...and Bananas and Pears and Spinach and Chard and Kale: GREEN SMOOTHIES: a Health diet that might really work.

So. I may actually be starting a new "healthy" diet. I've started many in the past and never stuck one out, had pretty much given up on trying again. I might stick this one.

Friend S wrote me a few days ago:

Do you have any interest in healing diet material? I did a lot of research and am now thrilled with a raw food diet. Green smoothies blending fruit and lots of green leafy vegetables. I didn't know leafy greens have so much protein. Even one green smoothy for breakfast each day starts the healing process and you have so much energy! If you're interested let me know.

Well, it sounded good. My only concern was that all the "healthy" diets out there usually involve supplements I can't afford. There was a period a decade or so ago when it seemed that every church had a few members who were selling some particular health item, usually some natural food in various forms -- bluegreen algae comes to mind -- wanting to recruit you as a buyer or as a seller as well. It was always a line of products and the seller was personally using them and very sincerely recommended them. I had no doubt they were good for you, though I did often doubt they were good ENOUGH to spend the money on them. Much of it I really couldn't afford at all, and, I have to admit, I never liked the money-making emphasis in those systems. Nothing wrong with making money of course, and if the product's good what's my beef anyway? Probably have to analyze myself about that. Maybe it's as simple as not liking the idea that some natural food is singled out as the center of a business. The emphasis always seems to end up on the business, not on the food.

Or maybe I just don't know why it bothers me.

So when S reassured me that green smoothies don't involve that sort of thing but are natural foods I could learn about myself, I said I was interested and she sent me some links. I spent most of the next few days reading up on it myself and deciding that I definitely wanted to try this, if only at the most minimal level.

Green Smoothies are one part of the Raw Food diet and some people do the whole thing. Some start with the smoothies and work up to the whole diet or some level of the diet, some plunge right in to the whole system at the beginning, some just add a Green Smoothy into their usual routine. The whole diet does get into some health food lore that can make your head spin if you aren't naturally geared to the alternative medicine scene, as I am not, but I was very intrigued with the basic Green Smoothy idea itself.

So simple. We never get enough green leafies in our diet. I know I don't. But greens are just chock full of important nutrients, so we're missing out on a lot. "Green leafies" means spinach, chard, collards, kale, beet tops, the green lettuces and the like. You may eat them once in a while, but not really very often, and for some of us they are hard to really like, one of those things you eat because your mother told you to, and sometimes that becomes a reason NOT to eat them after you've grown up and left the family home.

They can be bitter for one thing. But put them in a smoothy, even enough greens to make half a dozen normal-sized salads or side vegies, mix them with fresh fruit to take away the bitterness, which adds another spectrum of nutrients, blend it all until it becomes a pint or a quart of something pleasant to drink, and it begins to suggest something both enjoyable and power-packed. Then read the lore about how a good blender has the effect of releasing the nutrients in the leaf to an extent impossible with mere chewing, further multiplying the effect of the already-multiplied amount of nutrients, and I'm convinced: this is something that's really possible, really available, that could truly contribute to better health. I hardly EVER feel that way about a health-improvement program. Well, never, to be precise.

And then there are the testimonials. Every health system has its testimonials of course, but these seem especially consistent and believable. "More energy" is the number one report. S was very convincing about how much more energy three weeks of two quart-sized green smoothies a day had given her. It had cured her of insomnia and the need to take naps during the day among other things. I could certainly use that myself as my sleep pattern has been a mess for a few years now -- in fact I don't have a sleep "pattern" any more, that's the problem. I suddenly get sleepy and have to sleep -- at different hours around the clock. It sometimes becomes urgent -- I simply can't stay awake another minute at times. But I rarely stay asleep more than three or four hours at a time. Yes, a mess. Can green smoothies straighten that out? Well, if I can get this thing rolling we'll find out.

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Sunday December 12. Tried my first Green Smoothy this morning. A bunch of spinach leaves plus a banana. I got the idea from some website or other, somebody's blog I think, which was about a lot more than smoothies but I liked the simplicity of this one for a starter, especially since I had the ingredients on hand.

It was just a tad bitter -- two bananas or a second different fruit would probably have taken that away but I went on a banana binge yesterday and only had one left, and I'd forgotten to get apples. It was just a tiny bit bitter I want to emphasize, the faintest tinge. The dominant flavor was banana although it was intensely green. I enjoyed it.

I only got about a pint out of what I had, but I want to work up to a quart. I wasn't sure my old Osterizer would do the job, but I put about a cup of water in to start and then the greens and it worked just fine (the usual advice is to put the fruit in first but at least one expert does it greens first and I wanted to give my not-so-powerful machine a head start on the hard part of the task, which is the greens, and it worked for me). It probably wasn't as smooth as the very powerful machines can make it but it was just fine nevertheless.

From what I've been reading about the best blenders I thought I might have to rename my concoctions Green Lumpies but the spinach and banana were smooth enough. The lore of green smoothies says you get the most nutrition out of the plant when it's thoroughly pulverized and all the cells in the leaves have burst. I suppose a $400-to-$600 2-or-3-horsepower machine could be expected to accomplish that better than an old $40 Osterizer, but I'm saying So far so good anyway. Maybe fewer burst cells than optimum, but hey. Barring a miracle I'll never be able to have one of the powerful machines but with prayer the Osterizer should be able to turn out decent smoothies for some time to come.