What is the best sprouts to sprout and put in your smoothies?  I need to figure out what sprout seeds to buy and start sprouting with….

My newsletter went out this morning about our affiliate program (see below), and I just went in and approved tons of new affiliates. It’s fun to read about their varying backgrounds, web sites and marketing strategies! People who have signed up so far today are a doula, a chef, a natural beef rancher, fitness instructors, a green smoothie blogger, VitaMix and BlendTec demo reps, a bath/beauty product developer, a holistic doctor, and herb store owner. Others own web sites dedicated to high school soccer, green living, raw food, cooking, dog training, homeschooling, vegetarians.

You are all so welcome on my site and I am honored that you would promote my information products to the world. I hope to help you in the one thing we all have in common: a desire to help others be healthy.

Here’s the newsletter that went out this morning:

We have been working on this so long, with hundreds of folks waitlisted . . . thank you for being patient . . . drum roll please . . .

Please join the GreenSmoothieGirl.com affiliate program!

What’s an affiliate program? I’m so glad you asked!

Many popular web sites have one. If you are an affiliate, you get your own unique URL. You send people through that link to join 12 Steps to Whole Foods, or get recipe collections, or anything else on the site. And you get a commission of 20% of all purchases on information products, payable monthly via PayPal.

Any time someone you’ve referred, through your link, comes BACK to the site and makes a purchase, they are “cookied” and therefore track to you forever, and you continue to be paid 20%–or 30% if you reach $1,000 in any month.

It’s a beautiful thing if you have a blog or web site, or if you teach classes, or if you run a co-op, or if you do BlendTec or VitaMix Costco demos. Or if you’re just a big green smoothie fan and want to share the love. We regularly get mail saying “I send everyone to your site.” You can now be compensated for that as well as help people implement good nutrition in their lives.

If you sign up as an affiliate, you can click through to a link to get your own customized business cards with your unique GSG URL on it.

Here’s the link to sign up.

After you sign up, you can grab some banner ads to put on your web site or blog. Just talk about whatever your favorite products are and put the banner ad out there for people to click on. It’s really simple! Our affiliate program has a robust back end where you can log in and see your sales as the month progresses.

Then, if someone you know buys 12 Steps to Whole Foods: The Complete Course, you get paid $30. This can be truly residual income, since you don’t have to touch the product or even the customer to make sales.

If you are a doctor or health food store owner, by purchasing physical product to stock in your practice or store shelves (minimum $449), you get a 30% discount, a reseller option within the affiliate program. (That’s 3 full-course kits, or 6 course manuals.) My information products teach people how and why to use the products sold in health food stores. Just indicate in the affiliate signup process, in the marketing plan section, that you want to be considered as a reseller, and you’ll be sent a coupon code for 30% off purchases that meet that minimum.

We need more people out there helping others learn to eat whole foods. (We as a culture have forgotten how!) Everything I’m doing on this site is to that end. I hope the affiliate program incentivizes you to spend a little of your time doing so. MANY of you who read this site are incredible in the way you teach and inspire others to eat a high-raw, whole-foods lifestyle! GO YOU!!

To Your Health,

Robyn Openshaw

Here’s my everyday green smoothie “template” recipe.  It allows you to use virtually any green, and any fruit, maximizing the greens.  Enjoy!

Robyn’s Green Smoothie Template Recipe

Makes 8 cups of 100% raw smoothie.

Put 2 1/2 cups filtered water in the BlendTec Total Blender.

Optionally, add:

½ tsp. stevia (herbal sweetener) or ¼ cup raw, organic agave nectar (low glycemic index)

¼ whole lemon, including peel (anti-skin cancer, high in flavanoids)

2-3 Tbsp. fresh, refrigerated flax oil (omega-3 rich oil)

Gradually add greens until, briefly pureed, the mixture comes up the 5-cup line (or less if you are “converting”):

¾ to 1 lb. raw, washed greens, added up to 5 ½ cup line:

spinach, chard, kale, collards

Puree greens mixture for 90 seconds until very smooth.

Gradually add fruit until the container is very full, blend 90 seconds or until smooth:

1-2 bananas

1-2 cups frozen mixed berries

any other fruit to taste: pears, peaches, apples, oranges, apricots, cantaloupe, mango, pineapple

Make a full blender and you’ll have some to drink, and some to share.  I know from my research that 84 percent of my readers who have adopted a green-smoothie habit are teaching others about it!

That’s your goal for today!

