My Go-To Green Smoothie
his is the smoothie I make most often. It’s all plant food, and so has a seriously low number of kilojoules (calories), yet delivers some serious nutrition. It has B group vitamins for energy, folate for cell protection, vitamin C for immune function and healthy skin, antioxidants galore for anti-aging and it even has almost 2 mg of iron. All-in-all, it’s a fantastic addition to your daily Get Lean, Stay Lean menu plan.
Ingredients
1/2 celery stalk
1/2 Lebanese (short) cucumber
20 g (3/4 oz) baby English spinach leaves
1 thin slice of lemon
6 mint leaves
Small handfuls flat-leaf (Italian) parsley leaves
80 g (2 3/4 oz/ 1/2 cup) fresh or frozen pineapple pieces (see note)
+A few ice cubes
Method
Put all the ingredients into a high-speed blender with 250 ml (9 fl oz/ 1 cup) of water and the ice on top. Blitz for about a minute or until completely smooth.
Note: You might not think of a pineapple automatically when we list superfoods, but there’s more to this tropical fruit than you might realize.
A cup of pineapple chunks provides you with over 60 percent of your RDI for vitamin C. Since we know vitamin C aids in the absorption of plant iron, adding some pineapple to smoothies like I have done here, or to a legume or quinoa salad, will boost your uptake of iron from these foods.
I always chop up my pineapple soon after purchase so they are ready to eat immediately. I keep one tub in the fridge for using fresh over the next few days and pop the rest, ready in ice-cube-sized chunks, into ziplock bags in my freezer. These are ideal for then using in your smoothie and frozen dessert recipes.
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