Archive for June, 2009

an interesting green smoothie testimonial

by Robyn on June 12, 2009 in Raw Food with 3 Comments
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I have lots more testimonials I haven’t posted yet.   I’ve blogged in the past about the personality changes and mood improvements that people experience when they toss the refined foods and start eating whole, mostly-raw plant food.   Here’s an interesting testimonial from a reader named Grace that came in this morning through the questionnaire on the site:

“Green smoothies have changed my life in so many ways. At first, I got caught up in the physical changes and although very important, I am now seeing other transformations taking place on mental and emotional levels as well, which I had not anticipated. I feel more focused, have smoother energy, am less irritable, and am noticing the ‘beauty’ of nature, people, things. . .

I used to resist everything–subway ride to and from work, incoming calls (work in an office), bills, deadlines, etc. Nowadays, I just feel more appreciative and have changed the way I look at life, drawing strength from things that inspire passion and dream. Instead of resisting, I’ve learned that by treating things differently (keeping an open heart and a positive attitude with much gratitude), I end up feeling differently about them as well. Sometimes the smallest shift can take you in a different direction. And yes, all this from green smoothies!!!

But to keep myself inspired, I will share that my skin is glowing, the shape of my face is much more refined, I’ve lost weight, my eyes are clearer, hair shinier. I feel that my breathing has enhanced–can take in more air. I have to attribute these changes to eating a plant based diet which includes daily green smoothies. Greens are powerful detoxifiers and sources of great nourishment. And fruit, well what can I say about fruit? They get such a bad rap but I think they are the most cleansing foods on the planet. Maybe that’s why they’re frowned upon and viewed as the culprit for candida, high blood sugar, weight gain, etc.–they ‘stir’ things up and work hard to push toxins and sludge out of the body. These cleansing reactions although unpleasant, are necessary. You will feel worse before you feel better. And I think that’s the point. At least, that’s been my experience. Fruits and greens together, I consider them a match made in heaven!!”

Weight Loss

by Robyn on June 11, 2009 in Raw Food with 4 Comments
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Robyn – I have been doing your program for several months now and have made many changes.   I feel better, have more energy, but have actually gained weight!   I have cut back on the fruit/nuts that I put in my smoothie and am trying to go more than my now 70% raw.   I also ride bike several times a week.   Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have some items left in the group buy

by Robyn on June 10, 2009 in Raw Food with 2 Comments
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Hi LOCALS (sorry if you’re not)–

I made a mistake and placed our group order with three people unpaid.   They  still haven’t  picked up  or paid, so I have some items here (being stored in air conditioning) for you, while supplies last.   You don’t need to order $200 minimum–just let me know what you’d like within these quantities, FIRST COME FIRST SERVED, and tell me the total, in email to robyn@greensmoothiegirl.com (add $0.0625 sales tax).   Tell me what day you’d like to pick up, and I’ll give you address and details in my response email.  

VitaMineral Green cases (6 bottles for $250, each is a 60-day supply for one person, using 1 tsp. three times daily)

 

Colloidal silver ($25 for half gallon, excellent to keep on hand to fight viruses and bacterial infections, use internally or topically)

 

15 gal. coconut oil ($45 each gallon, extra virgin and organic)

 

7  gal. molasses (unsulphured, $10/gal.)

 

Bags (5 lb.):

 

1  raw sunflower seeds ($9.50)

5 raw wheat germ ($6.00)

1 flaxseed ($6.00)

1  shredded coconut ($10)

7 alfalfa/clover seed mix ($15)

 

Cans (#10, varying weights):

 

2 raw pumpkin seeds ($10.40, 2.75 lbs.)

1 shredded coconut ($7.35, 2.5 lbs.)

2  walnuts ($12.90, 3.5 lbs.)

3 sunflower seeds ($10.25, 4 lbs.)

1 flaxseed ($6.10, 4.5 lbs.)

 

 

get some free whole grain sourdough starter!

by Robyn on June 8, 2009 in Raw Food with 12 Comments
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If you’re doing 12 Steps to Whole Foods, and you’ve done Chapter 9 on whole grains, I have in the past recommended my friend Gwen’s  purebreadsourdough.com for sourdough start.   I have had mixed reviews about the customer service, though.  

My friend Jim Simmons, author of Original Fast Foods (see book reviews on the site), offers a sourdough start and even send it to you FREE with a stamped, self-addressed envelope!   I got some dehydrated starter from him and made a nice fresh starter now in my fridge.   Yesterday I made four-grain focaccia bread from the starter that my family gobbled up as a main dish for dinner with salad, plus two loaves of regular bread.   Spray it with olive oil and lots of herbs and garlic, YUMMY and without any commercial yeast–just naturally leavened.   (Instructions for focaccia and other options are in Ch. 9.)   Yeast-free bread is important because commercial yeasts are bred to grow quickly.   The problem is, they don’t always die in the gut, so  they interact with sugars to breed fungus, mold, yeast overgrowth, bacteria, and all kinds of mycotoxins (byproducts of those populations) that cause a host of health problems.

