BDraw
07-04-2005, 11:39 AM
Found this on rawfoodsupport.com and had to share it!!!! It is from thier newsletter this month.
Raw Family's Favorite Green Smoothie Recipe:
1/2 pound of fresh lamb's quarters, or 1/2 bunch of fresh dinosaur kale
2 ripe mangoes
2 very ripe bananas
1 quart water
Blend thoroughly in a Vita-Mix blender.
Yields 1/2 a gallon of delicious smoothie.
The green smoothie will keep for at least 24 hours in the fridge or cooler,
stored in a glass or high quality plastic container.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We highly recommend new book:
LIVING ON LIVE FOOD by Alissa Cohen
This book teaches you what a raw and living food diet is and how to get
started immediately.
With 290 raw and living food recipes and so much more.
550 pages.
List price (USD): $29.95
Available now at http://www.rawfamily.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(c)2005 Copyrighted material! Please reference this source when sharing this
information!
by Victoria Boutenko
http://www.rawfamily.com
Green Smoothie,
An Easy Way to Love Greens
My husband, our two younger children and I
have been on the raw food diet for more than
eleven years. We were able to heal all of our
incurable, life-threatening diseases. However,
after several years of being raw, each one of
us began to feel like we had reached a plateau
where our healing process stopped and even
somewhat began to go backwards. Since then
a burning question in my heart grew stronger
every day. The question was, "Is there anything
missing in our diet?" The answer would come
right away:
"Nope. Nothing could be better than a raw food diet."
Yet, however tiny, the unwanted signs of less than perfect health kept
surfacing, in minor but noticeable symptoms like a wart on a hand, a gray
hair, etc. that instantly brought doubts and questions about the
completeness of the raw food diet. Finally when my children complained about
increased sensitivity in their teeth, I reached a state when I couldn't
think about anything else. I drove everybody around me crazy with my
constant discussion of what could possibly be missing.
In my eager quest, I started looking at every single food that exists for
humans. As my grandmother used to say, Seek and ye shall find. After many
wrong guesses, I finally found the right one. Whew! I found one food group
that particularly matches ALL human nutritional needs: greens. The truth is,
we in my family were not eating enough greens. Moreover, we did not like
them. We knew that greens are important, but we never heard anywhere exactly
how much greens we need in our diet, just a vague recommendation to eat as
much as possible.
In order to find out how much greens we need to eat, I decided to study the
eating habits of chimpanzees, since they are the closest creatures to human
beings. According to recent scientific research, they share 99.4 % of the
same genes with humans.1 I am not trying to say that humans developed from
chimpanzees. I am simply grateful for the reality that there is another
species in this world that closely resembles us. There are thousands of
chimpanzees living in Gombe Valley, Africa. The most remarkable fact is that
majority of those chimps of Gombe, as opposed to humans, have not been
touched by civilization. I went online and purchased $300 worth of books and
DVDs about chimpanzees and their diet and lifestyle. I wrote a letter with
my questions to the Jane Goodall University. I traveled to three big zoos
that have chimpanzees and spoke to many people who feed them and take care
of them every day. I discovered so much fascinating information about
chimpanzees that I totally changed my view of them. They became one of my
favorite beings. My research gave me a solid idea that humans are supposed
to eat a lot more greens than I would have guessed.
Please look at this chart showing the average diet of the chimpanzee in the
wilderness, according to Jane Goodall:
As long as I can remember, in books and pictures I always saw chimpanzees
depicted with a banana or an orange in their hands. That definitely misled
me to the assumption that they eat only fruit. To know that greens compose
almost half of their diet became a revelation for me. As far as root
vegetables are concerned, the chimpanzees don't eat any of them unless there
is a famine and nothing green is left. Based on how much fruit we consume in
my family (about 4 or 5 pounds per day per person) I estimate that we need
to eat about two good sized bunches of dark leafy greens per person per day,
and probably reduce the consumption of nuts, seeds and roots.