To Your Health,

–Robyn Openshaw

p.s.  Tips:  For beginners and those trying to convert children, consider using LESS greens and MORE fruit (especially berries and bananas) in the beginning, gradually working up to a 50/50 ratio as described here.  With kids, consider using only spinach the first few days, then sneak in chard, collards, and kale, the other mild but excellent greens gradually.  Add other savory or bitter greens only when your family are “experts” in green smoothies!  Add a bit more water if you feel the smoothie is too thick.

I also have a collection on the site of 230 green smoothie recipes, most of which were contributed as “favorites” by readers! Check it out:

http://secure.ultracart.com/catalog/GSG10/category/recipes/10008.html

If you know my writing, you know I’m always encouraging my readers to share with others what they’re learning that has changed their lives.

One of my most common conversations with whole-foods enthusiasts and 12 Steps to Whole Foods converts is around this issue.  Here’s an email I got:

“Dear GreenSmoothieGirl, I am excited about eating right and enjoying the changes I’m making, but my husband is sabotaging my efforts and doesn’t think eating white flour, sugar, meat, and Diet Coke is really gonna hurt anybody as long as we mix in a salad now and then.”

You aren’t alone.  I have constant email and personal conversations with people about this. Wives, if it makes you feel any better, solving this problem is easier for you than it is for a husband who wants to eat right but whose wife does the cooking.

I used to be a marriage and family therapist.  You know how in marriage a disagreement often isn’t really about what it seems on the surface to be about? It’s natural for any spouse to be resistant to major change. We humans like habit and predictability and safety. Imagine if your spouse came home and said, “Honey, I know I just finished an engineering degree that you worked hard to pay for, but I’ve decided I want to be an artist instead: I’m quite certain that will make me happy.” You might resist, yes?

Your loved one is worried you’re going to become someone else.  That is, not who he has always known, but someone extreme and scary. You’re not, of course.  You’re just progressing toward becoming your best self.

Food issues are BIG issues. They are as emotional and deeply held, often, as religion and politics. Have some compassion for your resistant family member and realize that announcing, “We are now a vegetarian family: I’m quite certain this will make us all healthy” or something like that might be too much, too fast.

For more information to help you convert a loved one, click here:

http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/blog/2008/05/02/the-nutritionally-recalcitrant-spouse-part-two-of-four/

To Your Health,

–Robyn

GreenSmoothieGirl.com

p.s.  If you have a Total Blender, you can make things that aren’t just nutritious, but YUMMY, too, and that could be the most important investment you make in converting your family to come along with you in your journey to being thin, healthy, and gorgeous.

In 2008, after being married for 20 years, I found myself a newly single parent.  I was on my own trying to achieve a high-raw diet for my four athletes in elementary and middle school.

At their dad’s home, my children get a salad with dinner, but also sugar cereal, Top Ramen, junk-food snacks, meat for dinner, and . . . no more green smoothies.

What’s a mom to do?  I know many of you have similar questions, because I get them filling my Inbox.

Some of my kids are asking for good nutrition on their own. My two daughters are vegetarians by choice and ask their dad if they can come to my house when he makes hamburgers. My healthiest child begs for Brussels sprouts and steams them after school for a snack. And all the kids notice they don’t like how they feel, eating junk at his house.  But others of my children will eat junk whenever they get the chance.

These are a few tips if you or a parent you care about is dealing with this or a similar situation.  Because even if divorce isn’t part of your life, your kids may go to the in-laws’ or grandparents’ home and encounter a set of standards different than yours.

–Make sure your kids leave for school (or for their dad’s or grandparents’ house) with excellent nutrition up until that point.

–Let go and know that after all you can do, God takes you the rest of the way.  You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to do the best you can.  My mom always said that she sent her eight children out into the world and said a prayer after us when we walked out the door.  Control the things that you can, that feel right to you, and let go of the rest.  It’s like my yoga teacher says: I’m going to show you ways to push your body outside its comfort zone, but do you what you can and call it good.

That’s not to say, of course, that we dive-bomb into junk food hell.  If you ever needed good nutrition, you need it most in crisis.  You can’t control the emotional devastation of many of the trials that confront you in life.  But one thing you can control, with a bit of effort, is how you treat your body.

Don’t let nutrition and exercise be the first things to go.  Keep up the standards you can reasonably achieve and you’ll feel so much better, traversing the tough times.

To Your Health,

–Robyn Openshaw

p.s.  If the only habit you maintain through your kids living apart from you part of the time is a green smoothie, you’re still nutritionally far ahead of 99 percent of Americans.  Remember that even a pint of green smoothie is 7.5 servings of greens and fruit!