We do this often, have a sourdough focaccia dipped in olive oil/balsamic, with a salad, for a VERY inexpensive dinner everyone likes.   I time the bread to come out at dinner time so the bread is warm.   Grains are so inexpensive when bought in bulk.   I used wheat, spelt, rye, and oat groats  yesterday.   Don’t use more than 20% spelt, as it is low in gluten.

Here’s the address to get your sourdough starter–please consider enclosing a few dollars to support Jim and this very kind public service, and don’t forget your self-addressed, stamped envelope.   Tell him hi from GreenSmoothieGirl.com:

Original Fast Foods

1221 N 1270 E

American Fork, Utah 84003

If you’re not enjoying easy, homemade sourdough bread, it’s okay to skip to Ch. 9 and try it!   And here’s a tip: when you have your fresh starter made up, freeze a cup of it in case you neglect your starter in the fridge so long and want to start over later.   Your starter from Jim will come with detailed instructions (and you have instructions in Ch. 9 as well for feeding a starter, making sweet bread, pretzels, and more).

Have fun!

Azure Standard –Gestazyme Digestive Enzyme?

by Robyn on June 7, 2009 in Raw Food with 2 Comments
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hello robyn – i am always learning something new on your website. thanks so much for being so amazingly resourceful!! i read somewhere on your website that that you recommend digestive enzymes with any cooked foods. you provided also provided a link to  www.azurestandard.com to get enzymes but you didnt mention the brand of enzymes. Is it Gestazyme?

Thanks so much!!!

a recipe for you for Indian Dahl

by Robyn on June 6, 2009 in Raw Food, recipes with 1 Comment
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This is something I like for dinner, and you can make it yellow or green depending on whether you use green split peas or yellow lentils.  It’s quick and easy to make.  I usually rinse the peas and rice and then soak overnight, then simmer them in two saucepans the next morning to eat that night.  It has both a grain and a legume–a “perfect protein.”  I explain why, in Ch. 6, you don’t need to worry about that like vegetarians did in the 1980′s and some still do.  (If you have OLD vegetarian cookbooks, you can see lots of obsessing about this.)  In a nutshell, your body has amino acids in a free-floating pool to draw upon for 24 hours, so you don’t have to put them all together in any given meal, for your body to assemble protein.  That said, some people feel that having grains/legumes together makes a more filling meal.

Enjoy!

Indian Green or Yellow Dahl

2 cups split peas or yellow lentils

1 1/2 cups brown rice

water

6 cloves garlic

1 tsp. ground coriander

2 tsp. kelp granules (optional)

1 tsp. salt (for rice)

1 1/2 tsp. sea salt (for peas/lentils)

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 tsp. turmeric

2 tsp. cumin

1 cup chopped cilantro

In separate saucepans, rinse split peas and brown rice well.  Cover each with fresh water and allow to soak several hours.  Drain well.  Add 3 cups water and 1 tsp. salt to the rice, and 4 cups water to the split peas, bring each to a boil, and reduce heat for 45 mins.  Add all seasonings except cilantro to peas/lentils, and mash with a spoon.  Serve dahl over brown rice and sprinkle liberally with cilantro.

green smoothie “tea” for your plants

by Robyn on June 5, 2009 in Raw Food with 10 Comments
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Dear GreenSmoothieGirl:

After 2 years of drinking green smoothies I started just 3 months ago rinsing my blender after making smoothies and pouring mixture into a bucket. Then I refill with water the empty smoothie bottles throughout  the day.

This makes a weak green smoothie that I pour into same bucket and then water my plants.  I  fed a boston fern, an orchid, my roses, a mandevilla  and now my tomato plants. Unbelievable how much faster  all of the plants are growing,   so many more  blooms per bush, tomato plants growing at twice the rate, Boston fern is so thick and green that people think it’s artificial!

Pass this on to your fans, they will be amazed!

Green smoothies are not only good for us, they’re REALLY good for what we eat!

Thanks for the inspiration!

Michael

–Thanks, Michael, fantastic idea I am undertaking TODAY.   I think I’ll do some of the plants and not others, to see if it makes a difference!   –Robyn

 

send me your favorite green smoothie recipes please!

by Robyn on June 3, 2009 in Raw Food, recipes with 11 Comments
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Because I get asked this so often, I will be putting together a  collection of  green smoothie recipes.   (I did spend the first three months of this year developing 50 recipes  that will be at the end of  The Green Smoothie Diet, too.)

Please send me your favorites to use in the collection!   And if you send me yours, I’ll write your email address down and send you the collection FREE when it’s done.

robyn@greensmoothiegirl.com

Don’t forget to give your recipes colorful names!   Name one after the child who loves it, or whatever.   If there’s a fun story behind how you made that recipe up, include that too.

