Green Smoothie Recipe

Intro: Green Smoothie Recipe

This is an amazingly basic green smoothie recipe! It's a great base smoothie recipe to tweak to your liking with additional fruits and flavors. :D

This green smoothie includes pear or apple, spinach, ginger, and lemon. Yum! Great for everyday and especially when you're feeling under the weather stomach-wise. I've just come off antibiotics and my stomach's a mess - this smoothie was just what I needed!

STEP 1: Ingredients

• 2 cups spinach, washed
• 1 pear or apple
• 1/2 - 1 inch piece fresh ginger
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds (for thickening)
• honey or agave nectar if needed to sweeten

And that's it!

You can freeze both the spinach and the ginger if you're worried about them going bad. :)

I'm using flax seed here to add a little body to the smoothie, as well as a little extra boost of good-for-you stuff. You can leave it out or even sub in a banana a thicker smoothie!

recipe via the kitchn

STEP 2: Prep the Fruit and Veg

To measure the spinach, really press it down into the measuring cups. :)

Peel most of the skin off the piece of ginger and cut the lemon in half.

Take and stems and seeds out of the apple or pear.

Depending on what blender you're using, you may need to cut the fruit into smaller pieces, so keep that in mind!

STEP 3: Add and Blend!

I like to add the water and flaxseed first so it has a second to mingle. Then the spinach. The fruit and ginger go on top to help weight the spinach down.

Squeeze the lemon juice on top and start blending. :D

Once it's blended, do a taste test. It's best to add your sweetener now because it will mix in better!

P.S. I'm using a Oster VERSA blender - bought it a year ago and I love it. It's half the price of a Vitamix but works just as nicely. :D

STEP 4: Enjoy!

I like it as is, but the boy adds honey to his to make it a teeny bit sweeter. It's also great with ice when it's warm out. :)

Comments

[Juanamac]

Best spinach smoothie I've ever tried (and I have made many that I have never finished. Disgusting vegetable). This I will even make again.

[jessyratfink]

Yayay! I'm so happy you liked it. :D

I felt the same way! So many green smoothies are eh at best - but this one is soooooo good.

[kengabcadet]

My experience about making a green smoothie is kind of fun, because the instructions were not that clear and I couldn't make up everything it said. The tips I would say would be that it said “you need this”… but you don't have it so they would put “or you can use this fruit or vegetable”. This experience is fun make sure to check out this website to learn more cool stuff. https://www.instructables.com

• Make instructions a little bit clearer
• Provide more examples of what fruit I can use
• Make sure a list of material needed is clear
• Put a clear Title
• Put images in the steps

The instruction were not clear maybe they could change the pictures a little bit
And make the title clearer and put a date when it was made.

[Sharpest32]

Thanks for sharing your recipe! Never tried honey or ginger in mine, so I'll have to give that a shot.

[STACEYUSA94]

How much Honey

[jessyratfink]

Honestly, it's to taste! I normally only add a tablespoon or so if I add any at all :)

[nuelma]

so nice

[whos.awesome.im.awesome]

Be careful with spinach. Spinach contains (mineral escaping my mind right now) that can cause liver and kidney problems when eaten excessively. Greens like Kale and Collard Greens (I'm almost positive) have little to no of this mineral and do not cause this problem. Of course, spinach is GREAT for you, but a varied diet is key to any good diet. I've been working with a green smoothie company for a year and (shameless plug) we have tons of great recipe ideas for you to try at home! greensplease.com

[Dugan Thekitty]

Magnesium and manganese are in spinach and kale and three times more in swiss chard. If you avoid spinach for this reason you would have to avoid every other type of plant food on our planet! Mg is the center of the chlorophyll molecule, really? You get Mg and Mn more from other sources, too many to mention. Vitamin K and A are also in spinach and kale. Also, wonderful carotenoids are abundant...anti cancer compounds. And there are tens of thousands of micronutrients in spinach and kale. A varied diet is always a great idea but "be careful?" Please be careful not to eat enough GBOMBS! I'm a biochemist and none of us get enough Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries and Seeds. Spinach and Kale are one of the very few sources of Vitamin K, blood clotting factor. None of us really eat enough spinach or kale unless they plan on making a smoothie every day for a year. When you take a whole bag of spinach or kale leaves and compress them down you are talking a very small weight or amount. And there is absorption, which is not efficient without the correct oils/fats eaten at the same time. There are losses after the greens are harvested. Our soils have also been depleted of minerals. People are obsessed with macro vitamins and minerals when none of us get enough micronutrients.

[whos.awesome.im.awesome]

I have been having an organic green smoothie every day for a year now (16-32oz every morning) and suggest it to whoever has the ability to, which is why I brought this up. Greens like dandelion greens, mizuna greens, and even stinging nettle are very nutrient dense lesser known superfoods you can add too. I just don't recommend a single green for a proper year-round nutrient intake. Great recipe though!

