With about half or a third of the total ingredients you see in front of you, and a bit of water, I made a green smoothie. The mango wasn’t quite ripe, so it will go into tomorrow’s smoothie. Nevertheless, the smoothie was absolutely delicious. I had about two cups of smoothie. However, it is now lunchtime, and I am famished, even before my daily workout. For me, green smoothies can be a supplement to my normal diet, and maybe a substitute for some less nutritious options. But on raw greens and vegetables alone, I would starve, and not very slowly, either.

Another WordPress blogger suggested I try adding green smoothies to my diet. She is a vegan, which I am not, but like me, also eats cooked food as well as raw. I agree with her that eating a vegan vegetarian diet is the best dietary course for the planet earth. Not only does she have an important message, but she conveys it with humor. Check out Violet’s Veg*n e-Comics! http://violetsvegnecomics.com/about/

I am on a middle path, attempting only to consume animal products from pasture-raised, organically and naturally fed animals. This includes butter. It is fairly easy to find milk from pasture-raised cows, but it is not easy to find local, pasture-raised butter, or any organic butter that is pasture-raised and not astronomically expensive. My imperfect compromise–though Ireland is not local–is to purchase Kerrygold and other European, pasture-raised, butter. I will pay more to buy local, but at some point that becomes unaffordable. For most of us, who do not have heated greenhouses in which we grow our own produce year-round, our lettuce will come from California during the winter months. What a sad waste of energy. Obviously the pineapple in my smoothie did not grow in New Jersey, either. Ideally, that would have been a locally grown,organic pear, but pineapples are a fruit I love, and I have now succumbed to purchasing now and then, and composting the top and hard outer scaly stuff. The pear wins on that score, too. There is almost no part of a pear that is inedible, nothing much to compost or toss. A pear is another one of those perfectly self-contained foods. Due to our unseasonably warm and dry fall, there are home gardeners in New Jersey still harvesting their own lettuce, kale, and beets without a greenhouse. I am still on the steep upward learning curve as a gardener. Next year!

Yes, I am yet another one of those folks who would like to cure herself with food rather than medicine. But I also really do love food and spices, and have no plans to turn eating into a job or duty. My basic approach is simple: it is to eat tasty, nutritious food whenever I am hungry. And yes, sweet potato fries are on the menu at times, not to mention my weakness for dark beer. So, I am not a purist. Just someone doing her best.

I include the link to a business designed around green smoothies. I have only looked at one brief video, and am not sure whether the author of a book on green smoothies–a lifestyle food, apparently–and her son subsist solely on green smoothies, or whether they eat other food as well. For those who wish to delve further into the green smoothie world, here is the link and short video. I neither know these people, nor have any business connection with them, nor do I stand to profit from any purchase or sales of books, etc. resulting from my post. I just found it interesting, good-tasting, and possibly a source of increased health and energy, so worth trying more than once.

http://greensmoothiesblog.com/abundance-of-proteins-in-greens/

http://www.rawfamily.com/how-to-make-a-green-smoothie

I can’t wait for my next green smoothie because the mango will be ripe tomorrow. In theory, you are supposed to use a different leafy green every day, and I do have raw spinach at home, but I love the taste of kale so much that I may just have to use kale again tomorrow.

If anyone is motivated to try, please let me know how you like it! Does anyone have a green smoothie recipe to share?