The Live Green Smoothie Diet

You know you pass them all the time… exotic fruits and vegetables in your local grocer’s, so many of them you’re curious about but simply don’t know what to do with them if you should be so bold as to purchase them. They’re not necessarily expensive — in fact, some of them are quite cheap — but they’re simply foreign, strange, unknown. How to eat them? Cook? Slice? Salad? Boil?

The unanimous answer: Mono-Smoothies. What a great way to try new fruit & vedge, to bring unprecedented variety and increase the range of phytonutrients to your diet!

These two Mono-Smoothies are great examples of how you can pick up what’s fun, well-priced, interesting and handy and translate into a quick, tasty, enlivening, and extremely nutritious smoothie.

The Chayote

The Chayote (chai-O-tay) is a member of the gourd or squash family but looks like a large, plump green pear.

The Chayote tastes quite neutral, a bit like zucchini or cucumber. It’s extremely low calorie, high in Vitamin C and folate (important for cell development and good for the heart), is a diuretic, and has anti-inflammatory properties.

You can eat it raw, don’t need to peel it, and actually goes by quite a few different names, including mirliton, vegetable pear, sapote, huisquil, mango squash, pear squash, and custard marrow.

Just grab one Chayote in the store and use the whole thing to make a Mono-Smoothie.

The Delicata Squash

The Delicata Squash is shaped like a large cucumber of small zucchini, with a pretty stripe and a slightly thicker, pumpkin-like skin. The interior is hollow, with small-pumpkin-like seeds and the flesh is orange. A Mono-Smoothie made with the Delicata is much like a pumpkin Mono-Smoothie… one of my faves.

The squash is high in Vitamin A and Vitamin C. It is also very low-calorie and very rich in beta-carotene.

Like the pumpkin, it’s great when paired with fresh lemon juice — you can always add some freshly juice lemon and a bit of fresh parsley or baby spinach to turn this into an absolutely wonderful Live Green Smoothie!

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The beauty of zucchini used in raw smoothies really becomes apparent in this recipe! You will instantly experience how zucchini just disappears, providing a blank background for whatever else you’re pairing with it. In this case… mango… and you end up with a delicious glass of “Essence of Mango”, without any cloying sweetness or undertone of “green”.

Add a bit of fresh parsley or baby spinach, and you have a wonderful Live Green Smoothie perfect for beginners and seasoned Smoothie Addicts, alike!

I’ve taken these photos without the greens added, tho, to show how lovely the mango shines through when paired with the zucchini!

The wonderful use of zucchini in raw smoothies is a discovery that has me as excited as the “Mono-Smoothies” I’ve been playing with of late. Two great new developments in the smoothie realm. Opens up a lot of ways to make great smoothies both inexpensively and from the most pedestrian of ingredients.

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All berries are very low in sugar, so I tell all my clients not to use them as the primary fruit in a Live Green Smoothie, because they just won’t have enough sweetness to carry through — they will be too tart.

Paired with zucchini, however, and they seem to shine! The zucchini provides a blank background and mellow undertone to support the delicate berry flavor, making this the ideal smoothie for someone who is very sensitive to the sugar content of smoothies, whether or not they are “raw”.

If you don’t fall in that category and desire a bit more sweetness… no problem! Just add a heaping tablespoon or raw honey or a banana (or two)!

You can make this Live Green Smoothie recipe with or without fresh greens…

I’ve taken these photos without the addition of fresh greens, to show the lovely color of the blueberries showing through. And you don’t have to add greens. But know that if you’d like to enjoy a massive dose of antioxidants with your greens, it’s as simple as adding a heaping cup of parsley or baby spinach to the mix!

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In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), beets are used to strengthen “spleen” energy, which enhances the ability to produce healthy blood and vital “chi”… certainly important for feeling well-being and energy. It’s the foods with earthy-sweet flavors that are said to enhance this quality, and beets rule this realm with their fabulous earthiness and natural sweetness.

In the Western paradigm of health and nutrition, beets are packed with folate (the equivalent of folic acid, one of the B vitamins). Folate is necessary for healthy cell development, is famously supplemented to pregnant mothers, is known for protecting the DNA in the cervix against virus or cancer, and enhances the production of serotonin so can be an aid to emotional health and well-being.

I just like the grounding quality of adding beets to my smoothies in general. And with this recipe, they take the starring role.

I’ve used golden beets, for their milder flavor. And they’re just so dang sunny when you cut into them… just couldn’t resist.

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The blood oranges are abundant in the grocery store lately, and they just beckoned for some cocktail action. This recipe is a twist on the classic Screwdriver, with a custom juice blend to provide the right amount of sweetness and lemony “zing”.

What is a Blood Orange?

As the name suggests (the photos here demonstrate), blood oranges are red on the inside. The pigment in the red color comes from anthocyanin, a powerful antioxidant that appears as either red or blue in fruits and vegetables such as cherries, blueberries, eggplant, or red cabbage.