You’re raising kids (or maybe helping with your grandkids)?  You and me both, my friend!  I’m raising four—two boys and two girls. They all have different personalities, interests, and temperaments. Your kids are “picky,” you say? I get that. I’ve got two kids like that.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I have picked up an arsenal of wisdom, not just from my experience, but from sitting at the knee of other parents who are doing a pretty dang good job. My next book I’m writing is about teaching kids to eat right.

I know what it’s like to work and try to fit healthy cooking in around the cracks in my time. And I’m a single mom, too, so honestly, I can relate to your challenges on so many levels.

I did a YouTube video on things that really help if you’re raising small children—see video 6 on this page:

http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/videos/videos-page-1/

A few tips might help you, too:

First, make lists and post them inside your cupboard to consult when you’re making a grocery list or deciding what to have for dinner.  Those lists should include favorite nutritious menu ideas, recipes, and ingredient lists.

And make a list of simple whole foods to have on hand that you observe each of your children enjoying.

Second, don’t be afraid to let them in the kitchen to make their own stuff, with you just providing the ingredients.  And let them experiment—as the family green smoothie chef, for instance.  (You can give them a recipe and ask them to follow it.  Ask them to double it, and they’re exercising the “math brain!”)  Owning a kitchen project gives a child a sense of accomplishment.  She’ll make a bigger mess in the kitchen than you would have, of course, but you’ll be glad you allowed it, when it’s all over.

Third, develop an arsenal of much healthier treats that you make or buy, that your family enjoys.  That’s the worst thing, when we start eating fried and corn-syrup- or sugar-sweetened treats.  Ch. 11 of my 12 Steps to Whole Foods program is all about treats, the kind you don’t have to feel guilty about.  If your relatives (or ex-spouse) are open to it, you can send those treats instead of the ones they serve.

Fourth, praise them for their good choices and give them a lot of positive feedback for their kitchen creations that involve whole foods.  Make sure you point out when they seem to have more energy or a more sunny mood as a result of their good choices.  Keep it POSITIVE, POSITIVE, POSITIVE!

And here are some additional tips from the site:

http://greensmoothiegirl.com/getkidstoeat.html

May your efforts pay off with children who support you and learn to love good, natural food!

To Your Health,

–Robyn

In my first newsletters, I told you a little about the rocky path to health that my family and I traversed.  It’s not very often clear and linear, that path, is it?  You try a lot of dumb stuff, yucky recipes you throw away, before you end up at the truth—and that’s if you’re lucky.  (A lot of people spend an entire lifetime following false prophets and believing false information.  Like the folks who put all their faith in the barbaric practices of oncology, or the crazy dietetics of the Atkins Diet, for instance.)

The good news?  That the failure of all the dumb stuff you tried before (drugs, Atkins Diet, etc.) were useful in one sense: they help you recognize the truth when you see it.

The longer and more twisty that path, the more likely you are to recognize the beauty and efficacy of pure, simple truths.  Like the one GreenSmoothieGirl.com is dedicated to: that eating an unadulterated diet of whole plant foods is a savior in a thousand different ways.

There’s the thing you’re preoccupied with now.  It might be cancer, or psoriasis, or leaky gut syndrome, or Epstein Barr.  An affliction that’s kinda wrecking your life right now, or someone close to you.

But the crazy thing is this.  Not only are your chances of addressing all degenerative disease and energy issues HIGHEST with a diet approach (and everything else I’m teaching on GreenSmoothieGirl.com), but you’re going to have so many unexpected health and wellness benefits, you’ll barely be able to count them at the end of a year.

Once I took RESPONSIBILITY for my own health and my little son’s, I undertook my own private health course. (I found that health and nutrition education in traditional institutions were heavily influenced by industries like meat, dairy, processed foods, and pharmaceuticals.)

Although my program 12 Steps to Whole Foods is a crystallized version of the education I underwent for 15 years, if you’re a reader, you can immerse yourself in the very best books.  I’ll give you a leg up, because I read a lot of dubious stuff.  Here’s a link to the very best, my favorite books by authors you can trust:

http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/book-reviews/

Enjoy!

To Your Health,

–Robyn Openshaw

p.s.  The first thing you should do as you’ve decided to get healthy is invest in the most important tool in my kitchen: the BlendTec Total Blender. It’s so much more than the best tool ever for making mixed drinks at your next party. You’ll be a green smoothie chef in no time at all!

I teach classes to people who are beginners in nutrition, eating the Standard American Diet.  I teach intermediate classes to those who are more savvy, and even advanced classes in sprouting and fermented foods.

