Getting Started with Green Smoothies

webextras.eps Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/greensmoothies for some great free Dummies content online about incorporating green smoothies into your diet.

In this part …

Discover the nutritional benefits of dark leafy greens and understand why they’re such an essential food in a healthy, balanced diet.

Get started with green smoothie basics, including juicing versus blending and why blending your greens is the best way to consume them.

Explore your health potential by simply drinking one green smoothie every day.

Consider whether your blender is up to the task of making smoothies and find out what features to look for if you’re shopping around.

Pick up tips on shopping for the best ingredients and how to wash and store your produce so it’s always smoothie-ready.

Chapter 1

Reaping the Benefits of Green Smoothies

In This Chapter

arrow Grasping just how much nutrition is in a green smoothie

arrow Understanding how green smoothies contribute to your inner health

arrow Seeing the ways green smoothies promote outer beauty

arrow Using green smoothies to prevent and fight disease

What exactly about leafy greens makes them such an important food for health? This chapter explores how you can boost your immunity, strengthen nails and hair, improve your digestion, sharpen your memory, lose weight, and even slow down or reverse certain diseases simply by drinking a green smoothie every day. With the information in this chapter, you’ll be an expert and feel even more motivated to start blending up your own green smoothies.

Understanding the Nutritional Value of a Green Smoothie

Telling yourself to drink a green smoothie every day because you’re supposed to isn’t a great motivational tool, but knowing more about the nutritional value of greens increases your chances of keeping this new healthy habit in your diet for life. As an added bonus, you can also better explain your smoothie to family and friends when they see you drinking what they think is green gunk for the first time!

Chlorophyll: Drinking the green blood of plants

Plants, trees, leafy greens, and green vegetables are green because they contain a pigment known as chlorophyll. Plants use chlorophyll to absorb sunlight and change it into energy through a process called photosynthesis. One molecule of chlorophyll is very closely related in structure to one molecule of hemoglobin (human blood), so chlorophyll is sometimes referred to as the blood of plants.

Because chlorophyll is so closely related to hemoglobin, when you ingest it, you’re basically getting a free blood transfusion. Chlorophyll helps rebuild and replenish red blood cells almost instantly. When you eat green vegetables or leafy greens, you’re actually ingesting edible energy from the sun, giving you an amazing, all-natural energy boost. Chlorophyll helps speed up healing and reduce risk of infection thanks to its antibacterial and antifungal properties. In addition, it protects against free radical damage. Chlorophyll also helps detoxify the lymph system, blood, and liver.

The pH factor: Getting alkaline

Maintaining an alkaline pH in the body is one of the best ways to prevent disease and stop premature aging. Ideally, your body’s pH should be slightly alkaline, in the range of 7.365 to 7.385. When your pH is too high or too low, you can feel tired, gain weight, have poor digestion, suffer from skin breakouts, and feel aches and pains in your joints. Over time, an out-of-balance pH weakens your immune system, leaving you more at risk for viral and bacterial infections, including certain types of cancer.

Most food in the Standard American Diet (SAD) is highly acidic. Refined sugar, processed foods, meat, dairy, wheat products, alcohol, and coffee are all acid-forming. Stress alone can make you acidic, too. It should be no surprise that many people today are sick, tired, or both.

If you stay chronically acidic over several months or years, your body tries to correct itself toward alkalinity by leaching calcium from your bones to buffer the acid. Over the long term, that leaves you at higher risk of osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. Look at vegan animals in nature. They eat edible leafy greens as a dietary staple, and none of them suffer from loss of bone density later in life. Now, that’s some (green) food for thought!

tip.eps You don’t have to give up all acidic foods, but the more alkaline foods you consume, the better your body can achieve a healthy pH balance. Leafy greens are one of the most alkaline-forming foods in nature. Just by adding more greens to your daily diet, you can counter the effects of other, high-acid foods in your diet.

