We are currently reading a book called Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko. In it she talks about how having been raw for a number of years, she and her family “hit a wall” in their level of health and happiness with their all raw food diet. After months of research she concluded that the reason was that they were not getting enough greens. A large part of her conclusion came to studying the eating habits of chimpanzees who eat a LARGE quantity of greens every day. In addition to the quantity they thoroughly masticate each bite. Having jaws weakened through a lifetime of eating soft cooked food, we do not have the jaw muscles required to do this. Also, as greens tend to be bitter, most people have a hard time eating nearly as much. We’ve been eating a large salad every day…I would guess approximately 3-4 ounces a day of mesclun greens/spring mix. Combined with avocados, nuts etc this is a BIG salad! However, Victoria suggests that we should eat up to 2 POUNDS a day of them!! Most people are simply incapable of eating this much salad every day….

Enter the GREEN SMOOTHIE! Take a huge amount of greens, some water, throw in bananas or some other kind of fruit to make it palatable and blend thoroughly. It is supposed to be quite palatable and extremely healthy. The health effects she writes about that she experienced as well as the many pages of testimonials in the book are quite impressive ranging from serious conditions being completely healed to grey hair turning brown again!

We have not tried this yet due to a lack of a blender, but the book was inspiring enough to have me shell out $300 for a vitamix! I will write more about this when our vitamix arrives.