religiously after each of my training runs to replace lost minerals.
Last but not least there is another reason for me making smoothies: my new kitchen machine. When it comes to kitchen gadgets, I definitely live under a rock, and happily so. Anything that comes with a manual is too much work to sift through.
Now I got this Kenwood MultiOne kitchen machine, which I happily stuffed into the kitchen cupboard upon its arrival. To be used later. Soon. On the weekend. Surprisingly, once I got it out to make my smoothies, it never made it back into the cupboard. As it’s being used daily now. Didn’t have to read the manual, it’s easy to clean and it makes nice smoothies. Sometimes it’s good to come out from under the rocks.
————————————————
GREEN AVOCADO SMOOTHIE
1 ripe avocado, peeled and roughly chopped
1 small cucumber, roughly chopped
2 cups spinach leaves, roughly chopped (or half parsley, half spinach)
1 ripe banana, peeled and roughly chopped
330ml coconut water
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
Serves 2-3
————————————————
Combine all ingredients in a high speed food processor and blend until smooth. Serve immediately or keep in the fridge for up to 24 hours.