Revitalise and drop the kilos with green smoothies.

Forget expensive and tiresome juicing, Green Smoothies are now all the rage! Green smoothies have countless health benefits, are easy and inexpensive to make, are extremely versatile and assist in weight loss. They also taste delicious, even if at first sight they do not look very appetising.

Here’s a few reasons to incorporate a green smoothie into your daily regime.

Health Benefits

• Adding a green smoothie into your daily diet is the easiest way to increase your fruit and vegetable intake.  They generally contain more fruit and vegetables than an average Australian consumes daily and with a ratio of 60% fruit to 40% green vegetables, they are as nutritious as they are delicious.

• Green smoothies contain a great deal of fibre, as opposed to juices. Eating enough fibre is very important to keep our digestive system running smoothly. Green smoothies revitalize your body, as they clear your insides of ‘bad’ and unwanted toxins. Quite often our bodies have difficulty digesting certain foods which then sit around in our bodies and become toxic waste. Green smoothies flush all this waste out by cleaning our bowels and making our elimination organs run regularly and smoothly. As an added bonus, flushing out our bodies releases weight as well.

• Green smoothies are exceptional for human health and consumption. Green smoothies are packed with amino acids, due to the green leafy vegetables. Your body uses amino acids to produce protein. If you are finding it difficult to consume your daily protein amount, incorporate a green smoothie into your daily diet.

• By eating your greens in the form of a smoothie, you greatly decrease the amount of oil and salt in your diet. Think about all the salt, oil and/or sauces that you top steamed or raw greens with to make them taste better. With green smoothies, none of this is needed to make a delicious meal or snack.

• Consuming your greens in a smoothie assists in forming good, healthy habits. After a few weeks of incorporating green smoothies into your diet, you will find that you will crave more greens and will really enjoy eating them! The majority of Australians do not eat enough green vegetables and therefore are more susceptible to illness.

Weight Loss

• Green smoothies are great for weight loss, as they assist with reducing cravings. This is due to the ratio of fruits to vegetables being 60:40, hence the fruit dominates the flavour. The green vegetables also help to balance out the sweetness of the fruit. The tastier one finds a food, the more they will enjoy consuming it and the less likely they will be to consume junk food! When you feel a desire for junk food coming on, make yourself a green smoothie instead. These smoothies will help to decrease your cravings for unhealthy food as they are satisfying, filling and nourishing.

Other Benefits

• Green smoothies can be enjoyed all year round due to the increasing availability of fresh and frozen produce.

• Green smoothies are very easy to make and even easier to clean up! Many people avoid making green smoothies as they think the process will be similar to juicing greens, which is time consuming, messy and not cheap. It takes all of five minutes to whip up (and clean up) a litre of green smoothie.

• The sweetness of the smoothie makes the green smoothie appealing to children of all ages, which is an added bonus to busy mothers.

• Green smoothies appeal to the creative and experimental mind. You can throw almost any combination of fruit and green vegetables into a blender and the end result will be a delicious smoothie (following the ratio of 60 % fruit, 40 % vegetables that is.)

• Green smoothies are an excellent way to use up leftover green vegetables.

The perfect green smoothie

Choose your base: water, coconut milk, green tea

Add your leafy greens: spinach, swiss chard, kale, bok choy, gai lan, carrot tops, sunflower,  sprouts, lettuce, arugula (rocket), cabbage, watercress, turnip greens, radish greens, beet greens, herbs (including basil, coriander, parsley, mint), spirulina.

Add healthy a boost: chia seeds, macca powder

Add fruit:   mix it up to keep it interesting!

A Basic Green Smoothie Recipe to get you started

• 2 Bananas
• 1 Peach
• 5 Strawberries
• A handful of Spinach
• 1 cup of water

Directions – blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth and enjoy!