Healthy, Wealthy, Wise-ish--Smoothies

It is such a good idea to eat healthy foods, not too much, mostly plants (ask Michael Pollan...).  Recently (on my birthday, actually) I woke up to some information on my computer that put me back in the kick for eating better.

So yesterday morning I hopped over to Winco pretty early so I could get ingredients for some smoothies. I did not go hog-wild purchasing stuff, but did have a bag that was sort of heavy and off balance which was tough to drag up the stairs. I had a mind to phone Dear One, wake him out of a sound sleep, and ask him to come slogging down the stairs to help me.  But I forbore.

For breakfast we had a fruit smoothie.  It was okay.  Not stunningly good, but certainly very edible.

Breakfast Smoothie-1
2 handfuls fresh spinach
1 cup water
2 cups mixed berries--blueberries (freezer-burned) and strawberries
1 frozen banana in chunks
1/2 scoop Plant Protein Powder

Put it all in the blender and let it roll for about a minute.  As I say, it was okay.  Next time I will put in pineapple to perk up the flavor, instead of water.

The OTHER SMOOTHIE: a vegetable smoothie.  Everyone who knows me has been bored to tears from me talking about Dr. Michael Greger, NutritionFacts.org, and How Not To Die.   WELL...one of the emails I read on my birthday was from Dr. Greger.  He reminded me that not only stopping forward progression of major diseases is possible with a whole-food, plant-based diet, but even those deadly diseases can be reversed.  He spoke of a vegetable smoothie that he eats every day that he is home.  I thought it had to be good.

So the story is that I got everything except the jalapeno pepper at Winco--but only because they were all sold out!  Rats!  Well, I would only have put in a little anyway.

Everything went into the blender...then the magic happened:  Vegetable smoothie ready to go.

Well, not quite.  It turned out that warm vegetable smoothie is rather nasty.  I realize as I am writing this that if I had blended for another couple of minutes it would have been hot and very much like a tasty smooth vegetable soup.  At the time, however, I could NOT stomach it so I put it in the refrigerator and ate three servings of potato chips for supper.  Smart, huh?!!  Dear One noticed.

Anyway, this morning I pulled the chilled smoothie out of the refrigerator.  Still not stellar but then I squeezed in half a lemon, grated in some fresh black pepper and sprinkled on some coarse Kosher salt.  Yummy!!  Surprisingly so.

Vegetable Smoothie

1 rib celery
4 baby carrots
1/2 red bell pepper
Green shoots from 4 scallions
1/4 beet
1/3 teaspoon turmeric
1 cup kale--or a little more.
1 cup vegetable juice
1/8 teaspoon black pepper.

When I make this again I will use roasted beet instead of raw beet.  One-quarter of a medium beet was a little heavy on the beet.  Of course, if you love beets....