Green is my favourite smoothie color.
Odd really – if you had asked me to taste a green drink a few years ago I would probably have said “Yuk no thanks” – or something similar.
I was reminded of this strange attitude recently sitting with a colleague and tucking into a bottle of green juice with my lunch. Breaking the golden rule – never speak ill of someone else’s food choices – he said he could never bring himself to drink anything green and didn’t know how I could. After further discussion it turned out he tried to avoid anything green on his plate but would occasionally eat a few peas.
Liquid green got him thinking slime and algae – rather than fresh and delicious.
He was definitely a lost cause – but how have I turned away from similar thoughts to a daily habit of a large glass of green?
I have long been convinced about the anti aging and health benefits of juices and smoothies in general – but green smoothies was a step too far.
Three things really changed my mind about green drinks.
The first has been the revolution in the juices and smoothies section of my favourite supermarket. Every possible color of fresh juice is offered including bright green. The second is that my elder daughter refused to touch any drink with a banana in it and the third is that matcha tea became a daily ritual.
Small quantities of banana – as you may or may not know – is used to sweeten sugar free smoothies and juices of all kinds and my daughter refused to try any of them. Then a green juice appeared proudly proclaiming itself banana free and my daughter now drinks nothing else.
At about the same time as green juices became available I started drinking matcha tea. I followed the bamboo whisk and Japanese tea ceremony but it still tasted like thin spinach soup and I definitely did not look forward to my morning cuppa. I tried adding matcha to other juices like carrot and orange but the resulting brown colored liquid was a turn off even for me.
Eventually I put two and two together and added the matcha to a big glass of green juice (whisk with a little water or lime juice first and then add to the smoothie). Absolutely perfect – all the goodness and taste of the smoothie now turbo charged with the fine bright green powder tea.
The only problem – I was spending a fortune on carton smoothies to feed my habit and my daughter’s.
There was only one thing for it – make my own. Juicing your own drinks is THE best way to get fresh fruit and vegetable enzymes and antioxidants into your system – and they taste even better than bought – providing you get the right recipe.
Some recipes for green drinks rely too much on chlorophyll rich veggies for me – spinach and kale are frequently included. I love both on a plate but a little goes a long way in a drink and needs the balance of sweet fruits.
After a bit of trial and error – I found a wonderful recipe for a green smoothie which is great to taste and to look at and works equally well with the matcha powder.
This is a link to the recipe on Lara Ferroni’s wonderful food blog. It matches almost exactly the ingredients on my favourite bought green juice (Innocent) except that also has lime juice in it – which I added to Lisa’s version and it tasted great.
Don’t forget to use ripe sweet pears and apples – adding the lime means that they won’t go brown if you linger over the drink.
Innocent is a really great British brand but on a holiday to Florida recently I bought “Green Machine” from the naked juice company (nakedjuice.com) and added my matcha powder to that in the morning. It does have banana so daughter number one would have to hold her nose but has spirulina for added antioxidant oomph.
Drinking a green juice every day is one of the best ways I can think of to boost health, radiance and energy.
And definitely yum rather than yuk to my taste.
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