I have been hearing about "green smoothies" for ages, and frankly, they sounded pretty horrible. The idea is that you take a perfectly good smoothie base (with ingredients like bananas, yogurt, milk, ice cubes, etc) and cram a whole bunch of kale, spinach, swiss chard, and other leafy greens in there. Blend it all up and you've got yourself a bucket of yard waste, was always my opinion on the matter.
But then last weekend, two separate people whose opinions I respect both extolled the virtues of green smoothies. They admitted that the smoothies don't taste super great, but not as bad as I probably thought, and that they felt great after having one.
Well, it was enough that I thought I should probably at least give it a try before passing judgment. I happened to have some mustard greens and swiss chard on hand, so I ripped the leaves into smaller chunks and tossed them in the blender along with a banana and some unsweetened vanilla-flavored almond milk.
My first surprise was how well it blended. I was expecting this to be a big chore, since I just have a regular old consumer grade blender. But the greens caught in the blades and the whole thing blended up nicely in less than 30 seconds.
I sniffed it, and it smelled just like I would have expected. Mostly like banana, and also the fresh green smell of lawn clippings. It wasn't a smell that said "Yum" to me, but it also wasn't as off-putting as I had expected.
The taste? Well, let's be honest. The taste is not great. But it also wasn't bad. The worst I can say is that it was a little bland. The banana definitely overwhelmed the taste of the greens, which is a good thing.
Given all the amazing nutrition in dark leafy green vegetables - and given how reluctant I am to eat them - I will definitely be adding green smoothies to my regular roster of foods!
Image courtesy Flickr/joyosity
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