Another thing I noticed is that the chimpanzees really love greens. I
remember watching at the zoos, how excited they became when given fresh
acacia branches, young tender palm tree leaves or kale. I was so inspired
looking at them that I went to the nearby bushes and tried to eat acacia
leaves, but the truth was that the green leaves were not very palateable for
me and that presented another problem. To eat greens was always more like a
duty for me. I would think to myself, I have to have my greens. Some days I
would "cheat" by juicing my greens. I would quickly drink a cup of green
juice and consider myself good for a couple of days. Or I would make a
delicious raw dressing and sink my greens into that dressing. That was
another way for me to enjoy greens. But I could never imagine sitting and
eating two bunches of kale or spinach.
The more I read about the nutritional content of greens. the more I became
convinced that greens are the most important food for humans. If I could
only find a way to enjoy them enough to consume the optimal quantity needed
to become perfectly healthy!
I tried countless times to force myself to eat large amounts of greens in
the form of salad, or just by itself, only to discover that I was not
physically able to do that. After about two cups of shredded greens I would
have either heartburn or nausea. All along, I was aware that my body was
missing the nutrients that are available only from greens.
One day, while reading a book on biology, I became intrigued by the
amazingly tough composition of plants. Apparently cellulose, the main
constituent of plants, has one of the strongest molecular structures on the
planet, because it is one of the longest and most complex carbohydrate
molecules. From this I understood that in order to assimilate the many
needed nutrients from greens, the human body needs to be able to break down
these tough structures. However, cellulose is insoluble. That means in order
to get nutrients, its structure has to be broken into the tiniest pieces,
preferably down to the molecules. In simple words, we need to chew our
greens to a creamy consistency in order to get the benefits.
Secondly, in order to digest the released minerals and vitamins,
hydrochloric acid in the stomach has to be very strong, pH between 1 and 2.
These two conditions are absolutely, vitally, necessary to the assimilation
of nutrients from greens. Apparently, I did not chew my greens well enough
and possibly did not have a high enough level of hydrochloric acid in my
stomach.2 As a result, I experienced unpleasant signs of indigestion, after
pushing myself to eat greater quantities of greens. Hence, I didn't like
eating greens altogether!
However, after more than a century of eating mostly heavily proccessed
foods, mordern people lost their ability to chew normally. Our jaws became
so narrow that even after extracting our wizdom teeth, we still need to
wear braces.3 Our jaw muscles became too weak to thoroughly chew rough
fiber. In addition to these compromizing conditions, many people have lots
of fillings, fake or missing teeth. These conditions make chewing greens to
a necessary consistency virtually impossible.
That is why I decided to try to "chew" my greens in the Vitamix blender. 4
First I blended a bunch of kale with water. I was thinking, I will just
close my eyes and nose and drink it. But as soon as I opened the lid, I
closed it back again quickly because I felt queasy from the strong,
wheatgrassy smell. That dark green, almost black mixture was totally
unconsumable. After some brainstorming, I added several bananas and blended
it again. And that was when the magic began! When I slowly and with some
trepidation removed the lid and sniffed the air, to my greatest surprise
this bright green concoction smelled very pleasant. I cautiously tasted a
sip and was exhilerated, because it was better than tasty! Not too sweet,
not too bitter, it was the most unusual taste I had ever tried, and I could
describe it in one word: freshness.
In four hours I emptied all I blended, which was one bunch of kale, four
bananas and a quart of water. I felt wonderful and made more. Triumphantly,
this evening I realized that this was the first time in my life that I
consumed two good-sized bunches of greens in one day. Plus, I ate them
without any oil and salt! And I enjoyed the whole experience.
That was in August, 2004. The solution was so unexpectedly simple. To
consume greens in these way took so little time that naturally I continued
experimenting with blended greens and fruits day after day. At first I
didn't tell anybody. I didn't have any big health problems and I didn't
expect any dramatic changes, I just didn't want to age. However, after about
a month when a couple of my warts and moles peeled off my body and when I
definitely felt more energized than before, I started sharing my experience
with my family and friends. The next thing I noticed was that those little
cravings I'd had once in a while for heavy foods like nuts or crackers,
especially in the evening, had totally disappeared. I noticed that many of
my wrinkles on my face went away and I began to hear compliments from other
people about my fresh look. Also my nails became stronger. Another bonus I
got was a wonderful taste in the mouth, all the time, even upon waking in
the morning. I hadn't had this pleasure since childhood.
