Green Smoothies – The Perfect Meal

Green smoothies are THE perfect meal for modern people who care about their health. By preparing your own green smoothies, healthy eating is a lot of fun.

Smoothies for people who don’t like salad

Don’t like green leafy vegetables? Then green smoothies are the ideal solution for you to still be able to enjoy all the fantastic benefits that green leafy vegetables bring to your health. Green smoothies stand for optimal healthy nutrition. Green leafy vegetables taste wonderful – packed in a smoothie.

The discoverer of green smoothies: Victoria Boutenko

Green smoothies were discovered by Russian-born Victoria Boutenko, who now lives in the United States with her family. A few years ago, the entire Boutenko family suffered from various health problems. Victoria’s husband had extremely painful rheumatoid arthritis and what is known as progressive hyperthyroidism (progressive hyperthyroidism).

Victoria herself was diagnosed with heart disease after her father died, and even her two children suffered from the nagging symptoms of chronic illness from their early teens. Daughter Valya struggled with asthma since birth, and son Sergei was a type 1 diabetic.

Various doctors finally agreed that the Boutenko family would have to come to terms with their ailments. Of course, there are wonderful medicines that can be used to try and alleviate their suffering a little, but there really isn’t a chance of a cure. Victoria Boutenko did not want to put up with this and went in search of a solution.

Serious diseases cured with raw food

She soon discovered the raw food diet and was immediately enthusiastic. She changed the whole family’s diet practically overnight. Understandably, the children didn’t exactly burst into ecstasy in view of the new, very vegetable and fruit-heavy meals. But her reluctance did not last very long. Then, when they noticed that their diseases disappeared with this kind of diet, they began to love them.

Suddenly, Victoria’s heart started working again and her husband, who was in pain and could no longer tie his shoelaces himself and, according to his orthopedic surgeon, would end up in a wheelchair sooner rather than later, was able to eat raw food – together with the whole family – after three and a half months at a 10-kilometer -Participate in races.

What is missing?

However, after a few years, Victoria and her husband felt they were missing something. Victoria analyzed her meals and finally found that while they ate lots of fruit, lots of root vegetables, and also lots of nuts and seeds, they ate almost no green leafy vegetables at all. The reason was simple: they didn’t like it. If they ate green salads, only with a large amount of dressing. This made the leaves slide better, but then they felt heavy in the stomach so they ate less and less of them.

Green leafy vegetables

Victoria observed our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, and their feeding habits. She saw that chimpanzees ate exceptionally large amounts of a wide variety of leaves and wild plants, not with dressing, but especially with fruit.

She also saw that chimpanzees chewed their food extensively and did not wolf down it in haste. She was also fascinated by the incredible variety in which the great apes ate their green leafy meals.

While many humans consume just a handful of different green leafy vegetables, often throughout their lives, chimpanzees dine on well over a hundred different green plants. Humans also eat cultivated salads that are relatively low in vital substances, while chimpanzees eat wild plants, which are among the richest sources of micronutrients on our planet.

Victoria drew the appropriate conclusions for herself and her family:

• There should be more green leafy vegetables in the future.
• There should also be a wide variety of leafy vegetables, herbs, and wild plants.
• They would make sure to chew everything very thoroughly.

But problems arose. They still disliked green leafy vegetables and found it difficult to chew them as thoroughly as needed. And it was precisely from this dilemma that the green smoothie was born.

The green smoothie

Victoria had seen that chimpanzees like to eat their greens with fruit. So she put greens, fruit, and some water in the blender. The result was a green drink that – contrary to expectations – tasted delicious and therefore made it possible to consume large quantities of green leafy vegetables in the finely chopped form necessary for optimal digestion with great pleasure at the same time.

The outcome for the Boutenko family’s well-being was so fantastic that Victoria has now written two books on green smoothies and travels the world lecturing on green smoothies so that as many people as possible may benefit from this simple yet divine food.