Enjoying enzyme energy

Enzymes are tiny catalysts of energy that perform specific tasks in your body. Your body makes two main types of enzymes:

Metabolic enzymes help grow new cells and repair old ones. A lack of metabolic enzymes can speed up the aging process, resulting in more wrinkles, bone loss, and aches and pains in the joints.

Digestive enzymes assist with the digestion and assimilation of food — mainly proteins, carbohydrates, and fat.

You can help your body with its enzyme activities by bringing in more enzymes, either in food or supplement form. Food enzymes help digestive enzymes break down your food and help metabolic enzymes speed up your cellular repair. You find higher amounts of food enzymes in raw, uncooked fruits and vegetables. Most food enzymes are destroyed when you heat a food above 118 degrees Fahrenheit, so by consuming fresh fruits and uncooked leafy greens, your body gets the enzymes it needs naturally.

Calling fiber your friend

Without a doubt, fiber is the key for good digestive health. On average, Americans eat only 15 grams of fiber daily, yet the recommended daily allowance (RDA) is 38 grams per day for males and 25 grams per day for females (though the recommendations vary a bit depending on your age). What happens when your fiber intake is too low? Short-term, you can suffer from constipation and hemorrhoids. Long-term, a low fiber diet can increase your risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and gastrointestinal problems.

Quickly increase your daily fiber consumption by drinking a green smoothie! Even better, add more fiber to your smoothie with two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds or chia seeds for an extra four to ten grams of fiber. Combining fresh whole fruits, leafy greens, and flax or chia gives you the perfect fiber-rich drink. All that extra fiber helps with weight loss by keeping you feeling full, prevents constipation, and enhances regularity.

Boosting your mineral intake

The noticeably bitter taste in leafy green vegetables comes from their high mineral content. In dark leafy green vegetables, you find plenty of calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, manganese, phosphorous, and potassium. Just by adding a handful or two of leafy greens to your daily smoothie, you’re getting a lot of extra minerals for very little effort.

The benefits of eating a mineral-rich diet include the following:

Stronger teeth and bones, with a lower risk of osteoporosis

Improved blood pressure

Better muscle recovery after workouts

Strengthened immune system

Sharper memory and good brain function

Thicker hair and stronger nails

Clearer skin, fewer wrinkles, and a more youthful look

Balanced thyroid function and hormonal system

Stable blood sugar levels

Increasing vitamins for vitality

Your daily green smoothie offers a nutrient-dense health drink that’s absolutely jam-packed with valuable vitamins for your health. In fresh fruits, you get vitamins A, C, E, and a whole array of disease-fighting antioxidants. In leafy greens, you get folate, vitamin B6, and vitamin K. Add some of the superfoods listed in Chapter 6 and you’re boosting your vitamins even more. Now that’s a great way to start the day!

Getting all the vitamins your body needs benefits your health by:

Fighting infections and boosting your immune system

Helping heal wounds and reduce scarring

Building strong bones and muscles

Strengthening heart and red blood cells

Improving the absorption of iron

Increasing energy and vitality

Strengthening eyesight

Supporting kidneys

Maintaining strong teeth and improving dental health

Normalizing nerve function

Picking green protein

You may not think of spinach, spirulina, and kale as sources of protein, but they are! Greens are a natural powerhouse of protein, and they offer an easy-to-digest, high-fiber alternative to traditional animal-based options. Just think of horses, cows, water buffalo, giraffes, elephants, and gorillas; they’re all huge muscle-mass animals, and they’re all vegans! They get their protein from fresh, raw leafy greens.

Other plant-based proteins to add to your green smoothie include spirulina powder, hemp seeds, flaxseeds, chia seeds, tahini, fresh sprouts, and bee pollen. (Flip to Chapter 6 for important info on consuming bee pollen if you’re allergic to bees or pollen.)

