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Sorry for just now responding everyone!
Paul,
You can read about the FoodSaver here: http://www.foodsaver.com/ Here's a link for the glass canning jars (Mason Jars): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_jar . I use the 1/2 cup size for juice. See the metal lids with the rubber rim? You simply put one of those over the jar, then attach one of the FoodSaver attachments on top of it, and it removes the air from the jar. The lid will then be on very tight until you pry it off.
I do like adding spices to my smoothies - cinnamon is awesome! 
You could always test a little too by adding a little to a small portion of smoothie if it's a spice you're not sure about. That smoothie you made with all the spices sounded good!
I would think taking zinc during your cleanse would be fine - just don't take too much zinc. I hear you can overdose on it. How did your cleanse go?
Skvm1974,
Glad you're enjoying the green smoothies, and I'm so glad you stopped by!
Bluks,
I would do a little research to see what produce in your area is heavily sprayed with pesticides. Not all produce needs to be organic, as not all of it is heavily sprayed. I don't buy all organic, but I do for produce like strawberries, peaches, etc. that are heavily sprayed. For the U.S., I use this guide: http://www.foodnews.org/walletguide.php
Cabbage would be great to use if you don't mind the taste - it's very nutritious! I eat raw cabbage all the time, and in the U.S. it's not heavily sprayed.
Honnie,
I'm so glad your first smoothie was such a great success!! Thank you for sharing your recipe with us - it sounds delicious!
You still get the fiber when you blend the fruits/veggies. I love using baby spinach too! Glad you're still enjoying the smoothies!
Find Myself,
Rather than focusing on how many cups you're drinking, just be sure that you're getting one to two large handfuls a day of leafy greens.
Healthy,
Your question on whether to get a juicer vs a blender depends on quite a bit. For smoothie purposes, we use blenders. In the case of the green smoothie, I think it's important to get in all the fiber. Plus, with a good quality blender, like a Vita-Mix (I love mine) or a Blendtec, you can make so many great things with them like sorbets, soups, sauces, etc. If you were choosing between a juicer or a blender, I would go with the blender for now. When you get more serious about eating healthfully, you might then consider a juicer.
Juicing is great for healing - people with cancer have attested to getting over it by eating very healthfully and by doing lots of juicing. Juicing is great if you're wanting to fast and heal, because it has a high concentration of nutrients, and since the fiber is removed, your body doesn't have to use energy to digest it, and it can use that energy to heal instead. So, if you were fighting a disease of some kind, or if your acne was severe, I'd recommend a high-end juicer ( http://www.discountjuicers.com/ ) and a cheap blender. However, juicing is beneficial for everyone and definitely worth considering.
About the skin cream, since greens are highly perishable, I'm not sure this could be done, but I think I recall green smoothie makers doing leafy green masks though. haha
Costello,
If you're doing two packed cups of greens a day, that should definitely be enough to see an improvement in your skin, as long as you eat these "blended." If you're just eating these, then you're only getting a fourth of the benefit. If you blend these greens, it'll be the equivalent of eating "eight" packed cups of leafy greens! This is due to the blender thoroughly breaking down the cell walls. Bok Choy has a very strong flavor in smoothies - you might want to try spinach, collards or kale instead.
Belloni,
If you had two large handfuls of greens in your smoothie, then that's good enough. Try to focus on 60% fruit/40% greens so it tastes a little better, and maybe throw in some frozen berries, mango, pineapple, peaches, etc. They really can taste great, so you might as well enjoy them.
I hate to recommend a best time of day to drink them, because the main thing is just to drink them each day when you can, but I'd say the best time would be first thing in the morning. Fruit is very cleansing in the morning on an empty stomach. If you get hungry, consider adding avocado or nuts/seeds to your smoothie.
Sorry for just now responding everyone!Paul,
You can read about the FoodSaver here: http://www.foodsaver.com/ Here's a link for the glass canning jars (Mason Jars): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_jar . I use the 1/2 cup size for juice. See the metal lids with the rubber rim? You simply put one of those over the jar, then attach one of the FoodSaver attachments on top of it, and it removes the air from the jar. The lid will then be on very tight until you pry it off.