Regardless of where you are, nutritionally, I have found that in every group, people experience profound health benefits by incorporating the green smoothie into their daily routine.  Even 100 percent raw foodist vegans are often mineral deficient because they don’t eat enough greens!

People get so excited when they begin the green smoothie habit—even people known as the “health food nut” in their families who have juiced vegetables for years and don’t eat meat.

Why?  Because making your green smoothie is the highest and best use of your kitchen time.  How else can you spend only 10 minutes in the kitchen and get 15 servings of raw greens and fruit in one quart?  Not only is the prep time 10 minutes or less, from start to cleanup, but a blended drink is quick to drink, too.

And it lets you get lovely, raw, nutritious things you may have never eaten before in your diet, like what I had today: kale, collards, Chinese celery, bok choy, and alfalfa sprouts.

Tips and strategies for how to make them a part of your daily routine inexpensively is covered in detail in Chapter 1 of 12 Steps to Whole Foods.

Start here, with the green smoothie habit, and this will give you more energy.  Then you’ll want even more and you’ll have that excitement to go on to Step 2 . . . and Step 3 . . . and before you know it, you’ll be a GreenSmoothieGirl or Guy and everyone will be saying, “You look fantastic! You’re like a whole different person! How can I do what you’re doing?!”

And then you’ll be the Evangelist . . . spreading the Gospel of Green.  Because once you convert, you’ll never want to go back.  And you’ll want to help everyone you know.

To Your Health,

–Robyn Openshaw

p.s.  If you’re new to green smoothies, check out my original YouTube demo: http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/videos/videos-page-1/

or if you’re experienced, check out my Green Smoothie 2.0 demos

It’s a great story, really, how I happened upon the “green smoothie,” the attention-grabbing part of this site dedicated to helping you eat right.

I was 27 years old, sitting on the front porch one warm summer day when my oldest child was a year old.  Knowing me at that time, I was probably letting him play in the sprinkler and eat an Otter Pop.  (This was long before I knew about corn syrup, and food dyes . . .)

I’d just put some canned pineapple juice, and some alfalfa sprouts and lots of spinach, in my blender.  I was sitting there drinking it when my baby toddled over and peered into my glass.  He asked me what it was, and (in one of those genius Mom moments), I said, “green ice cream.”

Well, that created a demand.  He wanted some.  I said, “No, this is Mommy’s milkshake.”  More demand.  It was all part of my evil plot, of course.

I finally relented (as I’d planned to all along) and let him sip some out of my straw.  He was hooked and a lightbulb came on in my Mom brain! This drink, the Neanderthal version of what I now make, came to be known as “Green Cream” in my young family.

Well, that pineapple juice thing I made (for over a decade, actually) is totally inferior, nutritionally, to what I make as a green smoothie nowadays.  (Not only is concentrated pineapple juice not a great food, but you had to “slam” that concoction or it settled into an ugly mess, undrinkable just five minutes later.)  But it began a quest for ways to get my kids to eat lots of leafy greens and sprouts.  And it taught me that blended foods are key in that quest.

Now I have a BlendTec Total Blender [link to it in the store].  You really must have this item if you are serious about nutrition.  Before I had a turbo blender, I had to settle for the above-mentioned “green cream” that had to be “slammed” before it became undrinkable.  A regular blender won’t allow you to use frozen fruit, fibrous greens, and lots of ice, for many years without troubles, with the Total Blender’s fantastic warranty.

Why is this so important, the purchase of a Total Blender?  Because you’re going to get 15 SERVINGS OF GREENS AND FRUIT in your one quart of green smoothie daily.  That puts you in the top 5 percent of Americans, for the quality of your diet, with just one simple habit that takes just 10 minutes a day.

I can’t overemphasize it.  It’s not just the best thing I have in my kitchen, it’s the most important thing I own, PERIOD.  I use it half a dozen times a day, and so it’s worth every penny.  We’ll talk more in my next newsletter about why a green smoothie habit is the first thing to change.

May you be blessed with good health from DAY ONE of starting this habit!

Here’s my original 3-min. home video on green smoothies:

http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/videos/videos-page-1/

And here’s my Green Smoothie 2.0 demo, for the “initiated”:

http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/videos/videos-page-3/

To Your Health,

–Robyn Openshaw

p.s.  If you can’t get a Total Blender right now, that’s okay.  Just start with whatever blender you have, but be aware that you may not be able to use lots of frozen fruit and very fibrous greens.  Your blend won’t be as smooth, but use water, spinach, and fruit, and get started anyway.  The important thing is just to START.

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!