Frequently Asked Questions

I've received a few questions and I wanted to address them here. As I get more, I'll come back and edit this post. Here we go (its really not that exciting)

Q: What do you eat the rest of the day?
A: I came up with the idea for this blog on Thanksgiving Day 2009. I spent the next month fine tuning some ideas in my brain, and wondering where this blog might take me. I knew this question would be asked eventually and I knew I had no easy answer for it. I have food issues. Bigger issues than I describe in a little Q & A post. I'll get into them another time, but for now suffice it to say that I'm gradually adopting new, healthier habits into my life. Until just recently I ate a Standard American Diet (SAD). However, after reading The China Studay and doing a little of my own research, I'm gravitating more towards a whole foods, plant based diet with minimal animal based foods. I try to eat a good portion of my foods raw, but I'm not 100%. I'm probabaly not even 50% (yet). I hope this answers this question. At least a little bit. For now.

Q: Do you plan your smoothies out in advance?
A: Not usually. I often have some ideas tinkering around in my head that I want to try, but I usually just wait and see what strikes my fancy (or what's waiting in my fridge) when I go fire up the blender.

Q: Why don't you just drink a V8?
A: I'm asked this question quite often, actually. The reason is simple. V8 (or any other juice) is pasturized when bottled. Meaning its heated above 118* for a period of time to kill any bacteria and to make it shelf stable. Anytime food is heated above 118* the live enzymes in that food die off. Enzymes are used by our bodies to aid in digestion and to help break down the foods we eat. Our body only has the ability to produce a finite amount of enzymes. When we eat foods that are not rich in enzymes, our bodies has to take our enzymes away from various organs to use them for digestion. I have a bottle of live enzyme tablets that I keep in the kitchen. Often when I get sluggish or tired in the mid afternoon its after a fairly heavy, mostly cooked meal or snack. I pop a few enzymes and the bloating and sluggishness literally vanish in a very short time. This is also why I try to drink my second smoothie not too long before dinner. It helps fill me up and puts lots of live enzymes in my tummy before I sit down to eat my meal.

Q: Have you had to buy more toilet paper since starting your smoothies?
A: Ok, this one was asked in jest (I think), but it does bring up a good point. If you have lived your life consuming the SAD (a fair amount of animal protein, lots of processed convenience foods and lots of refined white flour and white sugar) and you suddenly start consuming mostly raw green smoothies everyday, yes you may notice a change in your elimination habits. A lot of Americans have a build up of plaque and other disgusting stuff that I won't get into lining the walls of their intestines and colon's. Green smoothies can, over time, break down that plaque and pull those impurities out of your system. Though sometimes uncomfortable to talk about, this is a good thing.

Q: Couldn't you just eat a salad?
A: Well, I guess. I do eat salads often. Several times a week and I'm working up to at least one large salad daily. However, I can only chew on so many greens a day before I get bored. Having one large salad per day gives me almost my daily recommendation of vegetables for the day. I add about 5-6 salads worth of greens to my smoothies everyday. I don't know about you, but I have no desire to eat, with a fork, that many salads in one day.

Q: How much to these smoothies cost? Those are some pricey ingredients.
A: Admittedly, my grocery bill went up a slight bit when we first started green smoothies. But that was because I was buying the ingredients in addition to everything else I normally bought. However, since making the smoothies a habit and changing some of my other habits I'm now able to cross some things off of my list that I no longer buy. For instance, we no longer buy soda. This is a HUGE savings off of our weekly grocery bill. I've started to cut way back on the amount of meat we buy and that's another savings. In the end is all evens out and I expect eventually my grocery bill will go down because of these changes.

I think that is is for now! Let me know if you have any more questions, or if these sparked any new ones. I'm having so much fun with this challenge and I'm just tickled that so many of you are following along with me! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. ~Jessica