"Dr. Greger in the Kitchen: My New Favorite Beverage"
This is Dr. Greger in the kitchen,
where I take the science, and put it into practice.
Today I’m going to share with you my new favorite beverage,
a vegetable smoothie—
I know it sounds kind of gross, but bear with me.
The idea for this came out of my research
into nitrate-rich vegetables, like beetroot and spinach,
shown to improve both oxygen delivery to our tissues
by opening up our blood vessels and,
amazingly, oxygen efficiency,
boosting the amount of power we can extract from each breath,
that leads to all sorts of athletic performance enhancing benefits,
but most importantly improves lung function in emphysema,
brings down high blood pressure,
improves peripheral artery disease,
boosts cognitive function,
and may even enhance longevity
by slowing our basal metabolic rate,
but something like beet juice is perishable, hard-to-find.
I was thinking maybe something like V8 would work,
which lists both beet and spinach in their ingredient list,
but evidently so little that you’d have to drink 19 quarts a day
to get the daily nitrate target dose that I recommend,
so I figured, I’ll just make my own.
In my new cookbook it’s called
"My V-12 Vegetable Blast",
which is more involved.
It starts completely from scratch from fresh tomatoes,
and I tweaked it to fit more of a beginner’s palate.
I want to show this version that I’ve actually been using
whenever happen to be in my favorite exotic locale--home,
and not stuck in some airport food court somewhere.
It starts with 5 reusable bags,
and a stalk of celery goes into each.
All of these vegetables are pre-washed.
Then 1 carrot in each bag;
no need to peel them.
You can just use the back of a knife
and just scrape off some of the outermost bitter layer.
Then a half of a red, orange, or yellow bell pepper in each.
What do you do with the half you have left over?
Dip it in some hummus, of course.
Mmm...
Next, one scallion in each with the frilly little tips cut off.
Then one fifth of a small beet in each
(any more it taste really beety),
and then a fifth of a raw jalapeño pepper,
which is totally optional
but, you know I love things spicey.
A quarter inch of fresh turmeric root in each.
If you can't find it fresh locally,
get it on eBay, serious.
It kinda looks like a little turd, but then...
you snap it open and the color inside is just gorgeous.
Then saving the best for last,
the healthiest food on the planet?
Greens.
Now as you probably guessed what I’m doing
is pre-prepping 5 days of smoothies here
to make it as convenient as possible
to eat as healthfully as possible,
and so even though something like arugula
has even more nitrates—
in fact I think the most nitrate packed food there is—
and I think is even tastier,
there’s no way it would last 5 days.
It starts to turn yellow and get slimy,
so what I’ve been using is really hardy greens,
like kale and curly parsley.
Plus, kale has something spinach doesn't have, it's...
cruciferocious.
So I’m going to put a cup of each one in each bag.
Then all the bags go into the fridge and wait their turn,
then when you’re ready to rock and roll,
here’s what you do:
In a high speed blender pour one cup
of a no-salt-added vegetable juice blend,
or no-salt-added tomato juice.
Then 1 cup of ice cubes,
an eighth teaspoon of freshly ground pepper,
then a half teaspoon of horseradish—
I'm actually using prepared horseradish here,
but you could probably grate it yourself.
I actually get horseradish root
I've never actually tried it fresh,
or you could even chop up little pieces
and put them in all the bags.
If anyone tries that, let me know how it comes out.
And then finally the juice from half of a lemon.
For a bonus, you can actually zest that lemon.
Then cut and juice that half,
and save the other half for tomorrow.
And that’s what you have to do day-to-day,
so just a couple minutes.
And this last step is to just
throw in one of your bags of veggies.
Now, to save even more time what you can actually do
is pre-prepare all those wet ingredients
where this is about 4 cups,
so you could juice 2 lemons into here,
2 tsps of horseradish, add enough of the black pepper,
so then there's really only three things,
three steps everyday.
A cup of the juice mixture,
a cup of ice
and then one of the bags of veggies,
and then you're all set for the day.
OK, the final step is to just blend, for 10 burpees.
It fits into about one perfect mason jar.
Yup, look at that.
Then you pop in a reusable straw and…
Cold, refreshing, zesty...wooo zesty...
And think what’s in this thing.
It’s just all vegetables; it's like a mountain of nutrition.
It’s hard to imagine a healthier beverage.
Ideally, drink it while munching on some
walnuts, pumpkin seeds,
or a little avocado in there or something;
some form of fat
to help you maximize absorption of all those
fat soluble carotenoid nutrients in there.
If you want more recipes like this,
incorporating some of the healthiest foods on the planet,
check out my new cookbook,
the "How Not to Die Cookbook", now available for pre-order.
It will be out this December,
right in time for the holidays.
I would say it's a good stocking stuffer,
but it's actually kind of big,
so your friends and family have to have really big feet,
but it makes a great new year- new you type present.
As well as all the proceeds I receive from
all my books, DVDs, speaking engagements
all goes to charity.
I just want you, to be healthier