Green Smoothies and How to Get Your Kids to Drink Them

Smoothies are making such a huge difference in my life, I can't help but to share it with others - they're painless to prepare, taste extraordinary, and the overall health benefits are really exceptional. Nevertheless, I'm met with the exact same hesitancy when talking to someone, wanting to get him or her to experience one; they are reluctant mainly because they are evaluating the way the smoothie looks with their eyes; they have a look at the green color and politely decline my invitation to try one.

I really can't blame them, as soon as started with the smoothie lifestyle over a year ago, I looked at my healthy drinks and thought they looked nauseating - despite the undeniable fact that they sure have a fantastic flavor. Most of us do, nonetheless, eat with our eyes before anything enters our mouth. So it's common that your children will can look at a smoothie and not really be joyful about the color. I suppose it seems too reminiscent of the green vegetables that you are constantly encourage them to eat.

With that said, here are a few hints I've found to get the green smoothies to look as wonderful as they taste.

First, the flavor needs to be amazing, and that normally means it's got to have a great sweet flavor as well as no hint of vegetable flavor in any way. Choose vegetables including kale, cucumber, spinach, and collards which are normally milder tasting. Keep away from stuff like celery, lettuce, and beets. A small portion of those might easily overtake the flavor of a smoothie recipe, even with fruit included.

You can add raw, natural honey. Make certain that the honey is raw (unprocessed) which means stay away from most of the honey sold in a large number of food markets. It's been cooked and the live enzymes within wiped out. Honey is loaded with a wide variety of healthy advantages, particularly if you have allergy sufferers in the home.

Stevia, a natural and organic sweetener that is native to South America, can also be added to a smoothie to enhance the sweetness of the drink. It consists of zero calories or side-effects. Natives there have been using it for generations as a sweetener. It does contain a bit of a bitter aftertaste that will not be noticeable in a smoothie however.

The second thing you can do to help your kids drink their green smoothies is simply make them not green. Use strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, cherries, or red grapes as your base fruit. Toss in a banana and mango, pear or pineapple if additional sweetness is needed. I would use more spinach than kale or collard green because those tend to add a dark green hue to the smoothie which means it will come out a brownish shade rather than purple.

If you really want to crank up the sweet flavor and purple color put in one or two tablespoons of grape concentrate (organic) in the smoothie maker and you now will have a purple smoothie mix that is super sweet. Be certain to shop for nothing but organic concentrate without any added ingredients like organic cane sugar or organic pineapple cane. Those nothing more than processed sugar made from organic fruit.

To speed things up you can get some ice trays and freeze the concentrate so you have a a pre-made source the moment they are needed.

These hints should certainly go along way in getting your kids to change their attitude about enjoying green smoothies. Plus, you can use these same strategies on anyone who is reluctant to try your nutritious drinks. They will never need to learn the mega amounts of healthy vegetables and fruits contained in every serving. They'll likely think they are indeed drinking a delightful sugary beverage. I think you are going to appreciate the results if you give these ideas a try.

Source: Steve Austin

How to Make Green Smoothies - Tips and Advice #SmoothieWorld

There's no question about it. It can be such a challenge to eat vegetables. Their taste leaves much to be desired and it takes an experienced cook to make vegetable dishes palatable. Fruits, on the other hand, are easier to eat. Their naturally sweet, luscious taste is appealing to most taste buds. Plus, they can be picked straight from the tree or from the grocery shelf and can be munched on anytime.

For optimum health, experts recommends at least "nine servings (at least 4 1/2 cups) of fruits and vegetables a day." Unfortunately, most individuals do not even come close to the minimum requirement of 2 1/2 cups!

One of the best and most popular ways to address this deficiency is to combine fruits and vegetables, most commonly leafy greens, in one delicious drink called the green smoothie. This health drink is basically just like a fruit smoothie, but with veggies like kale, broccoli, spinach or lettuce thrown in. It's a tried-and-tested method of meeting an individual's fruit and vegetable requirement.

There is actually no one method of making that perfect green smoothie. The variations of fruit and vegetables that can be thrown in to suit one's discriminating tastes are as many as the number of leafy greens and succulent fruits available at a particular season.

Here are some tips and best practices to help you make that delicious and healthy green smoothie:

1) Invest in a good blender. If you want to make green smoothies a healthy part of your daily diet, you are going to need a powerful blender since the frequent grinding is going to be hard work. However, you don't have to make this a major requirement. Make do with what you have for now. You'll eventually have to shop for a new one anyway once your current one gives out.

2) Prepare your smoothie by first adding about 1-2 cups of water, lettuce (about 1/2 to 1 head will do) or other leafy greens. Put in about 4-5 pieces of fruit. Bananas, apples, oranges, mangoes, papayas, strawberries or any other fresh fruit in season are perfect. If you can't find them fresh, frozen alternatives are good, too.

3) Blend these together for a couple of minutes or until they are of the right consistency.


4) If this is your first time to try this beverage, add more fruits than vegetables so that it becomes sweeter and thus easier to drink. As you get used to guzzling down these smoothies, you can even out the ratio to fruits and vegetables.

5) For green smoothie veterans, going for an all-veggie green smoothie is a great way of maximizing the power of those leafy greens against cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases, lowering hypertension and protecting or fighting cancer.