[AnubisAndIsis]

We went on an all juice diet 3 years ago for six weeks straight and I lost 30 pounds in that time. Once the "fast" was over, we slowly began to introduce good whole foods back into our diet, and rarely stray from it. For anyone reading this, I can attest this is an **awesome** juice mix right here, and good for you, just one thing: **Do not juice raw Kale.** I can't even believe Starbucks is offering Kale smoothies. Kale is a crucifer, and all crucifers need to be at least steamed before consumption or it will begin to mess with your hormonal balance, both men and women. You don't have to take my word for it, search the web for kale and hormonal balance you you'll find plenty of medical studies to back it up. But spinach base, oh yeah. :-)

[Dugan Thekitty]

There are cultivars of kale that should only be cooked and cultivars that can be eaten raw. I think what you mean to say is that you should never eat only raw kale, you need to also have cooked kale in your diet, even at the same meal. Like a salad and then soup. I apologize for the length but read what Dr. Joel Fuhrman has to say:

Best cooked: By cooking a tomato, you break down its cell walls and release more of its lycopene, a cancer-fighting antioxidant. Dr. Fuhrman also suggested cooking carotenoid vegetables (think red, orange and yellow) such as bell peppers, carrots and corn, because the heat increases the bioavailability of their nutrients. He particularly recommended that mushrooms be cooked. “Cooking mushrooms for even a few minutes dissipates most of the mild toxins they contain,” he explained. Why eat mushrooms at all if they have toxins? Because they also provide powerful polysaccharides thought to inhibit tumor growth. For instance, one recent study found that eating mushrooms daily was associated with a 64% reduction in breast cancer risk.

Best raw: A vegetable Dr. Fuhrman singled out to eat raw is perhaps the one you’d least want to eat that way—the onion. When you chop an onion, a chemical reaction releases compounds called organosulfides. These compounds cause your eyes to tear…but more importantly, they help halt cancer cell growth and may have anti-inflammatory effects that protect against osteoarthritis. Unless you chop or purée the onion while it is still raw, the organosulfides will not form because heat can deactivate the enzymes that create them. You don’t have to eat a raw onion the way you would an apple—just put some slices on your salads and sandwiches. And when you do cook with onions, be sure that they are thinly sliced or chopped and blended into the recipe while still raw so the organosulfides have a chance to form.

Best when raw and cooked are combined: Green cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, collards and kale contain more vitamins and minerals per calorie than any other foods, Dr. Fuhrman said. But some are released when raw and others need to be heated to be bioavailable. In particular, myrosinase, an enzyme that is released only when the cell walls are damaged (for instance, by chewing, chopping or juicing) triggers a chemical reaction that activates the body’s own antioxidant system, providing potent protection against cancer. Cooking deactivates myrosinase. So why not always go raw with these vegetables? Because some of their nutrients are more bioavailable when cooked. Dr. Fuhrman recommended eating both raw and cooked green cruciferous vegetables at the same meal—for instance, by having a raw kale salad along with your stir-fried broccoli-and-chicken entrée—because synergistic effects will produce maximum benefits.

Cooking methods matter. Of course, how you cook has a big effect on veggies’ healthfulness. Dr. Fuhrman advised against roasting, grilling or deep frying because high-heat cooking methods that brown, darken or dry out foods lead to the formation of carcinogenic acrylamides. If you love grilled vegetables, choose juicy ones such as tomatoes and peppers, which don’t dry out with cooking—their moisture helps keep acrylamides from forming.

Generally, a quick steaming is best because it makes beneficial nutrients more absorbable while causing minimal damage to heat-sensitive ones. Microwaving and sautéing are OK, but take care not to overcook the veggies (which is all too easy to do). Boiling isn’t recommended because many nutrients are discarded with the cooking water. Soups and stews are fine, however, Dr. Fuhrman said—water-soluble nutrients are not lost because we eat the tasty liquid portion, too.

[AnubisAndIsis]

Oh, and try something natural for a sweetener, that works too, my personal preference is mango.

[przemek]

Mango also works great as a thickener/stabilizer. Sometimes mango smooties are so thick/creamy/curdly that you can literally cut them with a knife. Aaah, they are so good.... I think I'll go and make one right now...

[Claulispp]

Remember juicing and smoothies using the whole fruit or veg are different.

[CraigRJess]

Interesting. Never heard that before. I've been doing the kale juice recipe shown in the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead - though he never mentioned this. Maybe he didn't know either. Will have to look into it more. Thanks for the heads up....

[JaniceP1]

Hello AnubisAndIsis I've never heard this about cruciferous veggies before. Can you pls include a link or two indicating that this veg type affects hormonal balance when consumed raw. As mentioned, this is new to me. Thank you, this will be helpful in regards to my diet & food preparation choices!

[AnubisAndIsis]

I didn't post links because many of the articles are **not** authoritative (because it's on the Internet doesn't make it true :-) ) and you have to do a little research on your own to make an informed decision. Having said that, this article is not the final authority, there are more.

It's important to note that when you juice vegetables, you are super-concentrating their content, which is almost always good, but in the case of crucifers, should be steamed first.

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/food-beverages/cruc...

[ahoier]

i gotta try this! looks delicious.

[stephenmack]

Lots of happy faces! Making this is like going to Jamba Juice, only cheaper and sometimes healthier! ;P