Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko

[Autumn]

I placed my order tonight from Amazon. I hope it arrives soon!

[Rawkinlocs]

I just want to step in here and say, I REALLY think some clearance should be gotten with Alissa before this gets underway.

Just out of courtesy. In fact, anytime ideas such as these are presented, they should be presented to her before being initiated.

Some may not agree, but out of consideration and courtesy, I think it best.

I am going to contact her myself...I believe she is still away, but perhaps she's checking in periodically.

Hope you can understand.

[misslinda]

..........i've never ead the book but i have a question.


is there more credit to green smoothies than just plain green juice? if yes, why?

[Ariella]

id like to join also :) I have been drinking between 1/2 to 1 quart daily but not regularly each day 1 quart.

My favorite right now is:

vitamix full of kale or spinach
3 cups orange juice
strawberries
2 bananas
blueberries

so good!!!!

Excited to try this with all of you :)

[Dandelion Girl]

I notice a big difference on the days I have a green smoothie. My sister also notices a big difference. My mother had a colostomy in the past and had it repaired. She always had to have bran cereal in the mornings. She is a SAD eater, but when she added green smoothies, she no longer had to eat her bran cereal and she had a lot more energy.

Prana, I use a food processor to do my smoothies and it works fine.

[Revvell]

I have read recently that the K-Tec blender is easier to store and use?
anneh

This is off-topic and has been discussed numerous times here yet, I'll give my opinion as I have both the K-Tec and the Vita-Mix. I absolutely LOVE the VM. It has variable speeds and a larger container.

The K-Tec has a smaller container. As far as easier to use, it's harder for me to figure out what all speed variations are; the container is smaller and the blend comes up out of the top (blending for two people) and it starts up at waaaaay too high a speed.

With the VM I can start it w/out have the cover on it's so slow and easy and manually bring up the speed to where I want it.

As for storage, I just put the container next to the base. They fit easily under the upper cabinets.

Revvell

[Boysenberry]

Sharon,

Rock on! Let's do our own experiment!

I love many of her recipies. I have tried all of the sweet ones that I can do with produce in season. (no summer ones) I can't keep it in the house. My children and husband line up for them, so I am generallly making two quarts at a time.

I feel fantastic since including a quart of green smoothies per day. I increased my running time and have been dancing around the house, chasing kids at the park and generally bouncing off the walls! Hooray for green smoothies!

[vegbaby]

I was so excited to read your post about doing our own "study." I emailed Victoria recently to ask if she had given any thoughts to an ongoing study with people over the Internet. Can't remember exactly what I said, but I was sort of hoping for a group spirit to give me inspiration. Now I've found it!

My favorite smoothie so far is the peach-spinach one, but I have to admit I haven't tried too many because of the lack of green variety here (I'm in Mongolia). For those of you who don't have the book but need more recipes, Victoria gave me permission to post some of her recipes on my site here: http://www.vegetarianbaby.com/recipes.shtml

Enjoy!

[vegbaby]

I just want to step in here and say, I REALLY think some clearance should be gotten with Alissa before this gets underway.

Just out of courtesy. In fact, anytime ideas such as these are presented, they should be presented to her before being initiated.

Some may not agree, but out of consideration and courtesy, I think it best.

I am going to contact her myself...I believe she is still away, but perhaps she's checking in periodically.

Hope you can understand.

Any update on this, Rawkinlocs? Certainly don't want to do anything inappropriate here.

[Rawkinlocs]

Hey Melanie!

No, not yet. She's been out of town and won't be back until the end of the week. But I should be hearing something soon. Thanks for asking!

[Sharon in Colorado]

Rev the solution I found to the whole K-tec dilemna was to get an additional blender container. K-tec's warantee got me a brand new motor and housing, it was unbelievable, when my K-tec burned out for the last time. I decided to get the extra container because I was experiencing the same as you. Now it is a lot easier and no messy leaking and dripping. (I was pretty close to throwing in the towel and getting a Vitamix).

misslinda I think Mrs. Boutenko goes over this in her book. When I try to juice any kinds of greens, I don't get a whole lot of juice, since I don't have a twin gear. I think juicing green leafies tends to be a bit of a waste. My husband juices carrots and apples and makes me a small glass in the morning. I have juiced celery and beets along with it, as it seems to get a lot of liquid out of it. I'm sure there's more to it, about it being more beneficial whole rather than juiced - the fiber in the greens, etc.

Party on Boysenberry. I'm hoping the experiment helps with my cravings, as it did Mrs. Boutenko. When cravings are under control it is so much easier to eat right and heal.

Ariella your recipe sounds really good. I wish my K-tec had a plunger/food pusher. I've heard of pushing a celery stick into it, which makes a lot of sense, since I wouldn't want to eat wooden spoon shrapnel!

Hi vegbaby, I remember reading so many of your posts way back. It is nice to see you posting here.

I plan on continuing with the 1 quart green smoothie a day whether or not there is a group journal. Perhaps we can just share our experiences and outcomes here or somewhere else. I looked over the questions from the Roseburg study and even though the subjects from the study were for people with heartburn, the questions definately apply here and can be answered by each person doing there own experiment.