When my husband Igor saw the noticeable benefits in my health, he joined me
in drinking green smoothies. He started to ask for a cup of "that green
stuff" whenever I was making it. Let me point out that although I didn't
like greens, Igor simply couldn't tolerate them, which is pretty typical of
Russian men. Another two months later his mustache and his beard started
growing blacker, which made his face look a lot younger. Igor got so excited
about this that he became the green smoothie champion of my family. He would
wake up early and make two or three gallons of smoothie every day: one for
me, one for him, and one for Sergei and Valya to share. Both of our children
enjoyed including this tasty green drink in their daily menu and even though
they were already experiencing great health, noticed even more benefits,
like the ability to sleep less, more complete elimination, stronger nails,
and most of all the improvement in their teeth, which became less sensitive.
One of my fears was that I would get tired of green smoothie one day, and I
wouldn't want it any more. Yet, after three months of regular consumption I
was enjoying it more than ever. Now I couldn't imagine my life without my
green smoothies, as it has become 80% of my diet. In addition to smoothies I
eat flax crackers, salad, fruit and occasionally seeds or nuts. In order to
always have the opportunity to make fresh green smoothie for myself I
purchased an additional Vitamix blender for my office. Whenever friends or
customers came in, they saw a big green cup next to my computer and I
treated them to my new discovery. To my great satisfaction, everybody loved
it, despite their different dietary habits. Unexpectedly for me, some of my
friends and coworkers started to comment on their health improvements just
from the cup of green smoothie they were drinking in my office! No kidding!
I can tell you their names. My web designer began to crave more raw foods as
a result of rather irregular helpings of smoothie and lost 15 pounds in a
couple of months. The woman from the office across the road got rid of her
ecsema, drinking a cup of green smoothie almost every day. The UPS guy likes
it too.
Inspired by the warm reception, I wrote an article "Ode to Green Smoothie"
and emailed it to my entire list. Almost instantly I began to receive strong
positive feedback and many detailed testimonials from my friends, students
and customers. While I felt compelled to do more research, it looks like the
multiple benefits of green smoothie became obvious to everybody who tried
them, and the number of people who are drinking green smoothie is growing
rapidly every day. This "green wave" makes me more excited than ever! I am
busily compiling all the information together with the research into my new
book, due out in a few weeks.
Raw Family's Favorite Green Smoothie Recipe:
1/2 pound of fresh lamb's quarters, or 1/2 bunch of fresh dinosaur kale
2 ripe mangoes
2 very ripe bananas
1 quart water
Blend thoroughly in a Vita-Mix blender.
Yields 1/2 a gallon of delicious smoothie.
The green smoothie will keep for at least 24 hours in the fridge or cooler,
stored in a glass or high quality plastic container.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We highly recommend new book:
LIVING ON LIVE FOOD by Alissa Cohen
This book teaches you what a raw and living food diet is and how to get
started immediately.
With 290 raw and living food recipes and so much more.
550 pages.
List price (USD): $29.95
Available now at http://www.rawfamily.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(c)2005 Copyrighted material! Please reference this source when sharing this
information!
by Victoria Boutenko
http://www.rawfamily.com
Green Smoothie,
An Easy Way to Love Greens
My husband, our two younger children and I
have been on the raw food diet for more than
eleven years. We were able to heal all of our
incurable, life-threatening diseases. However,
after several years of being raw, each one of
us began to feel like we had reached a plateau
where our healing process stopped and even
somewhat began to go backwards. Since then
a burning question in my heart grew stronger
every day. The question was, "Is there anything
missing in our diet?" The answer would come
right away:
"Nope. Nothing could be better than a raw food diet."
Yet, however tiny, the unwanted signs of less than perfect health kept
surfacing, in minor but noticeable symptoms like a wart on a hand, a gray
hair, etc. that instantly brought doubts and questions about the
completeness of the raw food diet. Finally when my children complained about
increased sensitivity in their teeth, I reached a state when I couldn't
think about anything else. I drove everybody around me crazy with my
constant discussion of what could possibly be missing.
In my eager quest, I started looking at every single food that exists for
humans. As my grandmother used to say, Seek and ye shall find. After many
wrong guesses, I finally found the right one. Whew! I found one food group
that particularly matches ALL human nutritional needs: greens. The truth is,
we in my family were not eating enough greens. Moreover, we did not like
them. We knew that greens are important, but we never heard anywhere exactly
how much greens we need in our diet, just a vague recommendation to eat as
much as possible.
