Green Smoothie

Breakfast is always a challenge, especially when you have a busy life and kids. In our house, it's a mad dash to get an early morning workout in, get ready for work, get the kids ready for school, and FEED EVERYONE BREAKFAST. Uh, I really don't know how it all gets done, but it does somehow.

The hardest part for me has been preparing a nutritious breakfast for everyone, that is palatable and enjoyable. The kids like what kids usually like. Chocolate milk, cereal, waffles, toast with butter, fruit juice, etc. Once in a great while, I'll cut up some fresh fruit for them and they'll moan and groan, but eventually, if the fruit is fresh and tastes good, they like it. For me, when I going "Raw for 30 days" it was either fresh fruit or a salad. My wife would say, "My husband eats salad for breakfast!" and would laugh about it. Heck, what else is there to eat if you're going raw? :)

Then, I picked up a book by Victoria Boutenko called "Green For Life". Great book, by the way, written by a great lady. Her family's story is something you all should read. Not so much for the raw food aspect, but how their family changed and healed themselves, and continue to do so. It really illustrates how this is all an experiment, a lifelong quest of tweaking and finding answers, sometimes very different from what you first thought. Victoria recommends eating lots of fresh leafy greens, as does everyone else. But her point is that it's not easy to eat greens for many people. It takes time, the texture and taste isn't all that palatable, and eating a salad for breakfast just seems weird. Until now...

First, you're going to need a good blender, it's a must. You can try with a regular blender and if it works for you, then great. I invested in a $400 Blendtec TotalHome blender, the same kind they used at Juice Club (original name of Jamba Juice) when they first started. Blendtec and VitaMix are the two big names, they're both very fine blenders for this.

Next, you need to get fresh organic greens. Go to the Farmer's Markets or to a good grocery store with an excellent and fresh produce section. I buy organic and local, but you can decide what you like. Experiment with what works for you. For me, I've used Kale, Swiss Chard, Romaine, Bok Choy, and Spinach. I rotate them in different combinations.

Next, you need some fresh organic fruit. Bananas are always good, but try berries, mangos, apples, whatever you like.

Next, you need some liquid and sweeteners, especially early. I've tried carrot juice, acai juice, acai smoothie packs, raw honey, raw agave, stevia, etc. Try to replace all of this with water eventually, because you really don't need the extra sugar. In the case of agave for example, people have found this similar to simple sugar, so I don't use it any more. I rarely use raw honey or stevia these days, but that's because I really don't care for sweets that much. I'm a Celtic salt guy, remember?

Last, add some organic ground flaxseed, for fiber, texture and taste. 1 Tbls is fine.

Add them to your blender in this order:

1.) Liquid and sweeteners (water only eventually)
2.) Banana and other non-frozen fruits
3.) Greens (washed, de-stem Kale and other very bitter ones if you wish)
4.) Frozen fruits
5.) Some ice
6.) Flaxseed

For me, I push the "Smoothie" button on my BlendTec, and 25 seconds later, I'm good to go. I can take it with me or sip it over SportsCenter or the newspaper in the 5 minutes I have before the kids wake up. And I feel amazingly full and content, nourished and ready to tackle the day.

Give this a try for a few days and see how you feel. You can even try this with a cheap "Magic Bullet" blender ($50) and it might be okay. If you start to like it, consider getting a good blender, because it'll allow you to "drink your greens" whole, unlike juicing (another post) which extracts just the liquid for the greens.