The benefits of eating more plant-based proteins include the following (many of which are benefits I cover in the preceding sections):

Support an alkaline pH

Don’t raise cholesterol levels

Encourage heart health

Help strengthen the digestive tract

Promote healthy bowel function

Boast powerful anti-inflammatory effects

Boost the immune system

Reduce risk of metabolic syndrome

Provide a rich source of minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants

Contain high amounts of fiber

Promote muscle recovery and repair

Minimize aches and pains in the joints

Getting variety with greens

Wild animals instinctively practice variety in their eating habits, and they naturally move or graze from tree to bush to plant, eating small amounts of leaves from different sources. They do this to protect themselves from small amounts of toxins (called phytotoxins) in leaves that protect the plant from being overeaten.

remember.eps When making green smoothies, the same rule of nature applies: Use variety in your greens. Buy different greens each week and practice rotating your greens every two to three days. (Chapter 4 gives a detailed list of what greens you can use.) Although you won’t actually get sick from eating spinach, kale, or boy choy every day for months on end, those greens might not be as effective for you if you don’t give them a break and switch them out every now and again. Another good reason to rotate your greens is to make sure you’re not getting too much oxalic acid, especially if you have kidney disease (read more about that in Chapter 4).

To supplement or not to supplement

As you read through all the fantastic health benefits you can achieve from adding more nutrients to your diet, your first thought may be to skip the dietary changes and simply take a mineral and vitamin supplement. After all, isn’t just taking a pill easier? That way, you know you’re getting everything. In reality, your body doesn’t absorb concentrated doses of nutrients from a small pill well. The fiber in food controls the pace at which the nutrients are absorbed. Because a multivitamin contains no fiber, it passes through your body very quickly, and you don’t actually absorb most of the nutrients. You’re left with little more than very expensive urine.

If you decide to supplement, choose only pure vitamins, also known as natural or whole food supplements, because these supplements are derived from actual whole food sources. (Most vitamins are made from chemicals and not real food sources.) Or better yet, stick with green smoothies and focus on getting plenty of real, whole fruits, vegetables, and leafy greens in your diet. Superfood powders are also a good option because they’re whole foods dried and ground into powder form. Note: If you’re a vegan or vegetarian, you need to take a B vitamin complex to cover your recommended daily nutritional needs for B12 and B6.

Smoothies versus Juice

This book focuses on green smoothies. What’s the difference between a smoothie and a juice? A smoothie is made in a blender, where all the ingredients are blended with their fiber. Juice is made in a juicer, and that’s a different appliance completely. A juicer separates the fiber from the liquid, creating a liquid juice with no fiber. To make green smoothies, you need a blender. (Refer to Chapter 2 to find out which blenders are best for making green smoothies.)

Toasting to a Healthier You

As the saying goes, Your health isn’t everything, but without your health, you have nothing. When you’re healthy, you have more energy, you sleep better, you’re naturally more motivated and inspired, you feel vibrant, you can handle stress better, and (most importantly) you can enjoy life. The biggest problem with living in the fast-paced modern world is that you can easily forget to take time for your health.

Appreciate your health now; treat your body like a temple by keeping it clean on the inside and out. Eat more foods high in nutrients, chlorophyll, fiber, and alkalinity to increase your chances of getting and staying healthy. It’s a small investment that can benefit you and your family for many years to come. The following sections break down some of the health benefits of green smoothies.

Boosting immunity

Your best natural defense against illness is maintaining an alkaline pH, eating a diet high in fiber and nutrients, avoiding too many processed foods or chemical additives, and staying hydrated with plenty of water. Green smoothies check all these boxes in one fell swoop. Reducing stress, getting enough sleep, and exercising regularly definitely help, too.

remember.eps One of the best ways you can support your immunity is to start before you get sick. Most people don’t really think about what they’re eating until they come down with something. Think of maintaining your health like you would maintain your car. If you schedule your car for regular maintenance, you’re much less likely to deal with a breakdown later. The same goes for your body. Look at your green smoothie as a regular mini service check, boosting your body with valuable nutrients, antioxidants, chlorophyll, and fiber. If your body has all the tools it needs, more than often than not, it can fix itself.