I do like adding spices to my smoothies - cinnamon is awesome! 🙂 You could always test a little too by adding a little to a small portion of smoothie if it's a spice you're not sure about. That smoothie you made with all the spices sounded good!
I would think taking zinc during your cleanse would be fine - just don't take too much zinc. I hear you can overdose on it. How did your cleanse go?
Unfortunately i gave up after 48 hours. I was feeling quite down due to going through an outbreak and as i was feeling hungry i decided to start eating properly again. I couldnt not eat the foods i love whilst feeling bad, however when im in a good mood and my skin isnt doing too bad i may give it another try again. I sure it will be very beneficial to my health if i manage to do a cleanse for a few days.
I think i put too many spices in my latest smoothie just then, quite abit of a burning sensation after every sip 😀 lol.
Paul,
I totally understand - sometimes we just need our comfort foods! haha I commend you for getting through TWO days!! That in itself is a great accomplishment!
LOL about the spices... I have done this before. Once, I put too much onion in my smoothie and uh... I felt sick afterwards... hahaahhaha
hahaha just wanted to let you know i made one of these the other day and it ended up being the nastiest most horrid tasting thing i have ever had. I put wayy to much romaine and flax seed in it. No offense to you or anything, im sure you could make them taste good, i think i might just stick to eating a big spinach/romaine salad everyday with walnuts, pears or strawberries topped with a balsamic and olive oil vinegrette, yummmm.
Hello ABG Fairy,
thank you for your informative answer, which was of great help to me!
As you suggested, I think I'll go with a blender for now. Ok, vitamix and blendtec seem to be the best. Which one would you suggest? Are there any major differences? (For example: Is the stamper, which is missing in the blendtec important?) Can you suggest a store, where i can get whatever blender you reccomend, from?
Sorry for bothering you, but $400+ is big money for me.
LATOO,
Hearts of romaine is fine! As for how often to mix them up, I really don't know for sure - just as long as you're not doing just one or two greens for a long period of time. Also, it's fine to use more than one green per smoothie.
Mountainman,
Ah man! haha Sorry you had a bad smoothie experience! Several of us have been there. Your salad idea sounds great, but the whole point of doing smoothies is that you get "four" times the amount of nutrition due to the blender so thoroughly breaking down the cell walls, thereby, releasing more nutrition. You'd have to eat four cups of greens to equal one cup blended. If you want to give it another shot, start with a very small handful of baby spinach and add lots of fruit, like frozen mango, pineapple, or banana with some frozen raspberries.
healthy,
Happy to help! I use the tamper in my Vita-Mix quite often when I'm making sauces or sorbets. I haven't used a Blendtec, so I can't comment on it, but I know a lot of people really like them - and they have funny YouTube videos, haha. I bought my Vita-Mix from vitamix.com. I think they sell refurbished Vita-Mix's for less, but I couldn't find them at their website, but I did find a good price on Vita-Mix here: http://www.discountjuicers.com/blenders.html . I bought my Green Star juicer from Discount Juicers - they're great!
jokerj,
See my post above to Mountainman.
^ haha, when I first started the smoothies, I was one of those that would just make mine every other day and store the next day's in the fridge! If you have the time though, you'll get more nutrition drinking it the day of, but I doubt you lose that much. I used to have this tip on the first post... I think I'll add it back, thanks for mentioning it!
I've been trying this smoothie thing for almost 2 months now and I can't see any improvement whatsoever. In fact my skin has only gotten worse. My back and chest especially are a mess. I eat really healthy (only fruit, vegetables and brown rice). I drink smoothies (I usually blend apples and carrots, sometimes also celery and kiwi) at least 4 times a day. I was really confident at the beginning, but now, after 2 months of super healthy eating, I start getting really frustrated. Why is this not working for me? I want to see at least a slight improvement, so I know for sure that this diet is working.