In order to find out how much greens we need to eat, I decided to study the
eating habits of chimpanzees, since they are the closest creatures to human
beings. According to recent scientific research, they share 99.4 % of the
same genes with humans.1 I am not trying to say that humans developed from
chimpanzees. I am simply grateful for the reality that there is another
species in this world that closely resembles us. There are thousands of
chimpanzees living in Gombe Valley, Africa. The most remarkable fact is that
majority of those chimps of Gombe, as opposed to humans, have not been
touched by civilization. I went online and purchased $300 worth of books and
DVDs about chimpanzees and their diet and lifestyle. I wrote a letter with
my questions to the Jane Goodall University. I traveled to three big zoos
that have chimpanzees and spoke to many people who feed them and take care
of them every day. I discovered so much fascinating information about
chimpanzees that I totally changed my view of them. They became one of my
favorite beings. My research gave me a solid idea that humans are supposed
to eat a lot more greens than I would have guessed.
Please look at this chart showing the average diet of the chimpanzee in the
wilderness, according to Jane Goodall:
As long as I can remember, in books and pictures I always saw chimpanzees
depicted with a banana or an orange in their hands. That definitely misled
me to the assumption that they eat only fruit. To know that greens compose
almost half of their diet became a revelation for me. As far as root
vegetables are concerned, the chimpanzees don't eat any of them unless there
is a famine and nothing green is left. Based on how much fruit we consume in
my family (about 4 or 5 pounds per day per person) I estimate that we need
to eat about two good sized bunches of dark leafy greens per person per day,
and probably reduce the consumption of nuts, seeds and roots.
Another thing I noticed is that the chimpanzees really love greens. I
remember watching at the zoos, how excited they became when given fresh
acacia branches, young tender palm tree leaves or kale. I was so inspired
looking at them that I went to the nearby bushes and tried to eat acacia
leaves, but the truth was that the green leaves were not very palateable for
me and that presented another problem. To eat greens was always more like a
duty for me. I would think to myself, I have to have my greens. Some days I
would "cheat" by juicing my greens. I would quickly drink a cup of green
juice and consider myself good for a couple of days. Or I would make a
delicious raw dressing and sink my greens into that dressing. That was
another way for me to enjoy greens. But I could never imagine sitting and
eating two bunches of kale or spinach.
The more I read about the nutritional content of greens. the more I became
convinced that greens are the most important food for humans. If I could
only find a way to enjoy them enough to consume the optimal quantity needed
to become perfectly healthy!
I tried countless times to force myself to eat large amounts of greens in
the form of salad, or just by itself, only to discover that I was not
physically able to do that. After about two cups of shredded greens I would
have either heartburn or nausea. All along, I was aware that my body was
missing the nutrients that are available only from greens.
One day, while reading a book on biology, I became intrigued by the
amazingly tough composition of plants. Apparently cellulose, the main
constituent of plants, has one of the strongest molecular structures on the
planet, because it is one of the longest and most complex carbohydrate
molecules. From this I understood that in order to assimilate the many
needed nutrients from greens, the human body needs to be able to break down
these tough structures. However, cellulose is insoluble. That means in order
to get nutrients, its structure has to be broken into the tiniest pieces,
preferably down to the molecules. In simple words, we need to chew our
greens to a creamy consistency in order to get the benefits.
Secondly, in order to digest the released minerals and vitamins,
hydrochloric acid in the stomach has to be very strong, pH between 1 and 2.
These two conditions are absolutely, vitally, necessary to the assimilation
of nutrients from greens. Apparently, I did not chew my greens well enough
and possibly did not have a high enough level of hydrochloric acid in my
stomach.2 As a result, I experienced unpleasant signs of indigestion, after
pushing myself to eat greater quantities of greens. Hence, I didn't like
eating greens altogether!
However, after more than a century of eating mostly heavily proccessed
foods, mordern people lost their ability to chew normally. Our jaws became
so narrow that even after extracting our wizdom teeth, we still need to
wear braces.3 Our jaw muscles became too weak to thoroughly chew rough
fiber. In addition to these compromizing conditions, many people have lots
of fillings, fake or missing teeth. These conditions make chewing greens to
a necessary consistency virtually impossible.