Fighting fatigue

Processed foods, fried foods, heavy carbohydrates, and refined foods (such as white sugar and white flour) are empty calories. Not only are they difficult to digest, but they also provide very little in the way of nutrients for your health. Over time, eating a diet high in these foods leaves you at greater risk for nutritional deficiencies. Without the essential nutrients your body needs, you feel increasingly tired. Your internal organs are working overtime trying to survive off of economy fuel in a high-octane machine.

Giving your body a blended drink that’s full of fiber, easy to digest, and loaded with vitamins, minerals, and chlorophyll is the best way to recharge your batteries and feel a natural boost of energy. When I drink my smoothie, I feel like I want to go for a walk and move! I never feel like I need to lie down and sleep. Not many people can say the same after eating a big pancake or waffle breakfast.

Living longer and better

For most people, the goal isn’t just to live a long life but rather to live a long, happy, and healthy life. The only scientifically proven secret to longevity is caloric restriction. In other words, if you eat less over the course of several decades, you increase your chances of living longer. The Okinawans in Japan are often called the longest-living, healthiest people on the planet, living to more than 100 years old. They have a saying that translates to Eat until 80 percent full. The problem with the fastest growing diseases today — heart disease and diabetes — is that they’re both related to diets of excess and overeating.

remember.eps Choose to invest time and effort into eating better foods now, and you’ll benefit from the rewards for decades to come. A green smoothie gives you a nutrient-packed food without a lot of calories, helping reduce sugar cravings and control your appetite later. Eating better foods helps you feel satiated.

Improving memory

Sadly, dementia is no longer a condition affecting only older generations; symptoms are now showing up in folks as young as 45. Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological disorder caused by a breakdown of cells in the part of the brain that produces a neurotransmitter called dopamine. The exact cause of Alzheimer’s disease is still unknown, but it’s shown to be related to chronic inflammation, nutritional deficiencies, toxicity, and raised cortisol levels from prolonged periods of stress. All these conditions have been linked to deficiencies in magnesium, vitamin D, selenium, omega-3 fatty acids, and B vitamins.

Thankfully, green smoothies give you plenty of magnesium in fresh leafy greens. (Your body needs magnesium in order to synthesize vitamin D.) Selenium occurs naturally in both Brazil nuts and walnuts. Add just one organic Brazil nut or three or four walnut halves to your smoothie to meet your recommended daily allowance of selenium. Omega-3s are readily available in both chia seeds and flaxseeds. And for all your B vitamins (especially B6 and B12), taking a B complex supplement is a good idea (see the sidebar "To supplement or not to supplement").

Strengthening digestion

You can improve your digestion for the entire day just by adding one green smoothie to what you currently eat daily. Drinking a large glass of green smoothie can easily double your fiber intake in an easy-to-digest blended form without a lot of added calories. I’ve had clients with digestive issues such as colitis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), leaky gut syndrome, chronic constipation, and even frequent or loose stool all see improvement in their conditions just by adding a green smoothie to their current diets.

Losing weight naturally

Strict, extreme diets may give you short-term results, but they aren’t sustainable in the long run and don’t promote lasting health. Many diets cut out fat and/or carbs, but a no-fat diet isn’t good for your brain. In fact, omega-3 fatty acids are essential for proper brain function. And a no-carb diet can weaken digestion, leaving you constipated and suffering from bad breath (a sign of internal toxicity).

The only way to lose weight and keep it off is to:

Eat more nutrient-dense, high-fiber food and fewer empty calories.

Exercise not only to burn fat but also to increase your resting metabolism.

Drink a daily green smoothie, and you’ve got the first point covered easily! Add some exercise into your routine, and just like that, you’ve found the best lifestyle combo for achieving and maintaining weight loss.

tip.eps To jump-start your weight loss and get some motivation in your veins, try a three-day green smoothie detox. From there, you can make more changes, adding exercise and continuing to improve other areas of your diet. Refer to Chapter 16 for more information on detoxing with green smoothies, and check out Chapter 12 for green smoothie recipes that can help with weight loss.

tip.eps A green smoothie is a fantastic replacement meal for losing weight. Make a commitment to yourself to swap in a green smoothie at mealtime for 7, 14, 30, or even 60 days — whatever feels best for you. During that time, choose one meal per day — breakfast, lunch, or dinner — to replace with a green smoothie. Be sure to drink enough so you feel satisfied, anywhere from one-half to one liter of smoothie at a time.

