Green Smoothies

I'm anal about what the dogs eat. Ever since switching over to raw feeding back in the late 90's, I've spent hours and hours every month on the dogs' food, from grinding their raw meaty bones to blending their veggies, from researching what supplements to try to driving long distances to pick up enough locally raised meats to fit their own freezer. I'm like a dictator when it comes to what the dogs eat.

But I myself still eat like a college student. I rarely cook and rely mostly on eating out and mooching off what other people make. And I hate veggies. So often I've seen veggies on a dish and thought to myself, "It's great being an adult. There's nobody to make me eat my veggies." Seriously, that rocks.

As I get older though and as age and my conscience catch up with me, I'm feeling more compelled to eat healthier. Not healthy per se, that would just take too much effort, just healthier.

Somebody recently told me about green smoothies. These are smoothies made of fruits and green leafy vegetables. Everybody knows the huge benefits of eating greens. But I hate greens and so rarely do. The purpose of green smoothies is to get you to eat tons of raw greens and actually enjoy it. So you take a bit of greens, add some fruits to mask the flavor, and blend together. Blending not only allows you to drown out the taste of the greens, but it also breaks down the cellulose walls of the produce making it much easier for your body to digest. And since you're blending rather than juicing, you're utilizing the fiber as well.

This is an entertaining video I came across that explains the benefits of green smoothies.


Blending veggies is not new to me. I do it all the time for the dogs. Because of the cellulose lining, dogs can't digest whole veggies. So you have to break them down first, either by blending, grinding, processing, or some other method.

Here are some veggies I blended recently for the dogs.

I always look like a health nut when I go grocery shopping for the dogs, buying a cart full of veggies for them. Considering how I eat, that's very amusing to me.

Here's what the veggies look like after they've been blended.

Although I hate veggies, I absolutely love fruit, so when I learned about green smoothies, I decided to give it a try. I got The Green Smoothie Revolution by Victoria Boutenko, which is a basic starter book with tons of recipes.

Today I tried the first recipe:

1 mango (with skin)
1 cup kale (I just used a couple of leaves)
1 cup water

The mango I got had almost no flavor so I also added a banana.


It wasn't very sweet, which I was ok with, but the great thing was that the banana completely masked the smell and flavor of the kale. Finally, there is a way for me to eat my greens without making a face.

In the book, Victoria also explains dogs like green smoothies too, so you can share some with them. Our dogs like to lick the glass clean.



I always knew it was just a matter of time before the dogs inspired me to eat as healthy as they do.