In hopes of increasing my calcium and other goodies intake, I've been making green smoothies made of: 4 leaves of kale, half a broccoli crown and its stem, half a cucumber, 8 baby carrots, tblspn flax seeds, and 3 cups of warm water. Run it through my Vitamix for 2 minutes and drink it down as fast as I can. The warm water improves its taste. Sadly, this improvement is not enough. It looks, tastes and feels like vomit. :spew:

Been doing this for almost a month and I still haven't developed a love for it. As far as I'm concerned, that's plenty of greens but I still come up short for my daily calcium requirement which I'm not too concerned about meeting. I've tried adding carob powder, tomatoes, coconut, garlic, cacao, asparagus, apricots, and some other things but it always ALWAYS turns into barf stew. :mad: I'm blaming it all on the kale. It's like my green smoothie is a capture the flag game, and kale wins everytime outmanuevering the broccoli, carrot, whatever and plants its flag on the enemy's side turning my smoothie insanely green and insanely inedible.

This must be the best food on the planet, because it just tastes awful raw. Right up there with garlic, but at least that tastes good mixed with other food. Are there any ways to combat the stuff? The only solution I've found is to eat one fourth of a super sweet pineapple to sedate my taste buds before drinking my smoothie. Any suggestions?

Why not leave the kale out and eat the kale as a wrap or salad :stinkeye: :confused:

Eating what you don't enjoy (and that you describe as VOMIT) is not a good idea, is it? :confused:

I had to laugh at this whole post.

You need to add fruit to your smoothie! my usual smoothie has banana, orange, strawberry, tons of baby spinach, greenleaf lettuce, little bit of sprouts, some water. mix it all up and then i add some raw agave and ice at the end.

http://www.rawfamily.com/articles.htm Find the "Ode to Green Smoothies" article and check it out. Victoria also wrote a -very- extensive book on green smoothies called 'green for life'. it's probably one of my favorite books ever. if you are really into green smoothies and want to learn more, i'd highly recommend the book.

And mine turn into a fabulous green color. It's so pretty.

But all the stuff you seem to be adding would be better in a salad. the 'green' in green smoothies is mainly leafy greens, though some people add things like celery.

I'm not a smoothie maker myself, but I'd recommend trying Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness juice and seeing how fruity and yummy it tastes while still packing so much green power. Then see if you can capture that. OK, so you don't have to add dragonfruit or spirulina...

I'm not a smoothie maker myself, but I'd recommend trying Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness juice It *is* yummy but I think that Zasko is trying to be raw and eat unprocessed foods :beatnik:

It *is* yummy but I think that Zasko is trying to be raw and eat unprocessed foods :beatnik:
I just meant as a way to see first-hand how fruity and yummy a green smoothie can be. Then he can take the concept home and apply it.

Fruit goes well with the vegetables? Hmm, I'll have to try that. I wish fresh organic fruit was as cheap as kale. Thanks for the link, it gave me some awesome ideas I'll put to hopefully good use. I'm only eating the kale because of its nutrition contents. I can stuff more of it down when it's blended than if I'm trying to chew the stuff. It's probably way more digestable/absorbable in that form anyway. I do feel akward eating something my body tells me to pour down the sink.

I'll pick up one bottle of the Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness juice to see how it tastes and try to match its flavor if I like it. Yeah I am trying to avoid stuff like it though :) One bottle shouldn't hurt me! Thanks girls! :kiss:

Add the pineapple to the smoothie! It's great in a smoothie, and it's flavour usually overpowers nasty tastes.

You are stronger than I for downing something you describe as vomit.
I have been known to vomit when attempting to drink a smoothy of any sort no matter how it tastes

You are stronger than I for downing something you describe as vomit.
I have been known to vomit when attempting to drink a smoothy of any sort no matter how it tastes

It's like drinking hard liquor. Yeah it tastes awful, but soon you'll be hit with the pleasant side-effect you drank it for. Instead of drunkeness, it's healthy energy. I tend to start doing handstands and bounce all over the place after drinking my green smoothies. Long as I can get past that agonizing drinking phase! :wall: Hopefully I'll learn how to bypass that with some of the ideas presented earlier.

Heh but try my original recipe. Instant vomit, great for Halloween probably. Just swallow some, and as the kids ask for candy spew it all over the place. Bonus points for getting it to come out of your nose.

Green smoothies are some of the BEST tasting ever. You were just trying out the wrong foods in it.

Hopefully it'll work out for you now that you've seen some sample recipes.

And technically, greens aren't vegetables. That's one reason they go great with veggies and with fruits.

And technically, greens aren't vegetables. That's one reason they go great with veggies and with fruits.
I'd love to hear more about your beliefs in this area.

It's a new thing for me, actually. Victoria Boutenko had a chapter in her 'green for life' book talking about it and all the research she's done. Chapter 6 Greens: A New Food Group. She provides a chart at the end of the chapter, too.

