G is for Green Smoothie

What's green and does a body good? Why, the green smoothie, of course!

Get out your blenders, folks! It's time to make a smoothie that LOOKS green but doesn't TASTE green!

I love looking at peoples’ faces when they ask what I eat for breakfast as a raw food vegan, and I tell I them I eat green smoothies. They’ll get a sort of horrified look on their face and they ask me “What the heck is green smoothie? And that sounds awful!” I’ll basically explain that a green smoothie is a blended drink, or a fruit smoothie concoction that you make in your blender, and it is usually comprised of mostly fruit. But there are some substantial greens in there as well - greens like spinach, or parsley, romaine lettuce, kale, things like that, and when people hear that concept, they get a little freaked out, and they say “Whoa. I could never eat anything like that.”

But I would like to challenge people, especially people who are not at all involved in the raw food lifestyle, and I say “Okay. Well, go with me here!”

Let’s think about a strawberry smoothie, you know strawberries, bananas, water, just a bunch of beautiful sweet yummy stuff, maybe some dates to give it even more sweetness. And I’ll say, “What do you think? How does that that sound?” And they will say, “Oh, that sounds good. I love booster juice and all these kinds of blended drinks.” They’re very popular these days, in the mall. Everybody loves to have a big smoothie, or a fruit shake. So I’ll say “Okay, so you’d be willing to eat that right?” And they say “Sure sure!” And I say “What if I took this one sprig of baby spinach, and I drop it in the blender while it’s blending? That would be fine, right?” And they say, “Yeah. You probably couldn’t even taste it.” I say “What if I drop 3 more pieces of spinach in while it’s blending?” They might get a little squinty, and start to be suspicious of me, but I say “It’s all about the ratios.”

What you want to do is get that fruit to greens ratio to be something that you’re more comfortable with, and quite frankly, when we see somebody eating or drinking a green smoothie that just looks vibrantly green, and looks so healthy, to a lot of the non-raw people, it might look a little bit freaky or scary, and kids get freaked out by it too… the “green slime.”

But frequently, if you use the right type of green, it’s not actually going to taste green. It will look green but it won’t have an overwhelmingly green taste. It will still actually taste very sweet if you use a lot of fruit. And I usually like to keep the ratio two thirds fruit, one third leafy green vegetables.

Green Smoothie Shopping List:

2 bananas (peeled)
2 medium oranges (peeled - use a knife, cut generously around the edges to remove a lot of the white rind as well as the skin)
1 apple (chopped)
1 cup spinach (or more)
1/2 cup to 1 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 sprinkle cinnamon