If you watched my video yesterday about green smoothies, you may be wondering how to make a green smoothie yourself. What fruits do I use? Which greens? How much? Be more specific, you say!
Well the beauty of green smoothies is that you can be creative. You can use any combination of fruit with any combination of greens, just have fun with it! Use what is fresh at your local grocery store or farmer’s market, depending on the time of year.
I would like to note though, that some people do have troubles with eating a lot of highly sugary fruits all together at once like this. Some people are very sensitive to sugar, even fruit sugar, and it spikes their blood sugars too high. See what you can handle – if you are someone sensitive to sugar swings, I would advise that it’s probably better for the majority of your smoothie to be less sugary fruits like berries and pears, with a lot of greens. Greens act as a blood sugar buffer. Plus, they are the component helping your skin the most, so you want to get lots in there!
My general recipes include:
- 3-4 pieces of fruit. I’d recommend at least one banana, as they make the whole consistency tasty and smooth. Other than that, go wild! Berries are the probably the fruit I would recommend the most, but you can use apples, oranges, raspberries, blueberries, grapefruit, peaches, kiwi, pineapple, grapes, apricots, blackberries, mangoes. Anything. You can use frozen fruits too!
- 5-6 big leaves of greens. You can work up to this amount! Although you mostly can’t taste them, you may need some time to get used to the greens. If you’re new to this, start with spinach, as it’s the most mild tasting. Then you can get into kale, chard, collard greens, romaine lettuce, beet tops, bok choy, and any other dark leafy greens you can think of. Try to get at least half your blender stuffed with greens.
- 2-3 tablespoons of flax seeds. This isn’t entirely necessary, but it’s great for fibre and those elusive Omega 3s. Some people actually don’t feel very good after mixing fruits and fats like this, so if it gives you stomach trouble, cut it out. If it doesn’t, go for it. I find that adding the little bit of fat here keeps me full for longer.
- 1 or so cups of liquid. You need this to blend the whole concoction or you`ll be up the creek. The easiest and cheapest thing to do is just throw some water in there. If you want it more creamy, you can try rice or almond milk. I’ll occasionally use pure fruit juice too (without added sugar! Has to be quality). However, for nutrition purposes, plain old filtered water is the best.
- Anything else you want. Sometimes I put nutritional yeast in, other times some vegan protein powder. The occasional avocado, which makes it nice and smooth. But only if I had these lying around. Don’t worry if you don’t have these extras! The fruits and greens are the most important!
This usually makes a big batch of almost a litre. You want a large volume to get both a huge kick of nutrients and a sturdy breakfast. The smoothies are quick to make but can take a little while to drink, so I put mine in a jar or bottle, bring it to work and drink it all morning.
Here are some example recipes:
- Berry Berry – Raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, banana, spinach, flax, almond milk
- Purps – Blueberries, banana, kiwi fruit, grapefruit, kale, flax, rice milk
- Tropical – Pineapple, banana, orange, collard greens, water (this is a pretty sugary one, so be careful! Add lots and lots of greens)
If you need more recipes, check out this great blog, the Smoothie Handbook, with lots of great smoothie info. Have fun and experiment!
Do you drink green smoothies? If so, what are some of your favourite recipes? Share them below!
Do you have this as a whole meal? Is it filling? 🙂 So curious to try this. Bit nervous gonna experiment! Thanks for your post.
Yes, I have this as my breakfast! You have to drink a fair deal of it to make it into a meal (definitely more than one cup… I drink somewhere around 3-4 cups)… but think of all the nutrients that is! I’ve actually found it more satisfying and keeps me full for longer if I do add the flax seeds, otherwise it does get digested very quickly. That’s also why I put it in a big jar and take it to work and drink it all morning… takes you to lunch time easier than if you drank it all at 7 am.
Anyway, yes the greens and things are a bit intimidating at first! Most people who look at my green smoothies wonder how I could drink something so green, but they really do just taste like fruit.
hi! i love your site! i found it through acne.org…which has also been a Godsend:) i cant wait to try one of these smoothies but i was wondering…should i be concerned w the amount of sugar from the fruits (esp the bananas and oranges) bc it seems that high amounts of sugar (even from fruit) is linked to acne? also i looked around your site to see if there was a “meal plan” of sorts so i could get an idea of what a few days worth of meals would look like w the foods you usually consume…but i didnt find anything. is it someplace im overlooking or could you possibly make one? thanks for making this site…you seem like a genuinely awesome human being and i wish you the best!!!
