Monday, October 22, 2012

Micro-Nutrients


In an effort to get more fruit and vegetables into our diets, my wife and I have gotten into smoothies. Have a look at the ingredients of this morning's concoction: A pear, apple, orange, carrot, kale, plum, and a little crushed pineapple.

Here's how it works: Take out the seeds and stems, peel the orange (though if you like a little more bitterness in your drink, you can leave that on) dump it all into the blender. On top of that, add a little ice or a handful of frozen blueberries, or both. Set it awhirl ...

After a while you get this. Without the blueberries, it comes out a nice green; with them, you get a chocolate milkshake color.



Works out to be a little over three cups, plenty for your breakfast, tasty, and all the benefits of the pulp instead of just the juice. Kale is really good for you, but there are only so many ways you can prepare that so it doesn't taste like weeds with the dirt still on them.

The ingredient choices are endless. Yesterday, I had one with most of what you see, plus a banana, a couple of green peppers, half an unpeeled lemon, almond milk, and a dried red pepper, which added a nice afterburner.

If, like me, you aren't the world's biggest fan of cooked vegetables, especially bitter greens, this is a great way to get them into your diet without really noticing them, and raw preserves most of the nutrients. Don't need to add sugar, because there is plenty of that in the fruit, and it tastes good, and is good for you. 

And at the risk of TMI, it also makes certain you are ... ah, regular in your visits to the loo.

3 comments:

  1. I made a smoothie last night that was so good!, I decided to make another but I used frozen strawberries. Three of them plus the other ingredients jammed the blade and the rubber coupler broke my blender!

    Thanks to this guy at 'YouTube' showing how to replace the broken coupler and a local vender who sold me a replacement part,I got it fixed. No more whole strawberries! Just a good tasting drink.

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  2. Apparently there's a trick to doing frozen stuff I didn't know but my wife did -- you put some water in the bottom, then the softest stuff, with the harder ingredients at the top. The theory is that the soft material will make the slurry and keep it liquid so the blades keep churning as the harder stuff gets pulled into it. So far, that's kept ours from jamming.

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  3. I use spinach, get big bags of it pre-chopped and frozen at the local warehouse store.
    I know kale is super-wonderfully good for you, which makes me wish I could get it down and keep it down. No deal. But more for you! I also add in 1/2 to 1 tsp of matcha powdered green tea. My thinking is, the benefits of green tea, the WHOLE LEAF, plus it's raw, so if that really does have benefits of its own, I'm getting 'em.
    What else...parsley, dried. Just a hunch, getting a spectrum of green leaf nutrients.

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