Right, I've met her and read her work. This still doesn't tell me about *your* beliefs (unless yours are hers exclusively).

I've tried to do green smoothies and they just don't work for me. I get kale and collards down via salads with strong dressing of my own device, including copious quantities of garlic.

Hmm, I've never attempted a green smoothie on my own, but I know that Odwalla Superfood is wonderfully tasty and if I were blindfolded, would never be able to discern it's hue.

There's also this carrot-apple-lemon-ginger juice I buy fresh sometimes. I had a sample of it once at the store without knowing what it was and I thought, "Are you for real? There's a carrot in this?". It just tasted sweet and fresh and lovely to me. Not like a carrot. Ha.

I think the trick with juicing carrots is to get the right variety.

The Odwalla to me still tastes like pond scum :-/

I often add kale to smoothies! The trick is to add fruit as well. I don't think that there's any way that I could choke down your concoction! Yuck!

I make a huge blended drink every morning and drink it throughout the day. Today's had:

- 1 whole peeled orange
- 1 kiwi
- 3 strawberries
- 1/2 banana
- 1/2 cup of blueberries
- 3 cups of spinach
- 2 cups of kale
- 2 cups of cold water

It's so very yummy! Although I must say that the greens and the blueberries mix to make a rather odd colour!

Hi, this is my first post and I've only been into raw, vegan for about 2 months.
I'm trying to learn as much as I can, because nutrition is totally confusing. Fit For Life explains that mixing anything with fruit is a no-no, because the enzymes will neutralize each other and the food will sit in your stomach, putrifying or fermenting instead of being digested properly. If this is true, how do make a green smoothie that is palatable? I hope there is an answer to this question.

Conflicting and unsubtantiated claims are par for the course, I'm afraid.

Fit For Life explains that mixing anything with fruit is a no-no, because the enzymes will neutralize each other and the food will sit in your stomach, putrifying or fermenting instead of being digested properly. If this is true, how do make a green smoothie that is palatable? I hope there is an answer to this question.

I don't know about the truth behind that claim, but if it bothers you I've found some ideas around making them more palatable. Using mildly hot water will give it more of a soup flavor instead of a cold smoothie. That's my personal favorite method. Eating lots of sweet pineapple beforehand will mess with your taste buds for quite a while. Chewing a bunch of raw whole cloves will numb your mouth. You won't taste it, but it's not as enjoyable or cheap as the warm water method.

There's no need to eat something beforehand to numb your mouth or screw with your tastebuds. Green smoothies are supposed to taste good. You can mix fruit with leafy greens and the fruit will over power the taste of the greens, so you don't taste them.

I've never heard of someone drinking warm smoothies before (on purpose). They are supposed to be cold.

Sorry Jenna! Well, now you know someone who purposely makes warm smoothies. :) Sadly, I can't afford to buy more fruit to make my smoothie tastier. I tried it once and it worked out nice. Someday I'll upgrade whenever I get myself out of college. I was only giving the person advice because he was concerned about the fruit and veggies causing issues for digestion. I really don't recommend chewing cloves before doing anything besides visiting the dentist!

My mom likes to chew cloves every now and then for some reason. Hm.

What fruits are you using and how much do you use? Mine use to make a lot, filled up the whole blender, which is 48ounces. But I got it to where it made about half. I usually put 1 orange, 2 bananas and a couple of big strawberries in. Add some water (1/4 cup or so) and whirl that around. And lately, I've been adding 5 cups or more of leafy greens and 1-2 cups of alfalfa sprouts. Whirl that around. Then add a little bit of agave and some ice to make it cold. "blend" for a while and then "liquify". Sometimes I add a peeled cucumber. It helps it not be so thick and cucumber is really good for your skin.

I've experimented with some of the greens - like kale or endive. bleh. it's too bitter for me. I know those greens are really good for you, but I'd only be able to add really small quantities. And wow, broccoli sprouts are horrible tasting in smoothies, to me. yuck.

I had a bad pineapple so I threw in about half of it with some cantaloupe for the fruit part. Then I added my kale, broccoli, carrots, flax seeds and zucchini. Still wasn't the best, but it wasn't as bad. Yeah it made a lot like yours did. I couldn't finish it all in one sitting. I'll try to find some of this "agave" I hear about all the time. I keep forgetting to look for it when I hit the store! Long as it's cheaper than raw honey, I'll be sold. Good idea on the cucumber. That might freshen the drink up.

Honestly, besides the money issue, I use all my fruit as snacks. I only use my blender to make bad tasting things go down easier. It's much more fun to bite into a strawberry than to drink it down. Especially when the 2 pound box cost me about 7 bucks!

Kale is really bitter, I agree. :( It's so good for you though! I don't know how our ancestors ate their dark leafy greens without any food preparation. Nasty stuff. Maybe I should try gnawing on bones for calcium, but that doesn't sound appetitizing either.