Hi Cam! I guess that depends on who you talk to, in regards to the sugar in fruit. I would be careful about eating too much of the really sugary fruits – bananas and tropical fruits (hmm… now that I think about it, maybe the “Tropical” recipe wasn’t such a good suggestion), but a little bit in your green smoothie should be fine. If you’re concerned, stick more to fruits like apples, pears, and berries. Fructose is different than regular sugar in that it has to be converted to glucose first before it enters the blood, so it slows the speed at which it spikes your blood sugar. The fiber in it also slows it down, as does the greens in the smoothie, which kind of alkalizes it and brings the GI down. Make sure like almost half your blender is greens… it’s more nutritious and better for your skin that way as greens are the king when it comes to nutrients!
I love green smoothies! I drink one everyday for bfst. I use whey protein, flax seed, banana and spinach. Def fills me up!
Hi Tracy 🙂
My boyfriend and I just made our first smoothies today,they were just frozen raspberry+fresh banana smoothies (so yummy!) and hopefully we will pick up the habit and keep it (yep, better late then never to jump on that bandwagon eh? haha).
As I’m the one with the bad skin, I’m quite keen on starting to add greens to my smoothie. I see most people seem to use fresh leafy vegies (since fresh is of course best), but I was wondering, since we can use frozen berries, can we also use frozen vegies? e.g. frozen broccoli & frozen spinach – we seem to always have these in our freezer so I’m wondering if these would be OK to start out with?
Thank you 🙂
Hi Jess!
Freezing is probably the best way to preserve things…. it doesn’t lose that much of its nutrients, especially if it was frozen right away after picking! But.. of course fresh is still better, but if frozen vegetables are all you have on hand or have access to, then go for it! 🙂
Tracy- do you have a vitamix? It has been the saving grace of my life! it comes with a book of wonderful recipes and i have been experiencing my own recipes. Also- have you done any “smoothie soups” my new favorite is: orange/carrot/ginger soup in the vitamix sprinked with cilantro it is divine.
Nope…. I wish I had a vitamix! But my $50 dollar blender does okay for now… I’ll save up 500 for the vitamix. The instant soups do sound tempting!
How about about freezing the smoothy itself for drinking in a couple days? Takes a little bit to cut up all these fruits and stuff in the morning…would it loose any of it’s effectiveness?
Well fresh is best as smoothies loose nutrients quickly since all the small molecules are exposed to air…. freezing is second best. I’d probably think that cutting the fruits and freezing them whole is better than freezing a smoothie after it’s already made… especially because if you want to drink it, it will have to sit out being exposed to the air for quite a while before it thaws enough to be drunk! Unless you want to make smoothie popsicles… mmm that sounds yummy 🙂
Hey there! 🙂 I was wondering, do you put ice in your smoothies? If so, how much?
No I don’t because it makes me cold! But yeah… if your blender can handle it, put as much as you want!
Hey Tracy!
Do you have any extra tips for boosting skin health?
cos i’ve been seemingly doing it all right, I’ve been vegan for 2 months now, drinking green smoothies almost every morning (spinach/fruits ratio around 1:1. what’s the best acne-beating green leafy?), exercising, not eating too much sweets and being quite a jolly lad all around, but my skin has not gone any better ./ should i get back to that antibiotic cream i used before i came to think of it as a suspicious not-quite-sure-what’s-in-there substance i didn’t want to put on my face? washing my face with honey before bed seems to result in a fair face in the morning, but inflammation is still there and keeps coming up. what should i do?
cheers and keep up the brilliance,
Marz
Hi Marz!
Well first of all….what “kind” of vegan are you? like are you getting all your calories from wheat and soy? I actually don’t think vegan is necessarily the healthiest way to eat and most people do better having at least some animal protein in their diets (since animal foods are very nutritious and have a lot of nutrients you need for your skin)…. and yeah…. gluten and soy tend to be major problems for people with acne, so that could be why!
Hi Tracy, what do you think about the supplement, Greens +? Is it a good replacement for a green smoothie? Also, what about frozen greens, like spinach and kale?
Thanks for all the great info here. I’m enjoying your book, showed it to a naturopath at the CCND here (TO) and she loved it!
Hi Rebecca!
Fresh greens are always best, but Greens Plus is full of good stuff too, and is a good addition or replacement if you can’t do the actual smoothie all the time … it will help, for sure. It can get pricey though if you’re relying on it.
