Green Smoothies Don't Have To Be Green Anymore!

Smoothies are nothing new. For years, many people have been using their home blender to combine fruit, fruit juices, protein powders, and a wide assortment of spices to create nutrition that can be consumed from a glass.

Green smoothies in particular are delicious, and they are an easy, tasty way to add more fresh greens and vegetables to the diet. For a thicker smoothie, use green cabbage as the base; for a lighter tasting smoothie, try spinach or lettuce as the primary ingredient; for a really sharp, bitter tasting smoothie, begin with turnip or mustard greens. After the greens, one can add just about anything that suits the taste buds such as fruit, vegetables, juice, milk, spices, sweeteners, flax seed, or protein powder.

So why don’t more people enjoy green smoothies? Well, it probably has to do with the color. Green smoothies are seldom a pretty, healthy, vibrant shade of green. Oh, no. Somehow, they usually emerge as a sick, putrid shade of green, and they often look like something you certainly would not want to put in your mouth.

But, green smoothies don’t have to be green anymore. If one has difficulty eating a wonderful tasting green smoothie because of the resulting hue, try adding various other colors to the mix. For instance, use red cabbage instead of green cabbage, and the resulting color is a deep purple. Adding about a cup of blueberries will also result in a hue of deep blue to purple. For a pink or reddish tint, add strawberries or raspberries. Of course, if one is trying to eliminate or limit the amount of fruit in the green smoothie and has no qualms regarding artificial ingredients, artificial food coloring will help to change the color of the final product.

Personally, my favorite green smoothie changes with the weather. Today, the primary ingredient in the smoothie was green cabbage (about ¼ of a head of cabbage). Then, about one cup of blueberries was added along with some water, flax seed, and just a bit (less than a teaspoon) of raw honey. Yesterday, the primary ingredient was lettuce (about ¼ of a head of lettuce), and added to that was some unsweetened apple juice and flax seed.

Green smoothies are tasty, nutritious, and the ingredient combinations are endless. But, thankfully, for weaker stomachs, the color of the smoothie is as variable as the assortment of ingredients that can go into one. Just try a little creativity, and then enjoy a tasty treat.