Wanna fight cancer, inflammation, ageing, AND the top 2 risk factors for death Worldwide,
whilst boosting your brain power and athletic performance?
Well stay tuned!
I get asked all the time about simple ways to get started with transitioning to a healthier
diet.
And in my opinion, the simplest way of all is also the most powerful.
Green smoothies.
Whatever the rest of your diet is like, if you're a vegan, on the DASH diet, Mediterranean
diet, Paleo diet, Macrobiotic diet, the standard Western diet or almost any other diet you
might be on - in my opinion adding a daily green smoothie is the single best dietary
change you can make...and it's so simple!
I'll be doing loads more videos on practical, easy healthy changes to diet like this, so
if you're after more stuff like that, consider subscribing if you haven't already!
You might also want to watch this video to the end as well, since I'll be addressing
some concerns about smoothies that have even led one nutrition authority to go as far as
recommending restricting smoothie intake.
I've modified my recipe over the years and I think I've come up with a pretty good balance
of nutritional content, taste and satiation.
You want to start off by filling the cup about three quarters full with arguably the healthiest
food of them all - dark green leafy vegetables.
All greens have certain nutrients in common, but they also each offer individual benefits
and drawbacks, so you want to vary it up here.
I tend to just get whatever's in season or whatever happens to be a good price at
the time!
As a rule you want to include a cruciferous vegetable - kale and broccoli are a good place
to start and are what I tend to use myself.
I even throw cabbage leaves in there sometimes!
Then the rest can be any greens you want, cruciferous or not - in this case I'm just
going to fill the rest up with spinach until the cup's about three quarters full.
Pro tip #1!
If you're just getting started with greens or don't have a very big smoothie cup, you
can use some sprouts.
Some of the nutrients can be concentrated many times more in sprouts compared with the
mature greens!
Whilst malnutrition is normally associated with developing countries, one of the consequences
of the over-feeding epidemic we have in the developed World is that we end up missing out
on many nutrients that are only found in nutrient-dense whole plant foods like greens.
This has resulted in a different kind of under-nutrition in the Western hemisphere - micronutrient
deficiencies.
We are essentially over-fed but under-nourished.
In general, greens provide us with an abundance of most of the nutrients that most people
are sorely lacking or deficient in, including fibre, antioxidants, nitrates, a huge range
of phytonutrients including carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin, plant hormetic compounds
such as the now famous sulphoraphane, in addition to vitamin A, C and K, folate, potassium,
calcium, iron, zinc and magnesium, whilst all the time boosting our immunity, reducing
inflammation, improving our cognitive ability and providing us with an alkalising load and
hence helping to preserve muscle mass.
And all of this is just the stuff that's been discovered - there are likely many more nutrients
and benefits that have not been discovered yet, and yet many more that we may never fully
elucidate!
All of these benefits combined make greens our best friend for fighting inflammation
and cancer, and indeed disease in general.
So that's a Hell of a lot of nutrition in that cup already, and it smashes the recommended intake of greens,
which around 96% of people are not hitting.
And I have to say, my own dark green leafy intake would be much lower if it weren't for
green smoothies!
But this concoction would obviously be...quite hard to drink as it is.
Luckily we can transform it into a delicious smoothie, whilst at the same time making it
even more health-promoting!
One of the key ingredients for a great smoothie is a nice, ripe banana - the riper, the better!
Since our cup is already mostly filled with greens, we need the bulk of the rest of what
we put in to add a lot of sweetness per unit volume.
But there's something that fits this description even better than ripe bananas, and here's
my second pro tip - 5 or 6 dried dates adds a huge amount of sweetness for only a small
amount of volume, and will absolutely transform your smoothie into something you look forward
to every day!
And it has the added benefit of being one of the best sources of potassium, which around
97% of us do not get enough of.
I've discussed before how the sugar in whole fruit doesn't have the same deleterious effect
on our physiology as or the disease-causing effect of refined sugar, and this is why whole
fruits don't count towards your daily sugar allowance.
We are using the whole fruits here since we're not removing any fibre or phytonutrients like
we would be with juicing, but since we are breaking up the structure of the fruit there
is the possibility of more rapid absorption of sugar and hence blood glucose fluctuations,
especially if you drink the smoothie quickly.
For this and for lots of other reasons, I add yet another hugely health-promoting food:
Berries!
All fruits have in-built mechanisms that slow down the rate of absorption of sugar, but
berries have the most-impressive and well-described blood sugar spike-blunting effect of all.
They even have specific phytonutrients that inhibit breakdown of sugar and the actual
glucose transporter in the intestine!
And outside of that, berries are another excellent source of antioxidants and provide us with
a huge range of benefits such as protection from cancer, better immunity and improved
brain function.
Use whichever berries you like and mix it up, they're all good!
I'm just gonna add some frozen strawberries here - about a handful is plenty.