As for frozen greens… freezing is probably the best way to preserve something, it seems to leave the nutrients the most intact of anything. So yes, if that’s more convenient then you can do that.
And also…. that’s so awesome to hear that the naturopath thought my book was great! That’s so good… I just got an email from someone else saying he paid $150 to see a naturopath who told him the exact same stuff that’s in my book!… so… anyway 🙂 That makes me happy, thanks
It is pricey. And when I looked at the ingredients just now I was surprised to see that it has dairy. It says, ‘Natural flavour blend with stevia, skim milk–1019 mg.’ Whoops.
Oh I missed that too… didn’t realize it had dairy in it. And those darn natural flavours :/
It’s a good thing you checked, many just assume because it’s a health product that they don’t sneak weird things into them
It also has soy! Oh, well, so much for that.
Hey Tracy,
I was wondering how long do you think it will take to see improvements on my skin, if drink the green smoothie 2x a day?
Hi Flo… everyone’s different, so I have no idea!
Is it ok to use V8 or tomato based juice instead of water?
Yes. Although be aware that V8 juice is pasteurized so it’s not as full of all the vitamins as they say. There’s still some.. but yeah. If you want to use it just because you like tomato juice, then go ahead.
Thanks for the post, Tracy. I just found you on Youtube last week and I’ve been glued to the computer screen after work. These smoothies sound awesome and I’m looking forward to giving it a try. I’m kind of on a tight budget, so I was thinking of not getting organic. I know it’s better to get organic, but if I wash the fruit well it shouldn’t be too bad, should it?
Hi Tracie (cool name! hah)
Organic is definitely better, but I can’t really afford all my produce to be organic, so don’t worry about it. If you can, make it a priority to get your greens organic… but, either way… you’ll still see plenty of benefits even if you need to use conventional produce!
Hi Tracy!
Well I overheard something on the web, you should not mix fruit with vegetables because it could get toxic in your body (except for apples..) Do you think this is true? I love smoothies, but this is the only reason I don’t put greens in it…
PS I’m really happy I found your site, it has been very helpful!
Hi Sandra,
Yes I’ve read many times that you shouldn’t mix fruits with things – I can’t verify for sure if that is 100% true, but it does seem to cause a bit of digestive distress for many (not all) – however, I always hear that it is generally okay to mix fruits with vegetables – it’s usually a lot more problematic to mix fruit with heavy starches or proteins like bread or meat, for example
I will drink a green smoothie tomorrow, thank u!
My recipe is:
Spinach
pumpkin
Banana
Sunflower seed butter
Chia seeds; and
Rice milk
Sometimes I add a bit of cinnamon. It tastes like dessert! I love it!
Yum, that sounds really good!
hey tracy 🙂
can you take a green smoothie to school for the day in a flask or holder?
thanks
sorry i missed the part where you said you can store it in a bottle, sorry 🙂
Hi Tracy,
this post (got here through the book btw), got me thinking once again about fruit peel, seeds or pit.
I noticed you haven’t, to the best of my knowledge, discussed this so far…
It is consensual that some fruit peel (and legume peel also) has extra nutrients. I also read some stuff about some seeds and pits being beneficial.
On the other hand, I’ve also read some conflicting info regarding toxicity and digestion, so I was wondering if you had some info, a reference or some sort of guide on the matter, so that I might make my smoothies even more nutritious!
Thanks.
Hi Tiago – sorry, I don’t really know anything about eating fruit peels (or seeds, or pits). What sort of peels? like banana peels??
Today is my first day trying smoothie and im so nervous any sugestions? To keep me going?
If you’re scared, just use plenty of fruit and only a little bit of greens – that way you’ll see that you can’t taste them and you’ll be braver. Then you can slowly increase the amount of greens you have in each smoothie as you get used to it. 🙂
Hey Tracy!
Saw this yesterday and just went to sprouts and made one, SO GOOD! I was lucky enough to find a deal on the greens it was a orgnaic mixed container of what they called “power greens” (kale, spinach, and chard)two big containers of it for 5$. added some strawberries blackberries a banana carrots and some fresh squeezed orange juice from my home grown oranges. Couldn’t ask for a better breakfast. Thanks so much!
hey tracy, i was wondering if it would be ok to put things like green beans and sugar snaps in the green smoothie?
You can put anything you want in there 🙂 As long as it isn’t gag worthy, go for it!