Green Smoothies

I’m following the Wahls Protocol at the moment, a primarily dietary approach to treating intractable auto-immune problems. The basis of the protocol is the need to have about 12 servings of vegetables and berries a day and lots of healthy oils and no grains. That’s a lot of vegetables, especially for someone like me who has only ever managed to force myself to eat at best 2 servings a day in the past. There’s a lot to this protocol and it’s not for the faint hearted, but if it works it’s worth it.

Anyway back to the vegetables challenge, which involves eating 3 cups of raw leafy greens a day. This is quite easy if I’m able to get access to a huge fresh salad at lunchtime, but that’s not always easy and its expensive. The House Salad from M&S is perfect but it’s £3 a go and once I add cheese and a few cherries for taste its closer to £5. Eating that much salad also takes a long time!

I needed to find a quicker, easier and cheaper everyday option and green smoothies are perfect. The one I’ve settled on goes as follows:

1. cup of spinach
2. A cup of mixed salad leaves
3. A cup of Kale
4. Strawberry protein shake, to take the edge off the bitterness, about 20g of protein
5. 20g of coconut oil, in the form of MCT oil
6. 20g of olive oil
7. 2 table spoons of resistant starch, in the form of raw potato starch
8. A desert spoon of chia seeds
9. A cup of filtered water

I take this with seaweed tablets and a probiotic tablet.

All this gets blended of course but its too frothy if you just mix the whole thing at the start, so I follow this sequence:

1. In the evening
2. Add all the leaves to the blender, they completely fill it
3. Add in half the water and blend fully
4. Mix the resistant starch into the remaining water
5. Add the oils, remaining water and protein shake
6. Do a very quick mix, so it doesn’t get frothy
7. Pour into two sealed top large cups and pop in the fridge
8. In the morning give the cup a quick shake and drink
9. I have the second cup for lunch

If I’m travelling I’ve found that I can freeze the cups and take them with me in a freezer bag and they are nice and cool the next morning.

Taking my fresh veg this way is cheap and incredibly quick, meaning that I can have breakfast in a couple of minutes and head out to Caffe Nero and enjoy some quiet time and a still mineral water. If I’m cycling I might also have a bar of 85% dark chocolate.

I’ve now had a green smoothie every day for 2 weeks and it’s now a solid part of my morning routine, highly recommended, if you are good at gulping down a healthy, but not that tasty drink.