You can drink from one to four quarts of green smoothie a day. However, like any regular consumption of fruits and vegetables, the general guideline can be summed up in this line: The more, the better.

Source:Antoinette Beppu @Published Articles


Green Smoothies Revealed - What You Need to Know About Green Smoothies #SmoothieWorld

Green smoothies, while consumed by thousands of individuals daily, are not in the mainstream of conversation these days. Of course, if you are part of the exploding health and fitness culture that has a world wide audience, you are most likely already familiar with the movement that embraces green smoothies and their legendary benefits.

The basic information is that green smoothies, like most smoothies, are beverages that are blended to combine fresh or frozen fruit and leafy greens like collard greens, spinach, mustard, and several other lesser known leafy edible greens. One must also add more common vegetables such as carrots and broccoli and even mushrooms, although not necessarily a green or a vegetable.

The idea of green smoothies is that they are filled to the brim with nutrients that work best when they are combined in the raw state. And when blended with other nutritional goodies, these smoothies are nothing less than habit forming. Any parent who has to beg or bribe their kids to eat their spinach and kale, will begin to understand how much of a difference a tasty mouthful of green smoothie can make.

Green smoothies have been found to be very economical and easy to make. Plus since they are fast and tasty and have a rather cool appearance, the challenge of making your family green smoothie fans is definitely simple, after the first blender full of the stuff green smoothies are made of.

Here is a quick recipe:

Start by making sure you have a heavy duty or commercial grade blender. This is not mandatory at first as any blender will do to get started. However, once you realize that everyone will want green smoothies every day, the wear and tear on a non-commercial blender will definitely shorten its life span.

Add kale, collard, mustard, turnip and spinach greens. Top these off with bananas or peaches or strawberries or cherries, or feel free to blend all of them into your smoothie. You won't want to, or need to add sugar or any sweetener so be sure to find your choice of naturally sweet fruits to add to the mix for the best tasting results.

Add enough fresh water up to the half way point in your blender. add ice cubes up to the top. Then close the lid and spin until the mix is completely blended. Check during the cycle for the smoothie consistency you prefer. Lots of us like them smooth and thick, however, others prefer thinner mixtures. Just be sure to check for your desired level of thickness.

Pour and enjoy and try not to smack your lips.

Many of us are not on diets nor do we plan to be, however, if you are interested in being both healthy and thinner, a green smoothie, that takes less than 5 minutes to blend, can help you drop weight and bad habits. Most individuals will drink a smoothie 2 or 3 times a day, which seems to be the optimum way to start.

The bottom line for potential green smoothie addicts is to jump into the habit at whatever level your interest. These are not only great looking drinks but they are loaded with the type of leafy greens that nature fills with antioxidants and vitamins. What a novel idea, enjoy a delicious drink and get a full feeling in the process because of the fiber. And you can end up 10 or so pounds lighter every 30 days.

Healthy Smoothies - Useful For Detoxification And Dessert Too #SmoothieWorld

When the conversation of smoothies comes up, most of us think of the chunky sweet drinks we enjoy at every opportunity. Few people would make the connection to a smoothie as a good idea for helping detox our bodies.

It is relatively well known that the idea of detoxing our body at least a few times a month is a good way to allow out bodies to heal from what we do to them on a regular basis. And adding vitamins and minerals definitely makes sense.

Most of us are not as familiar with the process of detoxification and it just sounds like something that might be uncomfortable. Fortunately, those of us who like to read about body stuff can find tons of programs and products that are available for us to use to detoxify our bodies. Sounds like fun doesn't it? But it just seems too good to be true that you could actually detox for long periods without any negative side effects by following a simple and effect approach. And healthy, as well as, tasty smoothies are the answer. You would probably find it easy to agree that drinking smoothies that are filled with a variety of fruits and vegetables would be an easy way to fill your body with healthy nutrients.

When you think about it more deeply, we're talking about helping your digestive system get the fiber it needs to perform at its best, while also pampering your cells and entire system. Healthy smoothies provide us with nutritional support and allow adults as well as children to eat more of the fruits and vegetables that help keep their health at optimum levels. And it's not medicine.

Healthy smoothies are quietly making their way into our daily healthy dieting routine. So what, you might ask, would be the best things to put into a healthy smoothie? Love those easy questions! Actually, the ingredients for healthy smoothies are way too easy to find, or think up on the fly. Just by Googling "healthy smoothie" you'll get a few hundred tasty and healthy smoothie recipes.

For detoxing without giving up on taste, just be sure to add lots of leafy green vegetables to your smoothie maker. Such easy to find choices as kale, spinach and turnip greens can easily and simply be mixed with peaches and pears and bananas for a fantastically tasty smoothie.
The great thing about making healthy smoothies part of your regular diet is you'll automatically be detoxifying your body without giving it a second thought. Our bodies detoxify naturally when we consume the right balance of vegetables and fruits and other fiber filled foods.
The additional benefit of healthy smoothies is you'll feel better without having to go through aggressive approaches to detoxing causing bloating and other reaction from you body when harsh acting medications have to be taken.

Many of us don't think about smoothies as anything but a dessert. While a well blended smoothie makes a great addition to the desert treats we enjoy, please don't overlook the value of healthy smoothies to your diet several times each week. After all, there's no law that says foods you eat to help your body, have to taste bad.

Source: Antoinette Beppu