Lots of fiber

Green leafy vegetables are particularly high in insoluble fiber. This fiber is not digested but leaves our body unchanged. Nevertheless, they are of outstanding value. Insoluble fiber from green leafy vegetables looks like tiny sponges under a microscope. When these sponges slide through our digestive system, they do what a sponge likes to do best: cleaning.

They absorb toxins and transport them out of the body, also promote thorough emptying of the bowel, stabilize blood sugar levels and thus reduce the risk of diabetes, strengthen our immune system, prevent gallstones and various types of cancer and lower the levels of unhealthy LDL cholesterol – just to name a few of all the beneficial effects of fiber from green plants.

Green leafy vegetables make you alkaline

No other food has such an alkaline effect on the organism as raw green leafy vegetables. While grain and dairy products still have a neutral effect in the very best of cases, they are usually in the acidic range, while meat, sausage, and fish are metabolized to be clearly acidic, while nuts, with the exception of almonds, are acid-forming, while even some fruits with a high sugar content have an acidic effect, green leafy vegetables provide alkaline minerals in such large quantities and such perfect, easily usable quality that their alkaline effect is completely undisputed.

Achieving a really good and long-term healthy acid-base ratio is therefore almost impossible without green leafy vegetables.

Green leafy vegetables are full of chlorophyll

Victoria Boutenko writes about this in her book “Green For Life”:

Chlorophyll is as important as sunlight. Without sunlight, there would be no life and without chlorophyll, there would be no life either! Eating as much chlorophyll as possible is like bathing our internal organs in the sunshine. […] chlorophyll nourishes our bodies like a loving, caring mother. It heals and cleanses all our organs and destroys many of our internal enemies such as disease-causing bacteria, fungi, or cancer cells.

Chlorophyll for healthy blood and a healthy intestinal flora

Chlorophyll is also an excellent hematopoietic. It is almost identical to our red blood pigment and therefore ensures pure and healthy blood. However, the healthier our blood is, the healthier all of our organs, glands, blood vessels, and every one of our cells is.

Chlorophyll is also essential for healthy intestinal flora. Everyone now knows how important the right balance of our intestinal flora is for our well-being.

Harmful external influences such as alcohol, caffeine, antibiotics, poor nutrition, or stress can very quickly destroy this sensitive balance. However, the more chlorophyll we consume, the faster our intestinal flora regenerates and thus automatically our overall condition.

Chlorophyll cleanses, prevents, and heals

Chlorophyll improves the blood count, prevents (and fights) cancer, provides easily absorbable iron and prevents anemia, creates an alkaline environment, detoxifies, cleanses the liver, eliminates unpleasant body odor and bad breath, relieves gum problems and cleans the teeth, improves eyesight, promotes wound healing, has an anti-inflammatory effect and bestows our body with countless other benefits.

Why do leafy green vegetables need to be blended?

Of course, leafy greens don’t “need” to be blended. You can still eat green leafy vegetables in the form of salads. But if you want to benefit from green vegetables, you should chew them extensively. But that is no longer possible for many people today. On the one hand, they don’t have the time, on the other hand, they just don’t feel like it. Often, however, it is just pure habit to destroy all meals as quickly as possible – preferably while reading the newspaper or watching television.

If green leafy vegetables are finely chopped up in the blender, it mimics a thorough chewing process, and only then can we digest them optimally and use all the wonderful ingredients for our health. Nevertheless, smoothies should not be drunk in a hurry. Every sip is well insalivated and only then swallowed.

The basic smoothie recipe

A green smoothie consists of the following basic ingredients:

• Green leafy vegetables
• fruit
• water

(Note: root and tuber vegetables or vegetables such as broccoli or cauliflower do not belong in the green smoothie.)

Preparation: Place 200 milliliters of water in a blender along with 150 grams of chopped greens of your choice. Blend everything for 1 to 2 minutes. Now add 150 grams of chopped fruit and mix again until a homogeneous drink is obtained. If the result is too thick for you, dilute it with water.

