The Live Green Smoothie Diet

The Dream Team

Galangal tastes something like ginger, but with a more pungent flavor and with perhaps more heat. Paired with Goji berry, the King of health in Traditional Chinese Medicine (considered its #1 food/herb), the two are like the Dream Team if your energy is lagging. Mango joins them beautifully together. There’s a lot to recommend the taking of this Raw Smoothie on a daily basis!

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What the heck is “Galangal”?

Until recently, the only experience I had with Galangal was fishing it out of my Tom Ka Gai soup because it was such a surprising flavor I wasn’t too keen on biting into again. But after my youngest son purchased some dried Galangal and brewed up some tea, I did some research and was so impressed with what I read that I began to drink the stuff quite frequently to acquaint myself first-hand with its effects and benefits.

Turns out, my favorite visionary chantress Hildegard Von Bingen (1098-1179) was also an accomplished herbalist, and to her Galangal was “The Spice of Life”. About this wonderful root, not unlike ginger but more potent, she said “If there would be a herb to wake up the dead, then galangal would be the first choice.”

After my experience of it, I would not argue.

Hildegard von Bingen was partial to using Galangal for its beneficial affects on the heart (she recommended it for heart pain for instant relief, akin to nitroglycerine today). But she also used it for deafness, to tonify the liver, as an aid to digestion, and a dispeller of nervous energy and worry.

A notable effect I experience when I drink a strong tea of Galangal is that not only does it seem to open up my heart area, as I can readily feel more oxygen moving throughout my body, but it appears to affect my central nervous system with a relaxed kind of calm. It’s *not* a sedative. In fact, my energy goes through the roof. But it’s not a stimulant, either, as I feel completely relaxed and at ease… just full of life.

“Spice of Life” indeed.

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To Purchase Galangal

There are four different types of Galangal. The spice (a root) is commonly used in Thai cuisine, so if you can find a local source for Asian cooking you are likely to find Galangal. Failing that, just purchase online. But honestly, in my experience, most local grocers are very happy to provide whatever you request… if you are enthusiastically persuasive enough.

In my kitchen, we have a dried Galangal root of the type Kaempferia galanga, which was purchased online.

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And As Always, Add Fresh Greens…or Even Some Micro-Algae!

I’ll be adding some of my “RevitaPhi” super-greens/super-herb powder (from Elements for Life) to my next batch of Dream Team, but you could add fresh greens, spirulina, blue-green algae, or whatever your own super-green powder is. Use this recipe as a base for whatever kind of “super-hero” smoothie you’re in the mood to make. 

It just has that vibe — super vitalizing, but with a mild (though spicy!) flavor that will make many additions taste wonderful.

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