Robyn's Blog

Do you make hardcore smoothies?

I’m talking about making them for health benefits rather than taste.  You really can’t do this if one of the GS drinkers from your blender will be a new convert or a child.  Or if you’re squeamish about textures and tastes.

I love Xtreme people.  People who do things all-out because they’re passionate and disciplined.  Of course, I love squishier people too (good thing, since I have three kids who beg for more fruit–and some raw chocolate and agave–in their smoothies).

We have altogether too much sugar in our diets here in the Western world.  I’m always looking for ways to reduce it.  So when I don’t have my kids because they’re at their dad’s . . . okay okay, sometimes I make green smoothies for them anyway and go sit in his driveway with the pint jars and call the kids to come outside and get them–I know, I’m CRAZY! . . . anyway, those weekends, I sometimes make Xtreme smoothies.

Lately I have been making GS for Craig.  But since he’s a lobster being boiled to death slowly (make the GS taste really good, then put more and more greens in over time until it’s hardcore) . . . I make my own blenderful, pour out two quarts for me, and then add more fruit to Craig’s.  So far, so good.  He is drinking them and still praising them rather than complaining.

Remember, while fruit is good for you, the REAL POINT of the GS is the greens.  The more funky and unusual greens, the better.  Your greens are savory or bitter?  Right on!

Tell me what’s in your Xtreme Smoothie.  Cool greens and other superfoods.  Only you hardcore green smoothie girls or guys, the ones who have been on this path for a while, the ones who’ll do anything if it’s good for you . . . I love you guys.

What’s your recipe?

Thank you for all the emails, and I’m so sorry I haven’t had time to respond to them all.  I have returned rather somberly from my cousin’s funeral in Northern VA, where I grew up.  She got the stomach flu and we don’t know why she died.  We are all devastated by the loss of this young mother of three young sons (plus another one who died), and watching them sobbing right before her casket was closed is very possibly the most tragic and devastating thing I have ever seen in my life.  Little boys’ hearts breaking and nothing we could do about it.

Shawnie comes from a wonderful family, and her parents were my “other parents” growing up.  It was a sweet experience to celebrate the life of Shawnie Romney Tull and I am privileged that I knew her.

So I have been more reflective than ever on the power of a young mother, because very frankly that was a more tragic funeral than even the funerals of small children I have attended.  Because a young mother is SO DESPERATELY NEEDED.  Mothers change the world.  They control more than they realize.

It’s a conversation I have with my business partner over and over . . . we discuss the needs of everyone who reads GreenSmoothieGirl.com.  And we try to figure ways that everyone is included, because of course I care very much about the health of everyone–the single people, the teenagers, the elderly–I get emails from all these demographics and more.

But as I try to decide where to spend my time in content development, though, my soft spot is always for the moms.  I very much want to support them.  If you are one, please take care of yourself first.  Remember that on the plane, you can’t put the oxygen mask on your kids until you have your own on.  Remember that you’re not helping anyone by neglecting your own mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health.  Remember that children learn more by example than anything else.

If you have young mothers in your life, not just this Sunday but today, too, give them a hug and tell them that the work they do is important.  That its rewards aren’t always obvious, but they are in fact extraordinary.  Give them some extra love.  A friend said to me yesterday, “Everyone should go to a funeral every six months.  That’s how you remember what’s important, and what kind of person you want to be.”

I totally agree.

My New Year’s Resolution was to GO GREEN. My husband and I (yes, I converted him) both love the green smoothies. They are very satisfying. We no longer crave junk food. We have begun to lose a few pounds. I am turning on my grandchildren and children to them. My husband is Hispanic, diabetic, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. We are seeing improvements.  It has only been a month. We use our BlendTec for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We make smoothies, salad dressings, soups and using your 12 Steps to Whole Foods book each month to be totally green after one year. Thank you for all your research and recipes.

–Pat M.

Green Smoothies became a part of my life at the same time that I started eating 100% raw. So the effects are probably due to raw food (which green smoothies are) in general. I do know that the effects have been real for me, and I refer everyone I possibly can to GreenSmoothieGirl.com so they can reap the benefits, too.