[RawTruth]

For those questioning why green smoothies are preferable to green juices, if you don't have Victoria's book, here's a quick (and hopefully somewhat accurate) summary: Green smoothies are good for two basic reasons -- 1) they greatly increase our consumption of greens which are vital for our health and which are way under-eaten by us if we only eat them in salads, and 2) blending the greens help them digest better since most, if not all, of us unknowingly have reduced stomach acid due to cooked food abuse in our previous lives.

Any nutrition loss from oxidation when blended is miniscule compared to the enormous gains possible by eating the greater amounts of ripe, fresh, raw fruits and greens possible when we blend them.

Tonya's and Victoria's smoothies differ in a few ways - Tonya prefers hers with no added water and likes it thick enough to eat with a spoon, and she usually uses only two ingredients (fresh mango and swiss chard) while Victoria adds water and a mixture of fruits and a wide variety of greens. Most any functioning blender will work for Victoria-style smoothies, but very few will succeed in doing it Tonya's way. For hers, we're talking Vita-Mix or K-Tec or Titan (if you've got $1,000 laying around!).

Victoria's green smoothies are really quite simple, but there are certain parameters. Some of those are: she's never deviated from advocating 40% fruit to 60% greens, they're always made with 2 cups of water, there are no supplements added, and as wide a variety of deep green-colored greens as possible is used, the more wild greens the better.

You've probably already thought of this, Sharon, but if this "study" proceeds (officially or unofficially), you might consider some uniformity. That is, of course, if you're going to chart results and have people answer Victoria's questions. In her study, there was no problem since she controlled the smoothies by making them herself and distributing them. But, here, you have all kinds of variables: some people may decide to use juice rather than water, others may add dates or agave if they want a sweeter smoothie, frozen fruit rather than fresh, some may even add hemp powder or other supplements, and some people might drink a quart while others may add 1/2 gallon a day.

I'm not at all trying to throw cold water on this excitement. In fact, I think it's super and, now that I've seen this thread, I'm thinking of joining in as a "challenge" although I'd already been drinking green smoothies for a while and upped the frequency when I got Green for Life even though I'd been ingested waaaay more greens than the Boutenkos. (My mom, my daughter, my cousin ... are all drinking green smoothies now.) Back to the cold water thing, though -- the analytical, research part of my brain is wondering whether you're going to keep track of this and treat it as an experiment (in which case uniformity is important) or whether it's more for the fun and camaraderie. Either way is cool -- just trying to watch out for you as far as you having valid results if the 1st way is how you're hoping to do it.

Whichever way it goes, Sharon, I think it could be fun ...

[Sharon in Colorado]

Hi Diana thanks for the cold water!

This is probably going to be as unofficial as it gets.

For one, I am starting to feel like I'm 'tresspassing' between using someone else's message board with someone else's idea. Hence I certainly don't plan on putting so much effort into this as some kind of labor of love beyond presenting the idea and putting up a group journal which now I don't know is even allowed.

Secondly, this is really no different than Alissa's 30 day challenge. All the people here doing the challenge or seeing if raw food is working for them are certainly not under Alissa's eye. She can't prepare raw food for them or track their progress. They are completely on their own. So most of the time nobody knows who's doing 100% raw, who's mostly eating raw garbage, who's more pure, etc. Then when people say they aren't seeing results or progress, nobody else really knows their lifestyle.

I will have to look in the book again - I think I recall the prescription being 2 heads' of greens a day. I've always used 2 handfuls of greens, but that was distributed amongst my whole family's smoothies, not just for my own, so I'm probably not getting the correct proportion myself. I got an E-mail from Victoria saying they never followed any recipe for the Roseburg study, she said they were doing mostly banana/kale and mango/lamsquarter. I don't know for sure if they were using 2 cups of water in their smoothies. I never use water, I use fresh squeezed or juiced oranges.

Hope that helps!

[Revvell]

Rev the solution I found to the whole K-tec dilemna was to get an additional blender container. K-tec's warantee got me a brand new motor and housing, it was unbelievable, when my K-tec burned out for the last time. I decided to get the extra container because I was experiencing the same as you. Now it is a lot easier and no messy leaking and dripping. (I was pretty close to throwing in the towel and getting a Vitamix).

I'm not sure what the dilemma is you are referring to. I've got 3 K-Tec containers yet, I prefer to use only one to create enough for the two of us. Therefore the VitaMix is my blender of choice. The only leakage I have in the K-Tec is the hole in the top of the contain lid when the stuff comes up and out. When I'm making something which needs a smaller container, I'll use the K-Tec. Otherwise it's VM all the way!

Rev

[RawTruth]

I don't know for sure if they were using 2 cups of water in their smoothies. I never use water, I use fresh squeezed or juiced oranges.

Hmmm ... well, she says 2 cups of water in Green for Life. And, since she advocates using the fiber of all the fruits/veggies rather than juicing and devotes a chapter or so in the book to the benefits of fiber, I'm thinking it's water.