The blood orange is less sweet, but with a mellow flavor not unlike what one finds in cherries. High in Vitamin C (apparently up to 130% of the recommended daily allowance), it’s not a bad way to get a boost for your immune system and skin health.

Well, anyway… sounds like a good enough excuse as any for a zingy, brilliantly colored cocktail.

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If you have some fave veggies in the grocery aisle, consider trying them out as a Mono-Smoothie. For example, Asparagus and Arugula, two strongly flavored green vegetables that I know aren’t the first items one would think of as a smoothie ingredient.

But if you’re a fan of their charms, they blend up nicely with just a bit of honey, and nothing could be simpler.

Each of these Mono-Smoothies would be an excellent accompaniment to a cooked meal, to help with digestion. And you can always make the resulting flavor much milder by halving the amount of Asparagus or Arugula used, and pairing with a refreshing fruit or a bit of fresh OJ.

Asparagus Mono-Smoothie

Arugula Mono-Smoothie

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If you’re like me, you frequently pass by the Exotic Fruits section at the grocery store and survey with wonder at some of the cool stuff lining the bins… but then keep on walking, because what does one actually do with these things, other than slice them up and use them as garnish?

It’s not like you’re likely to bite into a juicy Star Fuit to sate your hunger, or throw a Prickly Pear into your bag so you have something to munch when you’re on the go!

But turns out… these two exotic fruits made wonderful Mono-Smoothies! Both are quite delicate, not acidic at all (my youngest son: “Hey, this is really good, even after brushing my teeth!”). They each have a slightly exotic flavor, but it’s highly nuanced.

And that Prickly Pear… I did not know that the flesh of the this fruit was fuschia… one of my very favorite food colors!

So, the next time you’re passing by that Exotic Fruits aisle… pick a few Star Fuits and Prickly Pears up and whip up a few Mono-Smoothies when you get home. These are two smoothies that pretty much anyone will enjoy, kids and non-smoothie-drinkers alike.

The Lovely Star Fruit

The Star Fruit is loaded with Vitamins A and C, as well as antioxidants, amino acids, and a host of healthy minerals. And it’s apparently been used as a home remedy for treating fevers, headaches, and even hangovers!

You can read more about the health benefits of the Star Fruit here.

The Prickly Pear

Cutting into a Prickly Pear (the fruit of a particular cactus plant) is a delight, because the flesh is a vibrant shade of bloody-fuschia, and very tender, like a melon.

And turns out the fruit is rich in magnesium… a wonderful piece of information to know! Instantly makes me wonder how this would fare combined in a dessert with raw chocolate, because cacao is the most potent food source of magnesium, so good for the heart, for hormonal regulation, for metabolism, for soothing tight muscles, relaxing a stubborn colon… and for just general well-being!

The Prickly Pear Mono-Smoothie is so dang gorgeous, who wouldn’t feel better walking around sipping from a bottle of this stuff!

I can guarantee that these fruits are going to become regulars in my kitchen from now on. What an under-appreciated fruit!

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We normally don’t think of using just avocado for a smoothie… but paired with raw honey, it’s a wonderful, mild, creamy drink! Great backdrop for vanilla or chocolate… make a quick, all-natural shake!

And just a couple plain carrots for a smoothie…? Who knew? Better than any kind of vegetable juice you could buy at the store… and tastes truly fruity!

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Look at these two great Mono-Smoothies using one common garden fruit and another common vegetable. Funny thing about these two… we think of cucumber as a vegetable but in fact it’s a fruit, and we treat rhubarb as a fruit but actually it’s a vegetable! They both make brilliant Mono-Smoothies.

Cucumbers are wonderful hydrators and great for your skin and hair! Cucumber is highly alkaline, making it a natural diuretic, with a soothing anti-inflammatory on your joints and connective tissues. And all with negligible calories.

It’s just a delicious, extremely light and refreshing beverage, perfect for after workouts!

Rhubarb is usually only eaten in pies and other baked goods because of its tart, low-sugar flavor. But it works wonderfully in a Mono-Smoothie and reveals itself to be extremely mild in flavor!

According to this report, a number of phytonutrients in rhubarb may have some anti-cancer properties according to some existing studies, and may also increase circulation. It has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and even anti-allergy effects, and may even benefit those with high cholesterol!

My suggestion: take rhubarb out of the sole domain of pies and start using it regularly to whip some some refreshing Mono-Smoothies!

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If you’re a lover of savory fruit salads, here’s a good one, sweet with juicy pineapple, chewy with finely chopped kale, and pungent with both garlic and fresh ginger. A bit of fresh orange juice… and raw macadamia nuts to make a dense, almost mayonnaise-texture dressing… and this becomes an extremely versatile dish.

You can eat this straight, as a salad. You can use this as a salad sandwich filling. It makes a wonderful salsa-like dip for raw crackers or organic tortilla chips. And would be a colorful and unique side dish for a buffet or raw pot luck!

Not the best salad to munch before going out dancing, though.

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