Schott - Superfood Shakes : How To Go Beyond Smoothies to Craft Whole Food Super Shakes to Enhance Natural Immunity, Strength, and Beauty

Superfood Shakes

How to Go Beyond Smoothies to Craft Whole-Food Super Shakes to Enhance Natural Immunity, Strength, and Beauty

Written By: John Schott

www.schottswellness.com

Published by Archangel Ink

Copyright 2015 John Schott

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If youre reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Nutrition Today: A Very Quick Glance

Making sense of the nutrition/health field today can be very overwhelming. Ill take this opportunity to briefly share my perspective. The intent is to help plant a seed. I want to offer insights that can help you build a solid foundation to achieve a more vibrant lifestyle.

Most peoples approach to health typically begins with a dietary component. Its the most popular. After all, we do have to eat, and tons of books, magazines, and opinions keep on flooding the market. This is where I see an opening to chime in and highlight other areas of the equation. There are overlooked lifestyle aspects that typically suffer at the expense of an excessive focus on food. Diet aloneespecially if its based on a modern or even dogmatic programis not enough. These days, it is very clear that we have to look at a whole lifestyle approach that involves movement, connecting with nature, and building like-minded communities. There are certain principles that come into play here. For instance, its critical that we achieve emotional balance and develop stress management strategies for ourselves. It is a main component toward building excellent health. Other elements include finding ways of clearing old traumas and nurturing our nervous system. Smile, laugh, and create effective communication channels in your relationships. These are all pieces of the puzzle. Oh, and dont take yourself or trivial things so seriously. Beyond these, try to be as connected to every element involved in your life. In other words, be present. And of course, this also involves being aware of where our food comes from.

Our environment also plays a key role. The water element is extremely valuable to understand and is greatly underestimated. We will touch upon this subject further in a later section. After all, this is a discourse mostly about liquids. Incorporating fresh and ionized clean air and non-off-gassing paint to reduce as many toxic elements in our homes is also important.

Practice a form of safe, non-extreme exercise or movement practice. This should ideally involve some form of resistance training to preserve or build muscle. Move, move, move. Whether its walking, rebounding, dancing, or playing with your kids, all these activities enhance the whole body and lymph system. Keep proper cycles of anabolic (building/growing) and catabolic (breaking down/cleansing) processes rotating throughout your life without going to extremes. Also, get grounded, breathe fresh air, and get proper doses of sunny (vitamin) D.

And, of course, eat well! This is where most of us are getting confused (at times fighting each other and ourselves). Were receiving too much information. A lot of times its contradictory, and when its all said and done, for many people, the whole thing becomes a reason to drop eating healthy altogether.

So, barring all of that, approach the food element with an air of simplicity. The gist of it is to eat real food. What does that mean? Well, simply begin by discarding anything that comes from a lab. Try your best to avoid genetically modified and factory-farmed foods. Also, stay clear of ingredient lists that nobody except the scientist that put them on the label in the first place can understand. From there, begin to choose beyond overly processed semblances of food. These include things like high fructose corn syrup; hydrogenated and industrialized oils (even vegetable oils); white sugar; bleached, excessively processed white flour; and white homogenized, pasteurized factory-farm dairy. As we consider all those factors, we begin to construct a well-rounded approach to eating, one based somewhat on an ancestral, yet modernized, version of our evolutionary hunting and gathering practice. So, to pay tribute to the Paleo folks and raw-food vegans, this is an overall solid starting point. The bulk of our nutrients will come from healthy animal foods and fresh fruits, vegetables, tubers, roots, nuts, seeds, and seaweed. Some dairy, grains, and legumes will come into play here as well. This point is where we tend to veer off into slight layers of complexity, but it shouldnt be too over the top. Furthermore, as we go into the rest of these chapters, I introduce the inclusion of whole liquid meals and drinks into the equation. Here, we explore some elements that incorporate the use of true superfoods, herbs, and wonders of our technological world.

Again, take into account that this is just an introduction to the vast world of nutrition. Its my intent to highlight the use of mindful awareness and see how so many different concepts can fit into the rest of what is involved in these pages, recipes, and techniques. In some areas, there will be considerations as to the type of dairy that may or may not be beneficial. Some people will insist on staying true to their low-carb preferences. Others choose to eternally abstain from the use of any animal product. I get it, and all considerations are respected and honored. There are always ways to tweak and change things up. Taking liberties and having the freedom to build on whats being presented here is actually encouraged. So, take as much as you can from this book. Make it your own or disregard any part that you see fit. In the end, your intuition, experiences, and desires are what matter most. My hope is to create a fun environment, present new ideas, and deliver a unique approach that will enhance the magical genre of smoothies and shakes.

To your health always.

I know there are so many smoothie, juice, and shake recipe books out in the market today. Not to mention there are endless blogs, web pages, and food-based sites that offer tons of ideas on the topic. My experience with most of these is that they are typically based on a lot of the same principles. Heres the rundown, more or less: You take some milk, apple or orange juice, soy milk, or another inexpensive (and, most of the time, low-quality) ingredient as the base and start there. Then you add a bunch of fruit, maybe some kale, and a sweetener of some sort. Perhaps you feel like adding some nice store-bought yogurt or a powdered green blend with 1,000 ingredients in it. Blend it up and boom! you have a smoothie. Change a few things up and thousands of recipes follow. Most of the time, there is no strategic approach being followed. At times, smoothies become a thoughtless abyss of sameness.

Im also aware that there are a few Paleo and raw-food vegan smoothie recipe books available as well. These, to their credit, serve as a great alternative to the mainstream selections. They at least offer upgraded concepts to the other more popular smoothie books. They also go beyond what we see being offered in smoothie bar chains across the country. But, for the most part, by following the bulk of most of those recipes, youre most likely making the same typical fare at home.