Tips: If you have a powerful professional blender such as the Vitamix or the Personal Blender, you can add all the ingredients to the blender and only roughly chop them. In such devices, the smoothie is ready within a very short time (approx. 30 seconds).

Mixing for too long should generally be avoided, otherwise, too much heat is generated, which can damage the heat-sensitive vital substances. In order to further reduce heat development, water can also be added in the form of ice cubes.

Gourmet smoothies

For green smoothies beginners, in particular, it is advisable to refine the above basic recipe with various delicious and healthy additional ingredients. Here are some tips:

• Freshly squeezed orange juice instead of water
• Some coconut oil, linseed oil, almond butter, or sesame butter (1 tablespoon of butter or 1 teaspoon of oil)
• Fresh ginger (a fingernail-sized piece or more)
• Some Raisins
• Freshly grated lemon zest or freshly squeezed lemon juice
• spices such as B. cinnamon, cardamom, or real vanilla.

Which green leafy vegetables can be used?

• wild vegetables e.g. B. dandelion, chickweed, reporting, white goosefoot, plantain, goutweed, purslane, etc.,
• herbs e.g. B. parsley, mint, dill, basil, oregano, etc.,
• sprouts e.g. B. from alfalfa, broccoli, sunflower seeds, etc. (but no legume sprouts),
• green cultivated vegetables e.g. B. spinach, celery leaves, chard, kale (kale), rocket and outdoor salads and
• leaves of z. B. Carrots, radishes, kohlrabi, beetroot, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.

The goal should be to consume at least 100 grams of green leafy vegetables per day, with almost no upper limit. Start slowly with about 20 grams per day and smoothie and continuously increase the number of leafy greens to e.g. E.g. two smoothies a day with 50 grams or more of green leafy vegetables each.

You’ll find yourself loving the greens and the taste of them more and more every day. You’ll be able to reduce the amount of fruit and eventually you’ll even love the taste of pure wheatgrass juice.

This means our sense of taste has been so spoiled by our upbringing and decades of poor nutrition (e.g., foods that are too sweet, too salty, too flavored) that they no longer like what should naturally be our staple foods.

However, if we give our sense of taste time to regenerate, it will remember its roots and suddenly you can’t get enough of the fresh aroma of green plants.

What to do if there is no greenery at hand?

For days when you absolutely don’t have a green leaf within reach, organic wheatgrass, spelled grass or barley grass powder can be used, as can of course spirulina or chlorella powder.

Likewise, you can look out for other leafy greens that are commercially available in powdered form that are simply stirred into the fresh mixed fruit by the tablespoon, such as B. Nettle leaf powder, dandelion leaf powder, spinach powder, parsley leaf powder, or even broccoli powder.

Of course, the nutrient-rich Moringa leaf powder is also a great option that can be mixed into smoothies. Moringa provides calcium, magnesium, vitamin E, and vitamin B2 in particular.

However, fresh green should never be replaced by powdered green on a permanent basis. On the other hand, if you want to further increase the chlorophyll and micronutrient content of a smoothie, you can easily add the powder to your smoothie along with the fresh greens.

What Makes Green Smoothies Even More Powerful?

Green smoothies are an ideal dish for cooks who love to experiment and are full of imagination. There are endless variations and incredibly diverse ingredients with which smoothies can become your very own favorite food. There are (almost) no limits to your ingenuity. In this way, you can prepare green smoothies that are even richer and more revitalizing by enriching them with one or the other very special ingredient.

Here are some examples:

• Add the contents of two to three ginseng capsules to your smoothie.
• Make your smoothie even richer in protein: With a tablespoon of basic, purely plant-based protein powder, basic lupine.
• Turn your smoothie into an incomparable power drink and add a base powder (a basic herbal and fruit powder), the contents of four to six maca capsules, a spoonful of spirulina or chlorella powder, a spoonful of nettle seeds or a spoonful of silicon colloid for a healthy one Hair and smooth skin full of elasticity.
• Prepare smoothies that are thicker and use avocados instead of fruit, season them heartily with herbs, some crystal salt, or herb salt, and serve the result as a delicious soup. What to do if you don’t have time?

Some days you just don’t have time to make a green smoothie. Or you have time but not the necessary muse because so many other things are buzzing through your head. How convenient it would be if green smoothies came ready-made, ideally as a powder that you just had to mix with water… Of course, it shouldn’t be a powder made up of cheap fillers and flavored with artificial flavors owes. In any case, the green smoothie should remain an exquisite meal that provides an unsurpassable abundance of living antioxidants and vital substances. Compromises are not really worthwhile here. High-quality powdered smoothies already exist – and they don’t just contain two types of fruit and one leafy vegetable, as is often the case with homemade green smoothies. On the contrary. They often consist of five or more different fruits, including berries and exotic fruits, which you would often have to travel hours to obtain if you wanted to make such a mixture yourself. Depending on the variety, it also contains spinach or wild vegetables and herbs. As an extra, the powder smoothies also provide powerful superfoods such as maca, chlorella, and acai berries as well as psyllium husks as a special ingredient that cares for the intestines. Vegetable proteins (hemp protein, rice protein, and pea protein) round off the recipes and ensure lasting satiety and satisfaction.

The smoothie for on the go

Preparing a green smoothie on the go is a particular challenge. Three options are available:

• You prepare your green smoothie at home and simply take it with you in a bottle (e.g. in an
• Emil bottle or another easily transportable and taste-safe bottle). In summer, however, the smoothie should be drunk quickly or refrigerated until consumed.
• You take a powdered instant smoothie in a bag with you, a bottle of water, and a shaker or the
• Twister (battery-operated mini blender for on-the-go) and prepare your healthy smoothie very quickly – no matter where you are.
• You take the green smoothie cubes with you and chew your green smoothie on the go. Here the preparation of the green smoothie is limited to unpacking the cubes and putting them in your mouth. Green smoothie cubes consist of 40 percent Moringa leaf and 60 percent dried fruit such as dates, apricots, and bananas.

Preparation of green smoothies

Are you brand new to the world of green smoothies? Then it is best to start with a smoothie made from just a few ingredients and then experiment according to your mood and, of course, your taste preferences. Our recipes are not intended to be unchangeable specifications, but suggestions for your own wonderful creations.

The preparation is always the same as described above under “The green smoothie basic recipe”, whereby the consistency can be adjusted to your own taste with more or less water. We wish you a happy smoothening and a delicious appetite!

Easy spinach smoothie

150 grams of spinach 2 bananas 150 milliliters of freshly squeezed tangerine or orange juice 1 tablespoon of almond or sesame butter For those who like ginger: 1 piece of fresh ginger

Herb smoothie

• ½ bunch parsley
• 50 grams of wild herbs (e.g. plantain, dandelion, goutweed, or similar)
• 2 ripe pears
• 2 sweet apples
• 2 tablespoons almond butter
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 300 milliliters of water

Carrot green smoothie

• Green of three carrots
• 150 grams of baby spinach or romaine lettuce
• 1 orange peeled
• 1 mango
• 1 banana
• 1 tablespoon of linseed oil
• 400 milliliters of water

Victoria Boutenko’s Favorite Smoothie

• 6 leaves of red lettuce (oak leaf, Batavia, or similar)
• ¼ bunch of fresh basil
• juice of half a lemon
• ½ red onion
• celery leaves
• ¼ avocado
• 2 cups of water
• from “Green For Life” by Victoria Boutenko, Hans-Nietsch-Verlag

Smoothie soup

• 2 avocados
• 100 grams of spinach
• As many celeries leave as you like
• ½ cucumber
• 3 ripe tomatoes
• freshly squeezed lemon juice
• some garlic or onion, if desired
• 400 milliliters of water

Essential oils in smoothies

Essential oils promise a variety of positive effects on the body, mind, and soul.