Radiating Beauty fromthe Inside Out

Because fresh greens and fruits are so high in antioxidants, they naturally help with cell repair. Although that process starts on the inside, you can and will see the results on the outside. As you drink more green smoothies, you may start to notice improvements in your skin, stronger nails, brighter eyes, or thicker hair. Your teeth may whiten, your gums may look healthier, and your breath may improve. These responses to such a small change in your diet are a sign that your diet was lacking in certain minerals or vitamins before.

Improving your skin

After my first three months of drinking green smoothies every day, a woman approached me in public and said, Excuse me, but I just had to tell you that you have such beautiful skin. Before that, I’d never had anyone tell me that in my entire life! Now, it’s a compliment I receive all the time. My reply is always, Thank you, but it’s coming from the inside. My skin looks good thanks to what I eat.

People are always surprised when I tell them that food is the key to natural beauty. Good skin comes from the inside; it has everything to do with what you eat or don’t eat. Real beauty secrets aren’t waiting for you in a cream or potion. The secret is on your plate and in your glass.

Diets high in fried foods, processed foods, and foods with refined sugar wreak havoc on your skin. Free radical damage from those foods to your cells speeds up the aging process and contributes to breakouts, oily skin, rashes, and wrinkles.

On the flip side, eating more whole food in its natural form repairs cellular damage from inside. Natural antioxidants in fruits, greens, and superfoods reduce free radical damage and slow down the effects of aging. The water in your smoothie adds extra hydration, which is always helpful for clearer skin, and the chlorophyll from leafy greens gives your skin a healthy glow.

Several years ago, I was covered from head-to-toe in a horrible, itchy rash that was diagnosed by doctors as everything from eczema to psoriasis to depression. I was desperate to hide my condition because it was especially bad on my face. I tried every single cream on the market for two years until I finally started to look at my diet. After making significant changes and adding green smoothies as a staple food, my skin started to clear on its own. Today, my skin is perfectly clear. I’m living proof that when you change your diet for the better, your skin changes for the better, too.

Reversing gray hair

Is it really possible to reverse gray hair just by drinking green smoothies?? Ann Wigmore says yes! She was actually the original inventor of the green smoothie, a renowned nutritionist and health practitioner and co-founder of the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida and Puerto Rico. In the 1970s, she started making green smoothies, calling them her energy soup. At that time, she was already in her 50s and had a full head of gray hair. Over time, as she drank lots of raw, uncooked leafy greens every day, she noticed that her gray hair started returning to its natural brown color! In fact, in her 80s, she had a full head of brown hair. She even had her students send a sample of her hair to a laboratory to prove that she wasn’t using any chemical dyes. Her theory: Gray hair is linked to mineral deficiencies. Boost your diet with plenty of minerals, and the natural color will start to reappear.

In my personal experience, I’ve witnessed my hair become darker, thicker, shinier, and even curlier after changing to a plant-based diet and drinking green smoothies every day.

Strengthening nails

If you suffer from brittle nails or have ridges in your nails, it’s time to start drinking your way back to health. The mineral that you need the most for strong nails (and hair) is silicon (not to be confused with artificial silicone). Silicon is found on the skins of fruits and also in seeds.

Chop up an apple or pear with the skin and add flax, chia, sunflower, or hemp seeds to your smoothie. In just a few weeks, you’ll start to see and feel improvement in your nails.

Brightening eyes

I like to say that your eyes are the windows to your health. Did you ever see someone with drooping eyelids; dark under-eye circles; or eyes that appeared tired, bloodshot, or glassy? When you’re deficient in minerals, overloaded with free radical