How to make a green smoothie?

Spring is almost knocking at our doors, which means that in a moment we will replace frozen vegetables with fresh ones. What is more, there will be so many of them that sometimes we will be lacking in ideas what dished to prepare out of them. The richness of vegetables and fruit in this beautiful season is probably its biggest advantage, apart from the sun and air temperature.

What can we make out of green bottle-852131_960_720vegetables, leaves and favorite fruit? Of course – a smoothie!

The main advantage of green smoothies is high content of chlorophyll, i.e. plant pigment, colloquially called “plant blood”. Chlorophyll is the only matter in the natural world that stores sunlight.

Chlorophyll cleanses the digestive system, supports blood cleansing of toxins, maintains acid–base homeostasis of the organism, supports red cells regeneration, stimulates oxidation process and body cells regeneration.

The best source of chlorophyll are green leafy plants. Since, as we know, heat treatment destroys the larger part of chlorophyll contained in vegetables, it is recommended to eat them in raw state. While eating a lettuce head or a bunch of parsley may pose some logistic problems, blending them with fruit and drinking top-view-1248952_960_720in the form of a smoothie seems much easier. That would be all for an introduction. Let’s move on to the nitty-gritty, i.e. the preparation and first ideas for green smoothies.

Preparation:

The basic rule of preparing a smoothie is the so-called 60/40 rule, i.e. the proportion of blending 60% fresh or frozen fruit and 40% green leafy vegetables. As for the green part of our smoothie the best are such vegetables as lettuce, spinach, savory cabbage, parsley, kale etc. To diversify the taste, we may also use fresh herbs, such as mint, nettle or basil. As for the fruit, we may let our imagination run wild and use all the fruit that come to our mind. top-view-1248953_960_720As a complement, we add some liquids in order to thin the whole composition. It may be water, coconut water, coconut milk, spelt beverages etc. or during hot days – crushed ice. If your smoothie is not sweet enough, do not use sugar, but instead use stevia, honey or xylitol. Try to make up every time new compositions not to harm your organism. Spinach, for example, is rich in oxalates which provided to our organism every day may inhibit calcium and iron absorption and may be deposited on kidneys in the form of oxalate stones. Such prepared smoothies may be stored in the fridge for 24 hours, but definitely they taste best immediately after the preparation.

Personally, I recommend starting your smoothie adventure from preparing the most popular and tasty composition, appearing on the Web under detox smoothie”. Below are the ingredients and proportions:

Example composition: (2 portions)

1 ½ cup fresh spinach

½ cup parsley

1 cup fresh pineapple

½ mango

½ avocado

2 cups cold water

Preparation always consist in blending all green ingredients (spinach, parsley) and water until it gets homogenous and then adding fruit and again blending thoroughly.

Tags: green, health, smoothie, stevia

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