Many people do not want to go all raw, but they can improve by adding green smoothies, and eating more raw foods. I was able to quit taking oral medications for diabetes after making these changes and have been stable without medications for almost a year, now. I am looking forward to even more improvements as I continue on this path. I am so grateful for Robyn and for the contribution she has made to the community in helping people to understand this vital information. I am convinced that health and longevity is based on what we put in and on our bodies, and that we are responsible for our own health and vitality. If we are not willing to do what is necessary, Nature will impose the consequences.

–DJSK

Green smoothies have helped me stay full longer in the morning.  I used to be SO hungry by lunchtime.  My stomach would growl and I would become dizzy.  Now I drink a blender full of smoothie in the morning and I am satisfied until it is time to eat my next meal.

–J. Burns

My day is not complete without a smoothie! If I go without one, I feel bad physically and mentally. My children love them, too, and want them every day so they can have energy and strong muscles.

–Jenny L.

Everyone in the current local (Wasatch Front, Utah) group order, I am waiting on only the nuts/seeds/dried fruit in the order.  I will email the day they arrive for you to pick up (I’m sorry that part of the order has taken longer than I anticipated).  If you ordered and didn’t have any of those items, we have everything else here, so you can pick up.

This just in:

Dear GreenSmoothieGirl,

My children won’t eat any vegetables and have “textures” issues, and won’t eat anything green.  I can’t buy a blender and can’t afford to buy produce.  Also, I don’t want to spend any time in the kitchen, since I hate cooking.  I made a green smoothie once after watching your YouTube video but gagged trying to drink it.  I don’t want to give up my meat-and-potatoes diet or my Dr. Pepper.  Should I buy your recipe collections or 12 Step program?

Answer:

No.

I hope you aren’t worried about the swine flu.  Like you, I’ve been reading all about it.  I am simply not worried.  Not because I don’t understand the risk, but because by following a few simple practices, you minimize your risk, and the rest is in God’s hands anyway, where we would do well to leave the remainder.  “Do your best and forget the rest,” as Tony says in P90X, the extreme workout regimen I started this week.  Or, as an embroidery sampler said that my mother did, hanging on her wall as I was growing up, “God grant me the wisdom to change the things I can and accept the things I cannot.”

All that written, I got the devastating news last night that my beautiful 36-year old cousin I grew up with, who had no known health problems and was a normal weight, has passed away on the way to the hospital of cardiac arrest after contracting the flu.  (Swine flu is not suspected.)  My extended family is reeling and we are praying for her young family that includes three little boys.

I don’t think the answers lie in extreme precautions, running out and buying gas masks and paraphernalia.  Experts I have read say that the little germ masks won’t do us a bit of good against the swine flu.  Washing your hands well, not touching doorknobs and other things in public, and staying out of crowds is common sense wisdom.

Adding to your food storage some power foods and natural remedies against illness is wise.  I’m talking about a good greens product like VitaMineral Green that I have in my store and stock in my own pantry, Vitamin C, colloidal silver, oregano, garlic, sproutable seeds/nuts/grains, spirulina, cacao, goji berries, cayenne, aloe vera, and ginger.

Drink lots of water (half your weight in ounces), jump on a rebounder, get enough sleep, and get out in the sun at least 15 minutes daily for your Vitamin D—these four things are paramount to keep your immune system supported and lymph fluids moving and draining.  Minimize stress and maximize love in your life.  Don’t exhaust your adrenal glands with eating sugar, and nourish all the organs of your body with whole plant foods, mostly raw.

Thinking that because we’re healthy and have nourished our immune system should give us lots more confidence, but of course it was the healthy/young in the population who died en masse in the flu epidemic of 1918.  (Usually those with strong immune systems do well, and I see no evidence to the contrary so far with the swine flu.)  So observing the simple precautionary behaviors mentioned above would be wise as well.

Indulging in fear and panic is not wise, and it’s paralytic and unhelpful anyway.  Vaccine programs have been ineffective according to the CDC’s own statistics (as well as other countries’ research).  The flu vaccines compromise the immune system, multiply Alzheimer’s diagnoses by 10 times, and cause brain inflammation for years according to Dr. Russell Blaylock.  Vaccines may be linked to autism and SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)—they more definitively cause Guillain-Barre Syndrome, an auto-immune disease causing paralysis and sometimes death.  They contain toxins like aluminum, formaldehyde, and mercury, and foreign animal proteins like monkey kidneys that can cause problems.

