Early Retirement Extreme Forums

When experts poll those who live long lives they often get two different pieces of dietary advice:
1. Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

2. Eat the same thing every day.
Contradiction. This is my attempt to do both. I've been surprised at how many people here eat/drink green smoothies daily. I suspect this is not a coincidence.
Every two weeks I fill 14 32-ounce yogurt containers with the following ingredients ground to baby-food consistency in an old stainless steel vita-mix blender. I freeze most of the cups but keep a few in the fridge. The whole process takes about two hours.
I eat half a cup in the morning and half after lunch by combining it with frozen blueberries, oatmeal, ground flax seeds, Nancy's Soy Yogurt, sunflower and pumpkin seeds.
Pea Sprouts

Brussels Sprouts

Italian Parsley

American Parsley

Ginger

Fresh Turmeric

Kale

Collard Greens

Watercress

Bok Choy

Spinach (lots)

Turnip Greens

Mustard Greens

Broccoli

Swiss Chard

Dandelion

Beets with Stalk

Lemon

Lime

Grapefruit

Pomegranate (seasonal)

Purple Cabbage

Carrots
Maitake Mushrooms (Cooked to remove toxins)

King Oyster Mushrooms (Cooked to remove toxins)

Brown Beech Mushrooms (Cooked to remove toxins)

Enoki Mushrooms (Cooked to remove toxins)

Tomatoes (Cooked to release lycopene)

Cordyceps Mushroom Powder | mushroomharvest.com

14 Mushroom Powder | mushroomharvest.com
Broccoli Sprouts | Homegrown
Raw Brazil Nuts

Raw Walnuts

Raw Almonds
I would be interested to learn what others put in their smoothie and why. I've been focusing on a variety of mushrooms and mushroom powders lately for their anti-cancer properties as cancer runs in my family.

Here are three smoothies I've made:
http://www.robevolves.com/blog/?p=391
I enjoy going to the store and finding new ingredients to try in a smoothie.
I eat/drink at least one 1.5l smoothie each day (unless working late) and enjoy the taste and how healthy it feels.

I make a smoothie every afternoon and drink half (2 cups) then and the other half first thing the next morning. I keep it simple with:
- big handfuls of one type of green: chard, spinach, kale, dandelion, etc.

- one banana

- one piece of fruit such as apple, kiwi, pear, orange etc.

- one cup of berries (this time of year rotating between frozen strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries in big bags from Costco)

- 1/2 tsp dried turmeric

- about one cup of water (I just have a regular blender)

- sometimes half an avocado
As to why, I rotate the greens so that the alkaloids from one type don't build up in my body, and I keep the ingredients to a minimum so it easier to digest. I also don't add any of the starchy vegetables for the same reason.
Ego, I'm impressed you can prepare all those ingredients in two hours!

Ego, how do you blend pomegranate? Toss just the arils in there, or do you put the pulp in as well?

m741, great website. I clicked over last night and lost myself in your musings.
Julius, that's the first I've heard about alkaloid buildup. Interesting. I'm going to have to do some thinking about that.
I forgot to mention that I add a tablespoon of pepper along with the turmeric as it boosts the absorption rate of the turmeric by 2000%.
The lemon and limes are added to inhibit oxidation.
When I was in high school I worked in the kitchen of our neighborhood Italian restaurant / pizza place for a few years. The experience left me incapable of moving slowly in a kitchen. I am the cook in our family-of-two and my wife cannot stand being in the kitchen with me when I cook.

m741, I wash it off, chop it up into smaller bits and grind up with everything else.
http://www.quora.com/Food/Is-it-bad-to- ... omegranate

every day i drink 1-2 green smoothies.
Most of the blender is filled with spinach or kale.

1 bananna

chopped walnuts

almond milk

frozen blueberries or rasberries
sometimes I add carrots.
Anyone see anything wrong with these ingredients on a daily basis?

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Smoothie-Re ... 556438125/ also mentions the alkaloid issue.
I like the recipes (3/5 of the book). They're better than random mixing.

Studying food synergies is complex. We're just now learning of the positive effects of eating turmeric with pepper or adding a dash of white tea to your green tea to boost the anti-cancer properties exponentially (at 12:00min on the video).
I think we'll see many more of these in the future.
Reserved the book at my library. Thanks!

Thanks for the reminder on the pepper/turmeric Ego. I've read about it but keep hesitating to to add it which is silly, I know. This afternoon I will add the pepper! (And I know I won't be able to taste it at all...)

I have a Nutribullet and love it! I do try to have more green smoothies but my favorite one is:

1-2 handfuls spinach

1 banana

1 orange

pineapple

almonds (roasted unsalted)

1/2 c wild frozen blueberries

Yum!

That book sounds like it's exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks.

I am envious of you guys, so much planning...mine aren't so well thought out. Usually 1/2 or entire frozen banana ( last month i purchased about 60lbs of about to go bad bananas for .09/lb I COULDNT RESIST, peeled them and froze them)
Handfull of what ever green i have in the fridge, and anything else i wont use, half a cucumber, a pepper, some honey, yougurt, always a scoop of protein powder and sometimes they come out AWFUL but sometimes great.
I should try to make a more controlled smoothie, I love having them first thing when i wake up, get lots of stuff in a fast drink.

Haha 60 lbs of about to go bad bananas? That's amazing. My girlfriend would absolutely kill me if I did that, but I don't think I'd be able to resist either.
I have to say, I love throwing in a block of ginger. It really dominates the flavor if you're doing a very green smoothie.

60lbs of about to go bad bananas is an epic win!

Yes, agreed on the 60 lbs bananas! Frozen bananas are wonderful to throw in a smoothie. I freeze mine with the peels on - never thought about peeling them first. What did you put them in? (When I freeze them with the peel I literally just toss them right in the freezer).

Haha, my wife was very upset, but they were on the "old vegetable" cart at supermarket and all brown and there were so many packages I couldn't resist I bought them all, I peeled them first because I find it annoying to peel them once they are frozen solid. I just peeled them cut them in half and put them in gallon zip lock bags....a lot of them! But I smile when I open my freezer to find nothing but bananas.
In the summer when the garden is going a lot of spin inch ends up in there as well. I tried garlic once. Not a good idea. I should try ginger! Never thought about it but love it.
I've also thrown a vitamin in there to be pulverized, can't hurt.

It appears tumeric should be cooked (with pepper) for maximum effect.
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/spicing ... rotection/

Regarding rotating greens, I found this site:
http://simplegreensmoothies.com/rotate-your-greens

Grocery Outlet has had lots of frozen berries really cheap this winter. Also, I made a new friend who has several pomegranate trees in his backyard. He's been keeping me supplied with beautiful, giant, organic pomegranates. Sadly, the season is coming to an end. I've been using these red fruits to make red smoothies for 3-4 days each month (berries, beets, carrots, cooked mushrooms) as a rest from greens.

Dang, Ego. That's quite a list of ingredients for a smoothie. You must have a gigantic blender. Do you need to mix something in it to make it a more liquidy/manageable consistency? I drink a blender concoction for breakfast every morning that has 4 raw eggs, banana, oats, homemade yogurt, and kale. I guess I need to start rotating my greens, though. I might try adding a few more items from your list and see how it goes.

Hah! I just have one of these old Vita-Mix blenders.



I chop it all into smaller pieces, wash it in our double sink and mix it together. Generally it fills both sinks to the top. I also cook the mushrooms and mix in frozen berries to cool it down before blending it together so that each blender-full has a little bit of everything.