GSG readers are the BEST–thanks a million, in advance!

–Robyn

enzymes, raw food, stomach acid

by Robyn on June 1, 2009 in Raw Food with 3 Comments
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An excerpt from the FAQ of my new book coming out next month:

Dear GreenSmoothieGirl: How can enzymes and eating raw food be so important when stomach acid would kill any enzymes that came with the food anyway?

 

A: Good question. Some people think that the low pH of the stomach stops salivary and any other food or supplemental enzymes from working. A number of experiments Dr. Howell writes about show that this is not so. Some enzymes are shown to work actively at two different pH ranges. Another study shows that salivary and supplemental enzymes were re-activated in the alkaline duodenum and lower in the intestine after going through the stomach. Hydrochloric acid in the stomach is not as strong as once thought to be and neither when used in in vitro experiments (outside the body). A Journal of Nutrition-published study at Northwestern University showed 51 percent of amylase from malted barley was intact when passed into the intestine.

 

Enzymes manufactured by the pancreas of a person or animal are sensitive to pH because they aren’t adapted to anything outside the restrictive confines of the body. But microbial-derived dietary supplement enzymes are very adaptive, since fungus grows in a variety of places and conditions. These enzymes survive the acidity of the lower stomach. These plant-based sources are the digestive enzyme supplements I prefer.

 

As with so many other things in the human body, we’ve been provided with the ideal environment to digest food. Problems occur when we alter our food instead of giving our body the kind of nutrition we were designed to digest easily, that people used to eat for thousands of years.

 

Dr. Howell says that we’re born with a finite ability to produce endogenous enzymes, and by middle age, most of that ability is gone. (And he said this 25 years ago, before the modern diet worsened. Some experts make even more dire projections, such as Westerners are burning out enzyme capacity by age 35.) The answer, of course, is to eat as much raw food as possible, and as little cooked or processed food, too.

How did I discover the “green smoothie” that I named this site after?

by Robyn on June 1, 2009 in Newsletter with No comments
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It’s a great story, really, how I happened upon the “green smoothie,” the attention-grabbing part of this site dedicated to helping you eat right.

I was 27 years old, sitting on the front porch one warm summer day when my oldest child was a year old.  Knowing me at that time, I was probably letting him play in the sprinkler and eat an Otter Pop.  (This was long before I knew about corn syrup, and food dyes . . .)

I’d just put some canned pineapple juice, and some alfalfa sprouts and lots of spinach, in my blender.  I was sitting there drinking it when my baby toddled over and peered into my glass.  He asked me what it was, and (in one of those genius Mom moments), I said, “green ice cream.”

Well, that created a demand.  He wanted some.  I said, “No, this is Mommy’s milkshake.”  More demand.  It was all part of my evil plot, of course.

I finally relented (as I’d planned to all along) and let him sip some out of my straw.  He was hooked and a lightbulb came on in my Mom brain! This drink, the Neanderthal version of what I now make, came to be known as “Green Cream” in my young family.

Well, that pineapple juice thing I made (for over a decade, actually) is totally inferior, nutritionally, to what I make as a green smoothie nowadays.  (Not only is concentrated pineapple juice not a great food, but you had to “slam” that concoction or it settled into an ugly mess, undrinkable just five minutes later.)  But it began a quest for ways to get my kids to eat lots of leafy greens and sprouts.  And it taught me that blended foods are key in that quest.

Now I have a BlendTec Total Blender [link to it in the store].  You really must have this item if you are serious about nutrition.  Before I had a turbo blender, I had to settle for the above-mentioned “green cream” that had to be “slammed” before it became undrinkable.  A regular blender won’t allow you to use frozen fruit, fibrous greens, and lots of ice, for many years without troubles, with the Total Blender’s fantastic warranty.

Why is this so important, the purchase of a Total Blender?  Because you’re going to get 15 SERVINGS OF GREENS AND FRUIT in your one quart of green smoothie daily.  That puts you in the top 5 percent of Americans, for the quality of your diet, with just one simple habit that takes just 10 minutes a day.

I can’t overemphasize it.  It’s not just the best thing I have in my kitchen, it’s the most important thing I own, PERIOD.  I use it half a dozen times a day, and so it’s worth every penny.  We’ll talk more in my next newsletter about why a green smoothie habit is the first thing to change.

May you be blessed with good health from DAY ONE of starting this habit!

Here’s my original 3-min. home video on green smoothies:

http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/videos/videos-page-1/

And here’s my Green Smoothie 2.0 demo, for the “initiated”:

http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/videos/videos-page-3/

To Your Health,

–Robyn Openshaw

p.s.  If you can’t get a Total Blender right now, that’s okay.  Just start with whatever blender you have, but be aware that you may not be able to use lots of frozen fruit and very fibrous greens.  Your blend won’t be as smooth, but use water, spinach, and fruit, and get started anyway.  The important thing is just to START.

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