I love to juice vegetables and fruits and I have a good friend who literally dragged himself off Death's Door by juicing vegetables that allowed him to heal up from an obesity-caused ailment. I can't think of any better endorsement than that. While it is easy to juice fruits and carrots and cucumbers, greens add a lot more to a healthy mixture and also allow you to eat MORE servings of those deep green vegetables as well as change the balance of your body to a more healthful one.The author gives you advice on how to make green drinks, which do not necessarily require a juicer, in fact, he informs us that blending (breaking down cell walls of the veg) and triturating juicers do a better job and get you more nutrients (one brand of triturating juicer is the Omega, which I always recommend to my friends. It is listed as a "masticating" but it is also called triturating.) So you actually don't have to have a juicer, per se for this book. A blender can work.
The recipes show you how to incorporate arugula (rocket), kale, collards, other greens and make digestible, nutrient filled and tasty smoothies that can add buckets of vegetables with all their vitamins, minerals and antioxidants to your daily diet. I have an issue that I do not eat enough vegetables, especially raw ones as I don't like salads when I go out to eat (bagged salads as served nowadays in most places absolutely bore me, like eating leathery, tasteless shrubbery) and I don't use them up fast enough at home. Juicing and green smoothies are actually for me, convenient as well as healthy.
In addition to showing you how to use these green, you get some info on why lemon is alkalizing to the body and why reducing an acid balance (which is typical if you eat a meat and sweet diet) is helpful for weight loss, healing and general health. The recipes here are good--you learn how to use fresh basil, lemons, and other ingredients such as berries to make something that looks perhaps like pond scum but tastes refreshing and delicious. (JUST CLOSE YOUR EYES!!!)
Some warnings; if you have thyroid disease, kale and other cabbage relatives may provoke a reaction (swelling) if you consume them. I cannot drink even one handful of kale juice without feeling it the next day. Listen to your body. I love kale and collards but I am forced to avoid all cabbages, sad to say. And parsley, which I always include in a small, loose, golf-balled sized amount (maybe less than a quarter cup) is toxic in large quantities. So if you get into juicing big time and love parsley, you need to be careful. There can be too much of a good thing. And an additional warning; if you take certain blood thinners, adding a large amount of greens adds more Vitamin K to your system and that affects how the blood thinners work; Vitamin K is involved in the clotting biochemistry of the body. So before you embark on juicing greens, talk to your doctor if you are taking thinners.
Notes on the Kindle Edition: I like Kindle books for subjects such as this--recipes and facts are convenient in Kindle format. But there are too many photos in black and white--pages of them. The regular Kindle displays only black and white so the photos are less than appealing and pretty much uselessI know what arugula looks like and a glass of smoothie is a glass of smoothie without color to show off. I'd suggest you not get the Kindle version unless you just want recipes, because it's annoying to have to page past a lot of photos.
In a nutshell this is a beautiful picture book, well presented BUT very thin in content and new information.
I applaud Jason for making such a beautiful book. Anything published about green smoothies to get the info out ranks high in my book. Unfortunately the book reads like a website. In fact, pretty much all of the information and recipes presented in the book can be found on any single reputable website about green smoothies. I found myself thinking... this is identical to x website as well as y website and z and... If I'm going to spend money on a book I want there to be substance at least something new that I can't easily read on a website.
Another issue I have with the book is that it is clearly geared towards green smoothie beginners, which is great, but many recipes are unusual and targeted for specific tastes. In other words they don't embody the spirit of the beginner to support them with simplicity to actually like drinking greens when they are not used to it. While I do enjoy many of the recipes I would not recommend the majority of them for those new to green drink. It also promises to deliver every health benefit possible about green smoothies but again, gives only a cursory overview of what it's really about.
Basically, if you are brand new to green drinks, don't have any other book on them, are not timid about trying green drinks and do not surf the web to learn about them, then this is a nice book to start on. There are so many better books about green smoothies/drinks in the $10 range and eBooks for under $3. If you do spend time learning on the internet (which is likely since you are doing so at this moment) then access the identical information for free on the myriad of green smoothie websites out there.
Whether you get this book or not, just be sure to drink your green drinks!I wanted new ideas for making green smoothies/juices and purchased this book after reading some of the excerpts online. After receiving it, I found that the introduction part is misleading. The author mentions that people new to green smoothies/drinks favor large amounts of fruit and only a small amount of greens, but that people should transition to a larger greens-to-fruit ratio. He implies that his recipes will have more greens than what beginners like, but they do not. The majority of the recipes are mainly fruit with only a small portion of greens added.
I also thought it was interesting in the introduction that the author mentions adding some pumpkin puree to his smoothies and that he uses it just about every day. This was a new idea for me, so I was hoping he would have many recipes using pumpkin, but there is only one in the book. Does this mean he has the same smoothie every day? So much for wanting variety, I guess.
There are nice pictures in the book, but the recipes have too much fruit and too little greens for me. There is also no nutritional information or serving sizes for the recipes. This may not have been possible since some of the ingredient amounts are vague, but it would have been nice to have.
Bottom line, this is definitely geared toward people new to green smoothies and juices. If this was my first green smoothie/juice book, I may have been happy with it, too. For anyone wanting more smoothie and juice choices, I would rather recommend The Big Book of Juices: More Than 400 Natural Blends for Health and Vitality Every Day by Natalie Savona, either version (with or without pictures). It has many creative ideas for flavor combinations and is the main book I use.I like that this book not only gives you the information about the greens but has full color pictures of them, for people like me who are new this helps a lot. I also like the color pictures of the drinks, and for those unsure to juice or blend he has sections/recipes covering both so this is a Very Ideal book for beginners like myself.I've always been skeptical of green drinks, maybe because they remind me of the unappetizing, gloppy drink Rene Russo's character always drank in The Thomas Crown Affair movie. However, this book has changed my mind.
Jason Manheim, founder of healthygreendrink.com, has compiled recipes using vegetables and fruit that really do taste good, not to mention being packed with anti-oxidants and vitamins you just can't get from a pill. One thing I liked about this book is that it encourages users to substitute ingredients according to personal tastes and come up with their own combinations.
I don't have a juicer but most of the recipes can be made using a regular blender with the result being more like a smoothie than juice. I made a drink called The Grape Pear that tasted good, using grapes, a pear, an orange, and kale (which I didn't have on hand so I substituted spinach). I also got a little daring and made my own smoothie using frozen blueberries, canned (in juice) pineapple, spinach, avocado, coconut milk, and some chia seeds for extra fiber. It surprisingly also tasted good and left me with a sense of well-being because it made me feel I was doing something healthy by getting in extra servings of fruits and vegetables in one drink. Although Manheim makes the case that fruit and vegetables have more protein than most people think, I will likely add some whey protein powder or perhaps Greek yogurt from time to time for extra protein as a meal replacement drink.
There are beautiful photographs throughout the book that inspire healthy eating. Chapters include Why Go Green?, The Greens, Adding Fruit, Adding "Superfoods", Sweeteners (If You Must), Tips: Buying, Saving, Growing, and Storing; Think Supplements, Not Diet; Equipment and How-To, and Juicing vs. Blending.
I do like this book and look forward to trying more of the recipes to get more nutrients into my diet and increase my veggie servings.
I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher but the opinion of it is my own and was not solicited, nor was a positive review required.
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