There's just such a tremendous amount of nutrition in that cup now!
But remember, it's not what you eat that counts, but what what you absorb!
Some of the nutrients in this smoothie require a small amount of fat for optimal absorption.
So like with all the other ingredients, I'm going to add the fat in the form of yet another
tremendously health-promoting food: A tablespoon of ground flax seeds!
Flax seeds have the healthiest fat composition of perhaps any food, along with a dizzying
array of additional health benefits, like lowering cholesterol and blood pressure and
fighting cancer through yet another separate mechanism due to their exceptionally high
lignan content.
They will also give your smoothie an irresistible milkshake-like consistency!
Pro tip #3!
Buy whole flax seeds and grind a small amount at a time with the milling blade of your smoothie
maker, then store them in the fridge in one of the small smoothie cups.
This is less expensive than buying pre-ground flax seeds and you only need to grind a small
amount at a time.
Flax seeds can be stored for a long time intact, but when ground begin to oxidise, so it's
best to buy the whole seeds and only grind a week or two's worth at a time.
But you should grind them one way or another before consumption to get the best out of
them.
I'd advise adding water before the flax seeds as well, it just helps to stop them sticking
to the cup.
Before I blend this, I'm going to give you my last pro tip.
I usually have a handful of walnuts, a glass of beet juice and a cup of tea or coffee along
with a green smoothie in the morning.
All three offer additional brain-boosting benefits as I've discussed before, on top
of the nootropic effect of the greens and berries in the smoothie.
The walnuts provide more antioxidants and healthy fats and help further with satiety,
in addition to another vitamin which most of us don't get enough of - vitamin E. Both
tea and coffee are extremely well-studied at this stage and offer multiple additional
health benefits.
I don't usually recommend juices, but beet juice is a very handy way of further boosting
your nitrate intake and it's also best to consume it with vitamin C, E and phenolic
compounds which a green smoothie and nuts provide an abundance of.
In fact, the healthy fats found in nuts may even react with nitrate products to form even
more anti-inflammatory compounds.
I can't imagine a healthier breakfast than this!
To wrap things up, I'd like to return to my opening statement.
The number one cause of death Worldwide is diet and other nutrition-related risk factors
dominate our leading causes of death.
With regards to direct dietary risks, this green smoothie will help out with your fruit,
seeds, veggies, omega-3, polyunsaturated fatty acid and calcium intake.
The number two cause of death Worldwide is high blood pressure, which is also nutrition-related.
Flax seeds have been shown to induce a blood pressure-lowering effect comparable to antihypertensive
medication, and the high-nitrate, high-antioxidant content of the smoothie will also help lower
blood pressure whilst also counteracting some of it's damaging effects.
This smoothie will even help with some of the other leading risk factors for death like
high fasting plasma glucose, high BMI, high LDL and impaired kidney function - but remember
we have to drop processed foods and animal products to really control these risk factors.
Lastly, I would like to address some recent concerns about smoothies that have led one
nutrition authority to even go as far as advising restricting smoothie intake.
From what I can gather this is for two reasons: Dental health and sugar content.
The first is absolutely a legitimate concern and letting sugar from any source sit on your
teeth for long periods of time is going to cause erosion.
So the answer to this for me is simple - not to stop drinking smoothies, but just don't
let the sugar sit on your teeth for long periods of time!
Make sure to rinse well with water after a smoothie, and brush your teeth around an hour
after consumption.
The other concern is that the sugar in smoothies may act more like free sugar than whole fruit,
and thus increase our risk of disease.
To prevent this make sure you always include berries in your smoothie and sip it slowly.
In fact, in some cases blending fruit may even lower the glycaemic index compared with
the intact fruit, and even comercially-available smoothies with added fruit juice can have
low glycaemic indices, although perhaps not low enough to prevent a sugar crash.
Overall, I do not believe you should limit smoothie consumption so strictly, especially
if you are making it yourself and including berries and greens, not including fruit juice,
sipping it slowly and rinsing your mouth out with water after.
Green smoothies provide too many positives to warrant elimination for these very small
negatives!
The 150 mL limit is perhaps sensible for some commercially-available smoothies, but not
if you make your own healthy version at home like this.
In summary, greens, a banana, dates, berries and flax seeds all blended up alongside a
serving of nuts, beet juice and tea or coffee for breakfast is probably the best dietary
change you can make!
And remember, variety is the spice of life - I encourage you to experiment with this
and find your own recipes you like, because the best green smoothie of all is the one
you will drink the most of!
If you've experimented with making smoothies before, what's your experience?
Have I missed something that you think could make them even more delicious or nutritious?
Or was there something I didn't make clear in the video?
I'd love to hear your ideas!
If you have any questions or comments like this or about anything, leave them in the
comment section below and I'll get back to you.
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you don't miss the next one!
Sláinte!