I've been trying this smoothie thing for almost 2 months now and I can't see any improvement whatsoever. In fact my skin has only gotten worse. My back and chest especially are a mess. I eat really healthy (only fruit, vegetables and brown rice). I drink smoothies (I usually blend apples and carrots, sometimes also celery and kiwi) at least 4 times a day. I was really confident at the beginning, but now, after 2 months of super healthy eating, I start getting really frustrated. Why is this not working for me? I want to see at least a slight improvement, so I know for sure that this diet is working.
do you use greens> or do you jst use celery.
too much fruits isnt too good too. im sure its the greens that helps. esp spinach, cabbage, kale, brussel sprouts, bok choy
and also. raw beats cooked greens
Nma,
I am so sorry to hear you're struggling, but I have good news for you! You haven't actually given the green smoothies a try yet! A green smoothie is not a green smoothie without dark leafy greens, especially cruciferous leafy greens, like spinach, kale, collards, etc. Also, you will not get the same benefits by simply eating them, as you get four times the amount of nutrition when the greens are blended, due to the cell walls being so thoroughly broken down. It's fine to still eat your cabbage salads, but please, please, add some cruciferous dark leafy greens to your smoothies... they are the key to balancing your hormones and seeing improvement!
As for diet, please read the first post over again, as it explains more about diet. You don't want to eat "too" much fruit, and I have a feeling you might be? You want the emphasis of your diet to be on vegetables. Also, I'd go easy on the grains and consider adding nuts/seeds and beans/legumes to your diet as well.
Sounds like you have already made great strides toward a healthful diet - so the hardest part for you has already been accomplished - you just need to tweak your diet a little. Should be pretty easy for you! If you need more tips/recipes, you are welcome to PM me.
Hello!
I've decided to get a total blender from blendtec.
If I buy it in Germany (that's where I live) it would be 600 Euros instead of 300 Euros in the US. Thats twice the US-price. -crazy! So I definitely want to get it in the US.
The problem is, the US-total blender is a 110/120VAC machine, whereas the German (and European?) electrical devices are 220/240VAC machines. So I was wondering, wether I can make the US-blender work fine in Germany (by using a transformator or something like that). Does anyone have experience with this? Is anyone from Europe here who is using US-blenders.
Thank you for help!
Mars2008,
Of course you know about the risks of salmonella with raw eggs, but I have read before that your risk is lower if you're using cage free eggs (which I recommend anyway for health reasons and also ethical reasons, as I don't think any animal should ever be caged in tight quarters). The subject of eating raw eggs is a little complicated, so I would do a google search on it. I have read though that the protein in egg whites is not digested well when raw, so it's best to soft boil them. This is how I eat my eggs.... though sometimes they end up hard-boiled.
healthy,
I advice contacting the U.S. Vita-Mix website about whether or not it could be used in Europe. Also, I did a quick search and found that a poster in Europe really likes the Kenwood Smoothie blenders and says they work well even when using frozen fruit: http://www1.kenwoodworld.com/ee/product_category.php?cat=202 . Another lady says that the New Gena is the European equivalent to the Vita-Mix: http://www1.kenwoodworld.com/ee/product_category.php?cat=202 . Hope this helps.
Fairy,jus thought about this the other day....
to satisfy my protein intake I always wondered if it would be safe to add in
raw eggs to my smoothie.
Any thoughts?
I use raw eggs everyday. Organic are better and the chance of salmonella is almost non-existent.
If you want to hedge your bets, eat some cilantro everyday (or blend it). It is natural anti-biotic against salmonella.
Ariventa,
I didn't realize that cilantro helps protect you from salmonella! Thanks for the tip!
Mars2008 and Ariventa,
This is a great article on raw eggs and sums up the controversies and benefits of eating them. It also mentions the concerns with eating raw egg whites, as doing so can potentially lead to a biotin deficiency... so, this is just a good article to keep in mind. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles...9/raw-eggs.aspx