Purple kale, strawberry & coconut green smoothie!

In a blender – Vitamix or high speed
1 head purple kale – stems and all
1 pint of fresh strawberries
4 small frozen bananas
1/2 cup dried coconut
1 T coconut butter (oil)
Optional – 1 T Maca powder
1 quart (32 oz) filtered water



Blend for about 1-2 minutes – until smooth!

You’ll get 8-9 cups of yumminess!

Get more raw food recipes at [URL="[url]http://kalepower.com/"[/url];]http://kalepower.com[/URL]

The greatest benefit of drinking green smoothies is the increased absorption of important nutrients. All plants cells are surrounded by a cell wall that must be broken open to release the nutrients inside.

As a result, most of the valuable nutrients contained within these cells never enter our bloodstream.

Blending raw, leafy greens guarantee a higher percentage of nutrients absorbed into your bloodstream.

By just chewing your food you absorb about 15 – 25% of the nutrients, but blending makes your body able to absorb up to 95%!

Are not the nutrients damaged with the high speed blending?

I'm enjoying your posts, Jackson, It's nice to see raw food recipes/photos instead of some of the other threads that have been on here as of late.

I quite agree..
Nice photos and presentation of recipes.

Thanks la_veronique! I really appreciate your comment.

Thanks bluespixie! It means a lot to me to get nice comments like yours.

That's a great question Rawpracticalist! It's a hot debate. Here's a thorough answer to the question that should help alleviate any fears about blending greens.

Blending greens doesn't destroy most of the nutrients

But let me know what you think!

Rawpracticalist, I tried to post a link that has a great answer to your question but the link must have triggered the anti-spam alert so I'll copy/paste the article here:

Does Blending Green Smoothies Destroy 90% Of Nutrients?
“I have been on such a green smoothie kick lately and then a vegan forum I’m part of posted a link from the Hippocrates center which stated that the high speed of blenders oxidizes and destroys up to 85-92% of the vitamins and enzymes, which bums me out since I spend a lot on organic produce. What are your thought in this?” – N

I’m so glad you asked this question because I’ve been meaning to address this claim for some time.

Dr. Brian Clement, director of the Hippocrates Health Institute, has made several statements online claiming that green smoothies should not be considered “health food” and should instead be considered “recreational” because the act of blending them for 90-120 seconds destroys anywhere from 85-92% of nutrients in a smoothie.

If this was true, a typical green smoothie would only contain 8-15% of the nutrients in the fruit and greens that you put in the blender. That’s what Dr. Clements wants you to think.

His premise is (overly)simple. Oxidation caused by oxygen being sucked into the blender during a blend cycle “destroys” nutrients in the food that would otherwise be preserved if eaten in its solid state.

Now I’m not denying that some nutrient loss does occur from blending. However, oxidation occurs when whole foods are juiced, cut, chopped, shredded, peeled, chewed, dehydrated and otherwise exposed to air. Nutrients in food begin to degrade the instant they are harvested, exposed to UV light and heat. You can’t get 100% of the nutrients in every food unless you get down on all fours and eat plants right out of the soil they grow in.

But that doesn’t mean that the kale sitting in your refrigerator right now is devoid of nutrients – or unhealthy. And it certainly doesn’t mean that green smoothies are junk food.

Where’s The Proof?
I haven’t seen Dr. Clement cite any specific research (and lab tests) that he has done to show that blending causes up to 92% nutrient loss. He doesn’t share any independent studies that show significant nutrient loss from blending smoothies.

Without knowing exactly how the “blender experiment” was conducted, it is hard to make any sort of independent analysis of his claims. Instead, he refers to his statements as “real science” (several times on one YouTube video) and dismisses the health claims of green smoothies as nothing more than hype from blender manufacturers.

Let’s Look At The Facts:
First of all, a professional blender blends a smoothie in 30 seconds or less, not 90-120 seconds (the time it takes, he claims, to cause 92% nutrient loss). I certainly wouldn’t blend a green smoothie for a solid two minutes (there’s absolutely no need to blend that long), but even so, I doubt that it would result in 92% nutrient loss.

Secondly, green smoothies are loaded with antioxidants such as vitamin C, vitamin E, flavonoids and carotenoids that help reduce and prevent oxidation.

Victoria Boutenko conducted an experiment on potatoes where she juiced one and blended the other. After two days, the blended potato had very little oxidation, most of which was at the top of the glass where the liquid was exposed to air. The juiced potato turned brown and oxidized much more rapidly. This is indeed ironic since Dr. Clement promotes juicing as a much more superior way of processing food.

Dr. Clement has a clear bias against a diet that includes a lot of fruit. He frequently goes on the offensive against high carbohydrate diets. Green smoothies are within his cross hairs. He has a lot at stake for promoting his version of a raw food diet and exposing all other versions as unhealthy, despite the fact that many thousands of people have changed their lives with green smoothies.

What better way to attract a lot of attention (website traffic) than to make a claim that green smoothies, despite their wild popularity, are devoid of up to 92% of their nutrients? Statements like that bring people to his website and it gets them talking. But wild claims about green smoothies being junk food doesn’t automatically make him a scientific authority on the subject.

Mixed Messages
A quick visit to the Hippocrates Health Institute website revealed many products for sale like almond butter, raw hummus, flax crackers, dried vegetables and all manner of processed foods exposed to ample amounts of oxygen, then packaged and available for sale. They also sell dehydrators in their online store.

Why would a green smoothie that is made fresh and drunk immediately be less healthy than a package of raw pumpkin seed butter that has been thoroughly processed (and exposed to air)? How is a green smoothie not healthy but a food that has been sitting in a dehydrator with a fan blowing oxygen through it for 12 hours or more considered healthy and endorsed by Dr. Clement?

Also, the Hippocrates Institute is still promoting acid/alkaline theory, colonics, food combining and vital enzymes – all of which are not supported by modern science and not even supported by all natural health professionals. That right there makes me suspicious of some of his other claims.

The Facts Don’t Match His Claim
Basically, I don’t trust Dr. Clement’s claim about the nutritional vitality of green smoothies. I don’t find him to be an authority on the “real science” behind green smoothies and nutrition. I suspect there is a strong bias against green smoothies since they are inconsistent with his dietary philosophies.

The realities of what I see on a daily basis with green smoothies contradicts his claim about the health benefits of blending. After five years of smoothies making up a significant portion of my diet, I have zero nutrient deficiencies. My blood work is perfectly normal. I show no signs of consuming “junk food” that has been devoid of nutrients.

Green smoothies are life changing, whole foods that will work wonders for your health. They provide a wealth of health benefits that are clearly documented. I have made green smoothies a significant part of my diet for about four years now. Almost daily, I get e-mails from people who have lost weight, normalized blood sugar, lowered blood pressure, reduced high cholesterol, reduced or eliminated the need for medications, and directly addressed nutrient deficiencies. Not bad for a beverage that supposedly has lost 92% of its nutrients from blending.

Source: Tracy Russell, incrediblesmoothies [dot] com [slash] faq-questions-answers [slash] qa-does-blending-green-smoothies-destroy-90-of-nutrients