Drinking Our Vegetables

Our family loves to make green smoothies! Many people turn their nose up to the word "green smoothie", but we think they are delicious. I tell my friends that are curious about green smoothies, that a green smoothie is kind of like a fruit smoothie but with added vegetables to it. You can make green smoothies that are purely vegetables, but if you are just trying them out for the first time I would suggest adding some fruit to help sweeten the smoothie.Here is what a basic green smoothie may include: spinach, kale, or collard, cucumber, carrots, strawberries, banana, apple, water, ice, and a natural sweetener (agave, stevia, honey).I usually blend the vegetables before I add the fruit so that it will be smooth and not chunky. The high tech blenders work best, but I have used our regular blender and it still tastes good. So don't feel like you can't start adding more veggies to your diet just because you don't have a high tech blender. Just get started and enjoy the benefits of green smoothies!!My kids love green smoothies and are always begging for them. We like to have green smoothie mustache contests to see who can get the biggest mustache. They also love to help make them and choose what they want to add to the smoothie. If your children are having trouble with the idea of trying them, you could add mixed berries to give it more color or part of a beet to give it a pink color. Try doing more fruit at first, and then slowly switch to more veggies as you get used to them. This will make the transition much easier. You can also start with just spinach since it has a mild flavor and then add other veggies as you get used to them.I know that green smoothies are a great way to help you if you are having health problems. My mother had to get her "numbers" down according to her doctor. Her doctor had given her medication to help, but she didn't take it because it was bothering her. So she stared the green smoothies along with apple pectin. When she went into the doctor the next time her numbers had gone down. The doctor was impressed and started writing out a prescription to up her medication, but she told her doctor she hadn't been taking her medication. The doctor asked her what she had been doing differently, and she told her that she had been drinking green smoothies! The doctor said to keep doing what she was doing then because it was helping her numbers.