Stacy Michaels - Smoothies for Good Health: The Superfruits, Vegetables, Healthy Indulgences & Everyday Ingredients Smoothie Recipe Book

Smoothie Recipe Book by Stac y Michaels s/bo">&nb
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Copyright 2013 s/bo">&nb
Table of Contents
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Preface Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of smoothies! My name is Stacy Michaels and I want to introduce you to the many health benefits of eating your five daily servings of fruits and vegetables. I also want to share with you some of my favorite smoothie recipes. They will provide you with a simple yet delicious way to get your daily servings of fruits and vegetables. I must confess, while growing up, I wasnt aware of what healthy food was.

A typical dinner was chicken burgers and cheese strings. No veggies. When I did have a vegetable, it was most often than not a can of corn or a potato. By the time I reached my early 20s, I had higher-than-normal cholesterol, had difficulty managing my weight, and suffered from frequent heartburn. I eventually tried a variety of diets and supplements but was never able to stick to them long enough to see any real results. I lost motivation to change because I knew I wanted to be healthier but I just didnt know how.

I first tried smoothies around the holidays in 2007. After a food-filled honeymoon in Greece and a holiday season filled with turkey and baked goodies, I wanted to start the new year off healthier. Not just packaged, healthier food, but real natural and fresh foods from the farm. I decided to incorporate smoothies into my daily routine and quickly became a fan of the simple pear-avocado smoothie. Id make up a big pitcher and have a glass with either lunch or dinner. I found smoothies to be the absolute easiest and most delicious way to get my five servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

A couple of months later, I began adding cucumbers and carrots to smoothies and experimented with different flavor combinations. I especially loved the fact that I could get in 6 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables without really tasting the veggies! I eventually replaced my morning breakfast and coffee with a rich, delicious smoothie. In the meantime, I noticed an increase of energy and a decrease in cravings for junk foods. I quickly dropped to my ideal weight which I hadnt weighed since I was in high school. Thesn te smoothies were not only delicious; they were also keeping my health on track and my weight in check! So are you ready to experience the many health benefits of smoothies? I promise it will be an incredibly delicious journey filled with colorful fruits and vegetables that will hopefully lead to positive life-changing results. Get your blender ready, and lets start the journey! s/bo">&nb
The Health Benefits of Fruits and Vegetables Whats all the fuss about fruits and vegetables? The truth is - fruits and vegetables are magic.

Research indicates that people who have higher intakes of fruits and vegetables generally have a lower risk of developing heart disease and certain cancers. And were not talking about small numbers here. This is some serious stuff. By eating enough fruits and vegetables nearly three million lives could be saved across the world every year. Five is the magic number Five is magic when it comes to how many portions of fruits and vegetables you should be eating every day. I dont want to bore you with the math, but here is the reason why five is the magic number (as opposed to 4.2 or 19): Simple.

Variety is the spice of life Since nature has very kindly given us so many different types of fruits and vegetables to choose from, its only polite to try as many of them as we can. And not only that, but eating a variety ensures you get the goodness that different types of fruits and vegetables can offer. Fruits and vegetables are full of a variety of healthy compounds that are often responsible for their color, so the more colorful the better. Aim to eat a rainbow of different colored fruits and vegetables every day and you can't go wrong. What counts? When thinking about how to make up their 5-a-day servings of fruits and vegetables, most people tend to forget that its not just the fresh stuff that counts. You can get portions from dried fruits, juices, smoothies, beans and pulses as well as canned and frozen fruits and vegetables.

Heres a quick guide on what count s/bo">&nb
All about Smoothies Smoothie does it Recently scientists have officially recognized that smoothies count as two portions of your 5-a-day target. And that is only the case if one portion comes from the crushed fruit and the other comes from the fruit juice. Or one portion comes from the crushed fruit and the other comes from a combination of crushed fruit and juice. So, to put that into an eye catching box: Fancy a bit of roughage? Usually found in all twig-like breakfast cereals and corrugated cardboard crackers, your mother might have referred to fiber as roughage. And while this miracle stuff sounds like one nutrient, fiber actually refers to a group of nutrients and is truly brilliant. Fiber not only helps keep things moving along nicely, some fibers can help protect against heart disease and some cancers.

However, like fruits and vegetables, we dont get enough of the rough stuff. Because fruits and vegetables contain fiber, getting your 5-a- day doubly ticks off your fruit and vegetable tally and your fiber quota all in one go. For those of you who like important looking graphs to demonstrate how things work, heres one to show how smoothies can help increase your fiber intake. And heres another to show you how smoothies contain as much fiber as two portions of fruit . Vitamin C When it comes to getting your vitamins, you need them to be ACE. Thats because, along with vitamins A and E, vitamin C is one of the most important antioxidant vitamins when it comes to maintaining a healthy immune system and helping us to absorb iron from our food.

Back in the day (maybe around 70 million years ago, give or take a millennia), scientists bel d that humans were able to make their own vitamin C. Not anymore. Along with guinea pigs and gorillas, humans are one of the only creatures on the planet unable to produce their own vitamin C*. This is the reason why its essential that we get vitamin C from whatever we eat and drink. Luckily, some smoothies can give you over 40% of your daily requirement for vitamin C. *In case you were fretting about your pet guinea pig, theres no need to feed them one of your smoothies. *In case you were fretting about your pet guinea pig, theres no need to feed them one of your smoothies.