Green Smoothies

In two weeks, I lost five and a half pounds without much effort.
Whoa.

Here's what's up...

The same day that I decided my next health step would be increasing my veggie intake, Amazon put out its list of the day's deeply discounted e-books.  One of the titles was Victoria Bourtenko's Green Smoothie Revolution (North Atlantic Books, 2009.  184 pages).  It promised some recipes for veggie smoothies, so I clicked on the "buy now" button.

The book is an easy read.  Bourtenko took some interesting directions such as analyzing the diets of wild chimpanzees since chimps are very close to humans genetically.  She talked a lot about organics and the importance of healthy soil for nutrition content in our produce.  She also explored the balance between healthy Omega-3 oils (found in greens!) and the more common Omega-6 oils.  What genuinely surprised me were her informational charts comparing nutrients in the roots, bulbs, and stems vegetable parts we eat compared with the leaves.  In a lot of cases, we toss out the far more nutritious part to keep the portion of the plant that is higher in natural sugars and therefore more palatable.  And they really are packed with vitamins, minerals, and healthy phytochemicals.

Here's what I didn't like about the book....  Bourtenko is one of those "all or nothing" type of people.  Since raw foods contain more nutrients, she gave up cooked food almost completely.  Since greens are powerhouses of nutrients, she starting ingesting pounds of them a day.  Greens are easiest to digest in smoothie form, so she drinks quarts.  Her way is definitely "revolution," encouraging complete change in diet forever.  Her book focused on miracle stories of lives transformed by super nutrition -- cravings vanishing, warts falling off, arthritis easing up after years.  C'mon.  A little balance, please.  Her approach was pushy enough that I found myself checking her research.  The good news is that even if she goes overboard, her science seems to be sound.

Here's what I love about the book....  I was finishing up Bourtenko's book during a routine check-up visit to my doctor, so I talked to her about it.  If your body isn't used to much raw food or greens, eating a lot of them could give you a tummy ache, but otherwise there wasn't anything to worry about, I was told.  On the plus side, adding more nutrition to your diet helps ward off disease and makes your body run more efficiently.  There is some evidence that good nutrition helps beat food cravings too.  So I stopped by the store on the way home and bought some greens -- spinach and kale.  Later that day I made my first green smoothie using a bag of frozen wild blackberries, some fresh mango, water, and a couple of handfuls of the fresh greens.  It wasn't a very green colored smoothie, but it tasted good.  All week long I made similar smoothies, going a little darker green each time by adding more leaves.  I started to like them more and more.  They also filled me up in the early afternoon so I wasn't hungry for snacks.  After several days I realized I felt a little better than before, had a little more energy and wasn't as hungry at other times of the day either.  And today I discovered I lost over five pounds just by adding one glass of smoothie to my day.

If you want convincing, you might want to read the book.  Otherwise, there's no reason not to jump in and try your own green smoothie.  You really don't need recipes.  Just start by blending some frozen fruit with enough splashes of water to make a milkshake-like consistency and then seeing how much greens you can add before the taste becomes less appealing.  I'm really wishing I had a Vita-Mix blender like they use at Jamba Juice and Planet Smoothie about now, but the old Hamilton-Beach is doing the job even if it takes a good ten minutes to finish a smoothie because of the small motor (and doesn't cost $600).

Bourtenko's Website:  http://greensmoothierevolution.com/
Bourtenko's Green Smoothie Blog:  http://greensmoothiesblog.com/