12 Steps to Whole Foods

Bye-Bye, Stimulants — Hello, Green Smoothies
Better and Easier Than Juicing. Many of us have a Champion, Jack LaLanne, or Omega juicer collecting
dust in a back cupboard. We’ve juiced in fits and starts. Unlike these outdated kitchen tools (which make a
huge mess and cost us a lot of time to clean up and put away many breakable parts), your Blendtec blender
allows you to leverage all the benefits of many plant foods without throwing away most of the plant.
Green smoothies are packed with insoluble plant fiber cleaning the 30+ feet of your entire digestive tract, as
well as your blood and all the organs that your blood flows to. Think of kale as a little green guy with bulging
muscles: he can carry out of your body several times more than his own body weight in toxins! Eating plenty of
plant fiber is your main antidote to colon cancer, a leading cause of death and misery in the U.S.
Easy-to-Get Fiber. Drinking a quart a day of green smoothie addresses what I believe is the #1 deficit in the
American diet: enzymes.
Enzymes are catalysts in all bodily functions, including digestion. Digestive enzymes break down food for
storage in the liver of muscles. And while your body’s organs can produce the needed digestive enzymes, those
organs typically become exhausted in the body of anyone eating a typical Western diet of dead, processed
foods.
According to most estimates, you have at best about 30 years’ worth of enzyme production capacity. Eating
raw foods, particularly greens that have intact enzymes (heating above 116° destroys enzymes), gives you
energy that does not deplete your limited enzymatic capacity. Drinking a quart of green smoothie daily will go
a long way in providing your body the enzymes it needs to digest other cooked food.
The #2 deficit in the Western diet is overall plant fiber. Because fiber is removed from refined foods,
Americans eat an average of only 11-14 grams of it per day (you get more than that in your green smoothie
alone), and the USRDA recommendation is 25-30 grams.
May I strongly recommend that at least 40 grams is actually ideal. A chimpanzee in the wild (left to his own
devices to choose his diet) eats 300 grams per day! As with many other things, the FDA and USDA cave to
meat/dairy interests and water down the truth to appease those industries and avoid overwhelming middle
America. Of course, drinking a quart of green smoothie daily addresses this critical issue of insufficient plant
fiber, too.
Fiber lowers blood's “bad” cholesterol level and stabilizes blood sugar. It prevents hemorrhoids, constipation,
colon cancer, and other diseases of the colon. Insoluble plant fiber, while not digested, is critical in removing
toxins (including metals) from the body. It is found abundantly in greens as well as in vegetables, whole grains,
legumes, nuts, and seeds.
Fast to Prepare and Eat. I love that green smoothies are “fast food” that is healthful. I do love salads for sitdown
meals to further augment your consumption of greens (and will address that in Chapter 3). But unlike a
salad, I can make a green smoothie the night before and put it in my GreenSmoothieGirl Jug in the fridge.
When I leave for work, I grab the smoothie, a straw and a napkin, and put them in an insulated lunch box with
a refreezable coolant. Your coworkers will definitely say, “What is that?!” if you drink it openly like I do,
always hoping for a convert. (If you’re shy, you can always hide with a thermos.) But if you respond with
enthusiasm and a testimonial about the health benefits you’ve experienced, some of them will ask you later
how to make it. (I’ve been known to thrust my green smoothie at random strangers with an extra straw and say,
“Try it!”)
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw 12 Steps to Whole Foods 37