That is why I decided to try to "chew" my greens in the Vitamix blender. 4
First I blended a bunch of kale with water. I was thinking, I will just
close my eyes and nose and drink it. But as soon as I opened the lid, I
closed it back again quickly because I felt queasy from the strong,
wheatgrassy smell. That dark green, almost black mixture was totally
unconsumable. After some brainstorming, I added several bananas and blended
it again. And that was when the magic began! When I slowly and with some
trepidation removed the lid and sniffed the air, to my greatest surprise
this bright green concoction smelled very pleasant. I cautiously tasted a
sip and was exhilerated, because it was better than tasty! Not too sweet,
not too bitter, it was the most unusual taste I had ever tried, and I could
describe it in one word: freshness.
In four hours I emptied all I blended, which was one bunch of kale, four
bananas and a quart of water. I felt wonderful and made more. Triumphantly,
this evening I realized that this was the first time in my life that I
consumed two good-sized bunches of greens in one day. Plus, I ate them
without any oil and salt! And I enjoyed the whole experience.
That was in August, 2004. The solution was so unexpectedly simple. To
consume greens in these way took so little time that naturally I continued
experimenting with blended greens and fruits day after day. At first I
didn't tell anybody. I didn't have any big health problems and I didn't
expect any dramatic changes, I just didn't want to age. However, after about
a month when a couple of my warts and moles peeled off my body and when I
definitely felt more energized than before, I started sharing my experience
with my family and friends. The next thing I noticed was that those little
cravings I'd had once in a while for heavy foods like nuts or crackers,
especially in the evening, had totally disappeared. I noticed that many of
my wrinkles on my face went away and I began to hear compliments from other
people about my fresh look. Also my nails became stronger. Another bonus I
got was a wonderful taste in the mouth, all the time, even upon waking in
the morning. I hadn't had this pleasure since childhood.
When my husband Igor saw the noticeable benefits in my health, he joined me
in drinking green smoothies. He started to ask for a cup of "that green
stuff" whenever I was making it. Let me point out that although I didn't
like greens, Igor simply couldn't tolerate them, which is pretty typical of
Russian men. Another two months later his mustache and his beard started
growing blacker, which made his face look a lot younger. Igor got so excited
about this that he became the green smoothie champion of my family. He would
wake up early and make two or three gallons of smoothie every day: one for
me, one for him, and one for Sergei and Valya to share. Both of our children
enjoyed including this tasty green drink in their daily menu and even though
they were already experiencing great health, noticed even more benefits,
like the ability to sleep less, more complete elimination, stronger nails,
and most of all the improvement in their teeth, which became less sensitive.
One of my fears was that I would get tired of green smoothie one day, and I
wouldn't want it any more. Yet, after three months of regular consumption I
was enjoying it more than ever. Now I couldn't imagine my life without my
green smoothies, as it has become 80% of my diet. In addition to smoothies I
eat flax crackers, salad, fruit and occasionally seeds or nuts. In order to
always have the opportunity to make fresh green smoothie for myself I
purchased an additional Vitamix blender for my office. Whenever friends or
customers came in, they saw a big green cup next to my computer and I
treated them to my new discovery. To my great satisfaction, everybody loved
it, despite their different dietary habits. Unexpectedly for me, some of my
friends and coworkers started to comment on their health improvements just
from the cup of green smoothie they were drinking in my office! No kidding!
I can tell you their names. My web designer began to crave more raw foods as
a result of rather irregular helpings of smoothie and lost 15 pounds in a
couple of months. The woman from the office across the road got rid of her
ecsema, drinking a cup of green smoothie almost every day. The UPS guy likes
it too.
Inspired by the warm reception, I wrote an article "Ode to Green Smoothie"
and emailed it to my entire list. Almost instantly I began to receive strong
positive feedback and many detailed testimonials from my friends, students
and customers. While I felt compelled to do more research, it looks like the
multiple benefits of green smoothie became obvious to everybody who tried
them, and the number of people who are drinking green smoothie is growing
rapidly every day. This "green wave" makes me more excited than ever! I am
busily compiling all the information together with the research into my new
book, due out in a few weeks.