Green Smoothie — The Bethnal Greens

Recipes for a green smoothie are probably in the four, five, possibly six digits online by now. They are quick, easy and child friendly. Since the fruits, vegetables and nuts are blended they retain all of their nutrition with is better absorbed because the fiber is included. The trick is to not go overboard on the fruit since the advantage of gulping a smoothie is to sneak in as many vegetables as possible, saving your fruit to be munched on later in the day.

Ease your child into drinking one by including more fruit than you would for yourself and use vegetables that are more palatable like spinach, peas, carrots and beetroots. Lemon helps to balance any bitterness from the greens while also bringing out the sweetness in the blend.

I use green powders such as chlorella, wheatgrass and spirulina. These also come in ready blends, which are all-natural dehydrated greens. Brands that I use are Amazing Grass and Sunwarrior.

What makes this one special? It is special, because it is made by us for us, it is our concoction, possibly not unique, but it suits us just fine. There aren't any rules when it comes to making a smoothie, and ours changes almost daily. I do, however, make 2 litres of one everyday. Mrs Green and I each have 500ml in the morning, and take a 500ml flask with us to drink when we need a little pick me up later in the day. I'm including the nutritional data for the whole 2 litres of this sucker at the bottom (I weighed each ingredient on a digital scale). I won't make it a habit to include the nutritional data for recipes, but thought it would encourage you to start blending your own. I used Fitday.com to calculate the nutritional profile of this green sucker.

Once a week we pick our own greens for our smoothie, which depends on the season and how abundant our crops are. It is approaching mid-October so leafy greens are very happy. Bellow is a mixture of spinach, cavolo nero, dandelion greens, mustard greens and chard. These are most likely available at your local farmers' market and at a very reasonable price.