Lately, we’ve been revisiting our eating habits. I mentioned in a previous post that Daley and I are excluding refined sugar, flour, and margarine from our diets. We have also been trying to increase our raw food, and specifically leafy green, intakes. To this end, we have introduced the green smoothie into our lives, specifically in the part when we eat our first meal of the day.
Although I’ve included vegetables and greens in the fresh juices I’ve made, I don’t have too much experience with whole fiber green smoothies.
We’ve had three solid mornings of green smoothies in a row so far.
I am enjoying the taste of my smoothies and thinking the green breakfast benefits my over all feeling of wellness. Maybe it’s a placebo effect, but I feel awesome after I consume one of these. I would like to make it a habit, and since prep and clean up takes only a few minutes, I can rely on this as my go-to breakfast. Previously, my breakfasts would usually be some sort of salty left overs or bulgar wheat, as well as a piece of fruit. I would never include greens in my first meal of the day, let alone raw greens.
Now before you think about gagging and go back to your bagel, I want to tell you that this delicious smoothie is composed of about 60% fruit and 40% green leaf de jour. This means that we enjoy a fruity, mild, fresh, and non-offensive concoction. You don’t taste the greens very much at all. Of course, if we tinkered with the percentages, we’d have more “green” tasting results. We’ve been using about 200 grams of greens (baby spinach or kale leaves, although we plan to use others), some berries, and a base that is either peaches, a mango, or a few bananas, and water. We drink a big mug full each.
Fine tuning our diet is an ongoing process, and the saying “what you get in is what you get out,” definitely applies. The more I choose whole foods, and especially the raw green ones, the better I feel. I haven’t kept the date, but it’s been at least 4 weeks since I’ve consumed refined sugar. I’m doing great- mostly I fix a craving with whole dates or by using date puree in a recipe. Sometimes that recipe includes cocoa if I feel like eating a chocolaty food. On one occasion, we purchased a pricy bar of raw cacao sweetened with agave nectar. I do feel like we’ve cheated a bit with the agave, since it contains just as much fructose as high fructose corn syrup. But I am learning more and more that naturally sweet fruits are a satiable and healthy way to get sugar in the system.
Along with the smoothies and exclusion of refined foods, I’ve been taking care to have plenty of sprouts sprouting, as well as some waiting to be eaten in the fridge. I’ve also been taking more salads for lunch at work, and we usually eat one as a preface to dinner at the end of the day. I’m still eating my far share of cooked whole foods, but definitely trying to up my percentage of raw. On that note, I’d love to embark on a 10 day, all raw cleanse soon! After all, if I am what I eat, I should be eating living foods to be alive.
I’d like to give a shout out to The Raw Family, as they provide a really great (and free!) resource with information and recipes regarding green smoothies.
Vegan Scene 