Green for 14 days.
Two weeks ago I saw this post on Free Spirit Knit’s blog. I decided to get back in the habit of making green smoothies — and figured a 14 day challenge was a great way to make it a habit (though technically they say it’s 17 times that creates a habit, I think?) The whole family has been loving these — my husband’s words were “some challenge… soooo difficult to drink something delicious every morning!” (yes, with loads of sarcasm!)
I think the best thing that came out of this that my son is getting loads more fruits + vegetables… He has taken to disliking most cooked veggies (salads being they only safe bet at dinner time these days) but he’s drinking a cup of smoothie everyday. Elizabeth drinks them a bit less (but then she has issues having any sort of breakfast…) BUT she eats her veggies at dinner time (they both eat raw fruit + veggies during the day as well) anyways — it evens it out and it makes it easier for me to handle my son’s lack of veggy consumption in the dinners prepared for our family. (having said that, I very much look forward to the day when I’m not thinking ‘doesn’t really matter WHAT I prepare, it wont get eaten….’ someday, someday.)
Actually, another amazing thing is how much less coffee we’re both drinking. I’ve read that drinking green smoothies daily had that effect on people and I thought ‘that is so not my goal, I like coffee and I’m not doing this to cut coffee.’ (I really didn’t want to do this to replace caffeine because I felt like that would be putting too much pressure on the smoothies!) I’m drinking less than a cup a day right now and could see stopping all together! It’s had a fabulous effect on our energy levels all together!
I kept track of my daily ‘recipes’ — I gave up trying to identify how much I liked each smoothie – because they were all pretty great. the only one that wasn’t ‘as good’ was the morning I put too many blueberries in it. It tasted a bit like I would imagine blueberry juice might taste like – it was too sweet… that says a whole lot because blueberries are one of my absolute favorite things! We went a few days without blueberries after that!
in no specific order, we’ve used the following ingredients in our daily smoothies spinach, romaine lettuce, kale (which we prefer when not the only green in the smoothie!), cuccumber, bok choi, avocado, bananas, mangos, pears, apples, rasperries, blueberries, cherries & strawberries. Every morning the kids help make the smoothies and decide on which fruits should go in… they love them!