Boutenko - Green smoothie revolution

For many years I drove eight hundred miles along the West Coast teaching weekly classes about raw food. I taught a ten-week course in cities from San Francisco to Seattle. Then, after a weeks break at the end of a course, I would start all over again. Despite my colossal efforts, the majority of my students found it challenging to maintain a raw food diet. That situation has radically changed with the arrival of the green smoothie. Ever since I put together the very first green smoothie in August 2004, the drink rapidly started gaining popularity without much promotion on my part.

Today, more people are aware of green smoothies than of a raw food diet. I can now order a variety of green smoothies at several of my local juice bars, and even at the drive-through near the airport in Medford, Oregon. Many TV shows and magazines are endorsing green smoothies, and when my children recently took me to the movies, I almost fell off my seat as I watched Iron Man pull out a blender and proceed to make a green smoothie. Ever since the invention of the green smoothie, I have been drinking them daily and sharing them with others. I love green smoothies so much that I am committed to drinking them until the last day of my life. Everyone in my family fell in love with them, and many of our friends did too.

Wherever I go, I gather new information from green smoothie fans worldwide. Through everyday blending, research, and letters from our readers, we have compiled the best recipes and basic principles of green smoothie creation and consumption in this new book. I hope you enjoy discovering the world of green smoothies, and finding your favorite recipes for optimum health. Happy blending! Victoria Boutenko

PART ONE
UNLEASHING THE HEALING POWER OF GREENS

There would be no life on our planet without green leaves. The life purpose of all greens is to produce chlorophyll. Dedicated to maximum possible chlorophyll production, green leaves grow, stretch, spread, and quickly take over available space under the sun. That is why we have to constantly cut, clip, and trim the grass, bushes, and trees around us. Chlorophyll is a miraculous substance, in essence liquefied sunshine. The chlorophyll molecule is the basis for every form of carbohydrate on our planet.

That means there is no sugar, honey, potato, spaghetti, rice, or bread that did not originate from a molecule of chlorophyll. All of the energy in food comes from the sun. Plants wisely utilize the sugars created from chlorophyll. As plants dont have their own legs and cannot move, they purposely make their fruit sweet in order to attract animals, insects, birds, and humans to help spread their seeds. That is why fruits look so attractive to us. They are brightly colored, sweet, and smell enticing.

Another large part of the sugars made from chlorophyll is transferred to the roots. As you know, the roots of plants have a sweet taste; for example, carrots, beets, yams, potatoes, and turnips. For this reason a large percentage of the worlds sugar is produced from root vegetables. All of this leaves one to wonder what the purpose of sweetness in roots could be. Whom can they attract, hidden in the ground, hairy and dirty? There are countless varieties of fungi, microbes, amoebas, bacteria, These microorganisms all have a big sweet tooth, consuming sugar from the roots of plants and multiplying. They transform organic matter such as dead animals and plants into inorganic minerals.

The richness and fertility of the soil is totally dependent on microorganism activity. Without microorganisms, soil turns into dust. The roots of plants are covered with tiny hairs called rhizoids. Through these rhizoids, plants absorb dissolved mineral compounds from the soil when they drink water. As water enters the root hairs and moves through the plant, it carries nutrients to all parts of the plant. The plants main purpose for accumulating nutrients is to develop future seeds, which require a high density of nutrients to fulfill their function of reproduction.

First, they need to endure a variety of weather conditions such as frost, drought, wind, rain, or heat. In addition to needing strong immunity and the ability to survive any number of circumstances, including the possibility of spending many hours in someones digestive tract, seeds need to be able to remain dormant for extremely long periods before the proper conditions to sprout arrive. Nutrient density ensures the survival of the seed for hundreds, even thousands of years. In her article on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, Martha Hunter Shepard describes seeds extraordinary potential for survival: The longest-lasting seed we know of is the sorghum. We have some indication that in certain conditions it could survive some 20,000 years.through a thick layer of asphalt, moving rocks or thick layers of clay. The sprouts should be able to survive after heavy animals step on them or nibble at them.

If seeds didnt have the necessary nutrition, this wouldnt be possible. This is why plants work hard to feed their underground supply of microorganisms and harvest their minerals. Plants begin to accumulate nutrients long before their seeds are formed. There is no better place for accumulating and storing nutrients than in the leaves. This puts greens in the category of the most nutritious foods on the planet. One may ask, Arent seeds the most nutritious part of the plant, then? While seeds are indeed rich in nutrients, plants dont want their babies to be eaten, and therefore protect their seeds by saturating them with all kinds of inhibitors, alkaloids, and other poisonous ingredients.

The best time to harvest greens is before the formation of seeds, because that is when green leaves contain the highest concentration of nutrients. After a plant blossoms, nutrients begin to accumulate inside its seeds. Once the seeds are gone, there are almost no nutrients left in the leaves. They turn yellow and brown, bitter and tough, and eventually fall off the plant so that the remaining nutrients return to the soil and the plant can rest until the next growing season. In the next chapter well look at why harnessing the miraculous nutrition of greens is so crucial for our health. Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis,