[FunSize]

If anyone needs a boost, I strongly suggest adding green smoothies into your life if you haven't already. I started drinking green smoothies about 5 days ago and I am already seeing huge changes over all.
The problem with me is that I am not a huge veggie lover, so I've probably had more veggies in the last 5 days than I've had in the last 5 YEARS.

I make my smoothies with less fruit because I have PCOS and most likely insulin resistant.. I don't do sugar well, not even fruit.
I load my regular blender up with 2 huge handfuls of spinach, 1 handful of Kale, chopped carrot, quarter of an avocado, berries, small bit of banana, strawberries, etc I also freeze the fruit so the shake is nice and cold. I also add flax seed, hemp seeds and dulse.. but I interchange stuff. My smoothies differ day to day so far.

AND IT TASTES WONDERFUL! Even with less fruit (you can add more) you don't taste the veggies AT ALL.. it just tastes amazing and healthy.

I blend for a few minutes until it's smooth, and I make about a quart! I found that adding the avocado made a huge difference in suppressing hunger.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I no longer have insomnia at night, I find myself going to bed when I should and waking up with energy. My skin is glowing already.
Also, I only seem to want to eat healthy stuff now. It's like my body has started craving more and more of the good stuff.


So I just wanted to share. I wish I knew about these earlier.. For once all the veggies in my fridge are being used. Heck, I threw a whole zuchini in my smoothie yesterday! I am eating pounds of veggies everyday.

Hope this encourages someone to try!

[Everlasting]

I was wondering what tool do you use to make the smoothies? Does a regular blender work fine? I feel like someone told me it just eats it up and makes it way too runny. I was thinking about purchasing something so that I could make fruit smoothies, but you make these sound so good I really want to try it!

[sotypical]

I used to make them a lot - not nearly as nice as yours. I used to just buy a bag of mixed frozen berries of Costco to add. Sometimes I would even use 1tbsp frozen orange juice concentrate to help cover the taste of all the veggies. Wouldn't help you thought because of the sugar. Never even thought about adding Avocado!

They are delicious and very healthy, I could just never stay full off one (least not mine).

Everlasting - I use a magic bullet for smoothies like this... but honestly, overall the magic bullet is a FAIL. It works great for stuff like this but everything else it just sucks at it - it can't even chop ice nicely. And you can't run it for more then 30 seconds or something. If you have a blender use that, maybe even a food processor?

[WarMaiden]

Yep, I used to have a smoothie every day that had blueberries and spinach in it. It was really disgusting to look at, but tasted quite nice.

At some point I transitioned to just eating the blueberries and spinach and other veggies, rather than putting them into a smoothie. But I think smoothies can be really useful for getting someone who doesn't love veggies into eating them. (I still don't really *love* all the veggies I eat, but I basically shove them in my mouth and eat them anyways.)

[Toni48]

Boy this sounds great. I need to do that too.

[FunSize]

Originally Posted by Everlasting

I was wondering what tool do you use to make the smoothies? Does a regular blender work fine? I feel like someone told me it just eats it up and makes it way too runny. I was thinking about purchasing something so that I could make fruit smoothies, but you make these sound so good I really want to try it!

All the green smoothie "gurus" recommend a vita mix or blend tec.. but those are nearly $400-$500 bucks!

Honestly, my $40 Oster blender works PERFECT. I just use the "ice crush" button. It's a 12amp motor with 16 speeds I think. It practically creams the carrots and anything else that's hard.
And from what I've read, you want it to be blended well and NOT chunky because of something to do with the body absorbing the nutrients. I still keep my smoothies thicker because they taste better that way but some people have them very watery, too.

To watch a nifty video go here:
This gal shows you how she makes her green smoothies.. although her version has too much fruit for me, but this is what I base my recipe off of.

http://happyfoody.com/2009/08/10/hap...hallange-2009/

[Bigknitter]

I love green smoothies! I used to use a basic blender but have since gotten the Blendtec and love it. The difference is huge, to me. I could never get it smooth before and I like it really smooth. My favorite basic smoothie is just banana, spinach, and blueberries or dates. I also add in hemp protein powder or just hemp seeds. I can't wait for mangoes to be good though, I love just mango and spinach.