Healthy Cooking & Shopping

Woooohoooo!  Hello you! Here’s my HUSBAND SMOOTHIE recipe VIDEO: http://youtu.be/MgG5Ri3Z66Q 🙂 Drink your greens to achieve your dreams… This mixture will help you boost your energy, get healthy & look gorgeous too!

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— INGREDIENTS:

2 cups of organic berries (e.g. 1 cup of blueberries & 1 cup of strawberries)
Optional: 0.5 cup of frozen pineapple
2 cups of water (or optional: Unsweetened Coconut Water)
1.5 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1 tablespoon chia seeds
1 serving of protein powder (I use a plant-based pea protein, use a protein powder you like)
2 cups raw organic kale (or another dark leafy green e.g. collard greens, mustard greens or spinach) I sometimes use 3 cups if I want it greener!
1 – 2 bananas (depending on how sweet you like it!)

[My full recipe – I have a HUGE blender!
4 cups of organic berries (e.g. 2 cups of blueberries & 2 cups of strawberries)
1 / 2 cup of frozen pineapple
4 cups of water (or optional: Unsweetened Coconut Water)
3 tablespoons ground flaxseed
2 tablespoons chia seeds
2 servings of protein powder (I use a plant-based pea protein, use a protein powder you like)
4 cups raw organic kale (or another dark leafy green e.g. collard greens, mustard greens or spinach) I sometimes use 6 cups if I want it greener!
2 – 4 bananas (depending on how sweet you like it!)]

— DIRECTIONS:

Put the frozen berries (& optional: frozen pineapple) in the blender.  Add the water (or option: unsweetened coconut water).  Cover the blender and puree until it’s smooth.
Grind your flaxseed and add to the blender.  Add the chia seeds and the protein powder.  Cover with the kale.  Blend the mixture until it is smooth.
Add the bananas.  Blend the mixture again until it’s the consistency you like.  Feel free to add extra water if you want a more liquid consistency.
Pour into a glass and drink!  YUM! 🙂  So tasty and soooooooo nutritious.

— ABOUT THE FANTASTIC ingredients:

KALE (and other dark leafy greens like collard greens, mustard greens or spinach)
Kale is the KING of GREENS! 🙂
– A cup of Kale contains twice your recommended daily allowance of Vitamin A, 6 times your RDA of Vitamin K (powerful anti-oxidant that can help ward off cancer), nearly 1.5 times your RDA of Vitamin C (to help boost your immunity).  Not only does Kale provide loads of anti-oxidants (Vitamins A, C, K) it also is a great source of sulfur containing phytonutrients.  Kale also helps to lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk of getting heart disease!
– Beauty: anti-aging – research has shown that eating kale acts as a natural SPF for the skin.  It helps the skin protect itself from the sun’s wrinkle-making UV damage… (sounds wild but it’s true!)

FLAXSEEDS: It’s good to have some flaxseed (2 tablespoons) everyday.  It must be ground (if you just eat the seeds you’ll excrete them undigested and you won’t get the benefits!)

– Loads of fiber so it’s great for your digestive system too.  You get about 8g of fiber for each tablespoon.  This’ll keep you regular – yay!
– Flax is a great source of Omega 3 fatty acids.  Our bodies can’t make Omega 3s and most American’s are deficient in them.
Omega 3s act play an important role in our body’s anti-inflammatory system and they are great for our brains too.  Omega 3 fatty acids also help keep our skin looking younger and gorgeously, radiantly healthy!
– Loads of Vitamin E – it’s great for your skin.
– Flax contain lignans which help to regulate your hormone levels (so brilliant for Pre Menstrual Tension / Syndrome if you get that! Grrrr!) AND help reduce the risk of prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women.
—Buy flax as seeds, keep it in the fridge and grind it in a coffee grinder as you need it.  If you buy the shop bought pre-ground flaxseeds, you’ll find it goes rancid quickly…

CHIA SEEDS: Chia is considered to be a superfood because it is extremely nutrient dense (loads of nutrients for a small amount of calories).
– Fiber: Two tablespoons (1 oz) of chia seeds contain more than 10 grams of fiber!  That’s 40% of your recommended daily allowance!
– Omega 3’s: gram for gram, Chia seeds have more Omega 3s than salmon!  It’s one of the most concentrated food sources of Omega 3 anywhere.
– Calcium: Two tablespoons (1 oz) of chia seeds will give you 20% of your recommended daily allowance of calcium!
– Fills you up: Chia absorbs 10 times it’s own weight in water.  It expands and creates a gorgeous ‘gel’ that fills you up AND thickens your smoothie.  YAY!

BERRIES: huge providers of fiber, nutrients, anti-oxidants that help you live longer, look better and feel amazing!
Buy your berries organic (to avoid yucky pesticides AND to up the nutrient content – organic food is grown using natural fertilizer so it’s richer in nutrients!).
If you get frozen organic berries you’ll save loads of money (vs buying them fresh)!

BANANA: We should get 4700 mg of potassium every day but most of us get much less.
A medium banana contains about 430 mg of potassium (so one banana will give us about 10% of our daily potassium requirement!)
We need potassium to help balance the sodium (salt) / potassium ratio in our bodies.  This is crucial for lots of reasons including preventing (or even treating) high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease and more…  Potassium is also important for muscle contraction.

Enjoy!

love you!
Kara
The Lifestylista
xox
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