My prediction is that this is not going to be a massive pandemic; it will go away soon, though we may have a Round 2 in the fall.  Most who get the swine flu will find that it’s no worse than the usual influenzas that some people contract in the winter.

If I’m right, that will give you some time to focus on preparedness, including a three-month supply of food so you could stay home if you needed to.  LDS (Mormon) people are instructed to do that anyway, though only 15 percent of LDS people have an actual one-year supply of food.

p.s. I am developing two telecourses on high-nutrition food storage, and natural illness prevention and treatment, with some great experts participating.  Stand by for those to be announced via newsletter and blog.

No, this isn’t that episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza tried to combine food and sex in a feverish fantasy . . . and if you can’t handle some frank talk about an important part of your life, WARNING: hurry and delete this email.

Did you know that what you eat has EVERYTHING to do with your sex life?  For you women who are having a hard time convincing your husband to get on board with your conversion to whole foods, this essay might be just the ticket.  I used to be a marriage therapist, and my educational background emphasized human sexuality.  If I went back to practicing now, I’d prescribe, as a starting place . . . green smoothies!  Who’d have thought that owning a BlendTec Total Blender http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/robyn-recommendations/blenders/best-blender/ could have anything to do with your sex life?  Oh, but it does.

Food affects your sex drive profoundly. And I can prove it. 175 respondents participated in my green smoothie research, where I polled people who undertook a green smoothie habit for at least 30 days. If you want to participate in the research, or write your green smoothie testimonial, please go here:

http://greensmoothiegirl.com/poll.html

So far, 20 percent of my respondents have reported an increased sex drive as a result of drinking blended greens.  And keep in mind that not all respondents are sexually active, and some already had a very high libido so they ignored that question.  Therefore, 20 percent is likely a lower number than what you can expect, those of you considering joining us in the Gospel of Green.

Guys, your wife isn’t as into it as you are?  There’s no drug better than a quart of green smoothie a day (and kicking Hostess to the curb).  Give it a try.  You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  If you want even more sexual energy, toss some maca or bee pollen in the blender.

In my experience working with people on their nutrition, I have found that being even 10 or 15 lbs. overweight can dramatically affect your sexuality in a negative way.  So, green smoothies are an aphrodisiac. And donuts and Doritos are very literally the opposite: a sex-life stomper.

How?

First of all, you don’t like how you look 10 lbs. overweight.  If you don’t like what you see in the mirror with your clothes off, you aren’t likely to be sexually willing, confident, playful, adventurous, and energetic. And what is the best way to lose ten pounds?  Dieting? No way!

Just start eating the right foods like you learn to do in 12 Steps to Whole Foods http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/12-step-blog/12-step-program/ No calorie counting or carb-gram-obsessing necessary.  Eat whole plant foods (and stop eating processed foods) and you’ll naturally be satisfied with whatever you eat in reasonable quantities.

That’s because you don’t have endocrine disruptors, hormone inhibitors, and addictive chemicals in the form of refined sugar, MSG, food dyes, refined salt, and much more destroying your sex drive and your sexual performance.

Second, when your energy is depleted, as it always will be on the Standard American Diet diet, you lose the sexual interest and stamina you once had.  Sexual dysfunction happens the same way all degenerative disease does: it is linked to lifestyle choices.  Your reproductive system, after all, is affected by the same things your cardiac, circulatory, and endocrine systems are—they are are inextricably linked, as they are all part of one complex organism.

When you eat lots of raw plant food, and go easy on (or eliminate) meat, dairy, and processed stuff, your body has its energy reserves available for all the fun and rewarding things in life.

For an experiment, eat at Tucano’s or Rodizio’s (or a Brazilian restaurant where they walk around offering you meat dishes until you can’t eat anymore).  How amorous do you feel that night?  I’ll answer for you: you don’t want anything except SLEEP.  And the sleep you do get is troubled, and you feel sick all night.

Now try eating 100% raw plant food for a day, or longer than that.  Watch what happens to your libido.  And a great sex life leads to a great relationship, from which many good things flow.

I hope you give this a try.  I hope my bravest readers will let us know what your observations are after your experiment on these words.  Blog anonymously if that’s what it takes!

To Your Health,

–Robyn Openshaw

p.s.  HAVE FUN!  (And I mean that in the wildest, most passionate way possible.)  Have you forgotten what that means?  Then start drinking a DOUBLE SHOT of green smoothies!