I’m firmly convinced that most of the problems we run into — from serious health issues to simply being exhausted — can be solved with food. Not just any food though. Super foods that nourish our bodies from the inside out.

Sounds simple right?

Then why are so many of us struggling to get the right nutrition in our daily diets?

I can tell you the problems I run into. Bad habits, lack of time, lack of energy, laziness, picky eaters, etc. The list goes on and on and on.

Some weeks I do pretty good then I have an off day and it throws the rest of my week off. When I slip, I have to start nearly from scratch to rebuild those healthy habits.

So I need something simple. Smoothies have been a lifesaver when it comes to clean eating and switching to a whole food diet.

I’ve been throwing handfuls of spinach into my smoothies for a while now and calling them green smoothies. Then I went to a local class with Robyn from Green Smoothie Girl and it completely changed the way I looked at my smoothies.

Since then, green smoothies (real green smoothies with handfuls of vitamin packed greens, not the wimpy ones I was doing before) have been a regular part of our day. My kids love them and we have seriously upped our vegetable consumption.

On a funny side note, I’ve since learned that I lived blocks away from Robyn before I moved back to San Diego so, hi Robyn. Sorry we didn’t run into each other while we lived in the same state.

Ingredients

I’m not including measurements on here because you can really throw in what you have. I like a combination of kale, spinach, and chard, but any greens work. I actually love the flavor you get when you add fresh celery greens but my kids draw the line there and won’t touch it when I do that so play around with it and find a flavor combination you like. You can switch things up as you find ingredients on sale or as they are in season.

• Kale
• Spinach
• Swiss Chard
• Bananas
• Frozen Fruit

Preparation

Soak your greens in a large bowl of water. I didn’t do this the first time I made a real green smoothie and the result was a smoothie so gritty that I almost had to chew it. Yea. Don’t do that.

When your greens have had time to soak, pull them out of your rinse water and add them to your blender. I fill my blender right to the top with greens. They are going to shrink way down with the blender so rather than measuring I just stuff it as full as I can get it. Add just a bit of water so your greens will blend. I usually end up doing about 1/2 a cup or so.

 

You’ll be left with something that looks like green mush but this works well for preventing your kids finding any large chunks of spinach in their smoothie, freaking out, and never wanting to try it again. . . not that that’s ever happened to me.

I try and aim for about the 4 cup line on my blender when I make this. Sometimes I end up with more. Sometimes with less. I don’t stress about it.

Add in 1-2 fairly ripe bananas. This sweetens things up a lot. When I’m using stronger greens or my kids aren’t in the mood for a green smoothie I throw in extra bananas and they don’t complain. If you want to sweeten things up even more, you can add a bit of honey but I find that the banana is often sweet enough.

Fill up the rest of your blender with frozen fruit. Costco has the best deals on frozen fruit. We’ve used a variety of fruit in this. I’ve found my favorite is the frozen tropical mix they sell at Costco. It gives everything a milder flavor and makes it very kid-friendly.

Blend everything up until it is nice and smooth and enjoy!

We make these every morning for breakfast and it’s been great. We gave up eating cereal as our standard breakfast and my kids fought back against that one until they realized they could have smoothies instead.

 

Even the littlest food critic in our house enjoys these.

 

I haven’t really lost any weight since I’ve started my green smoothie habit like I’d hoped but I do notice a major difference in the way I feel. I’ve been having some blood sugar issues and sipping a green smoothie throughout the day not only keeps my blood sugar more stable but it also curbs my sugar cravings.