Green Smoothies
A moment of reflection
We’re just going to say it. We can’t stand the ‘superfood’ movement. You know how it goes: we exoticise some Amazonian berry and infuse it in our mind with almost magical properties, and create some boom and bust industry until the next fad food comes along. We would do well to eat more humble (and ideally home-grown) green veggies though! And there’s no more fun way of increasing our intake of them than with a green smoothie…
What is a green smoothie?
The simple answer would be to say a blended mix of fresh green vegetable leaves with delicious fruit. Some, however, prefer to call them “a potent elixir of liquid sunshine!”
Why green smoothies?
In general we don’t eat enough fresh green vegetables in our diets, let alone raw ones. Truly fresh (i.e., not from the supermarket) uncooked vegetables are packed with vitamins and living enzymes. But finding ways of eating enough of them can be a drag.
Green smoothies can be your answer. We love the taste, even more than regular smoothies, and most people agree, especially when you go a little easy on the greens at first.
Some people even live off them (not recommended)! But simply having one for breakfast everyday might just do wonderful things for your health.
How to make them?
The basic recipe is to take a blender and fill it with roughly 1/3 loosely packed green leafy vegetables and 2/3 fruit, plus water.
It’s that simple. But of course there are many delicious variations.
It’s best to blend up the greens with water first so they blend up fine. Popular additions include herbs, celery, cucumber, freshly ground linseed and honey. Some people use vegetables such as celery and avocado as a base to make savory green smoothies, but most people make sweet ones using a fruit base. Some greens such as chard and spinach shouldn’t be eaten raw every day (because of their oxalic content), so mix it up with lettuce. But we make most of our smooties from wild edible weeds (come along to one of our Edible Weeds Walks to find our more)!
Adam and his partner Annie also have an edible weeds of Australia book!
Example recipes:
| Recipe #1 1 handful freshly picked lettuce leaves 1 handful freshly picked mint 3 bananas 2 cups waterRecipe #2 4-5 freshly picked kale leaves 3 apples 1/2 lemon juiced 2 cups of waterRecipe #3 3 cups of mango 1/2 medium sized freshly picked cos lettuce 1 cup of water |
Recipe #4 1/2 avocado 1/2 capsicum one small onion 2 cloves garlic one chilli 2 handfuls freshly picked kale or red cabbage 2 cups waterRecipe #5 2 handfuls of freshly picked edible weeds (eg. dandelion, purslane, milkthistle, plantain, dock, nettles) 1 banana Two peeled oranges (remove as many seeds as you can, but leave the pith) 1/2 cup of water |
Drink your smoothie slowly and ‘chew’ it before swallowing — you’ll savour the flavour and it helps with digestion.
Why smoothies not juices?
Juicing means you get almost all of the sugar, and none of the fibre from the fruit. Smoothies on the other hand are whole foods, and much healthier, especially when they contain organic green vegetables.
Why not grow your own?
No matter how much money you have to spend, you simply can not buy fresher, healthier fresh vegetables than the ones you grow at home. You can eat them within minutes of picking them, so you know that they are still full of living enzymes and maximum nutritional content – and you know exactly what hasn’t been sprayed on them! You can taste the difference. Ask us to set you up with a green smoothie VEG bed.
Here’s Adam making a weedy one live on The Circle on Channel 10!
