Raw Food Recipes - It's Easier Than You Think

When we started drinking green smoothies a few months ago, I decided we should follow a raw food diet more often. My husband won't give up meat, but that doesn't mean we can't have bigger salads and raw food snacks. Once you collect your ingredients, making raw food snack recipes is very easy. You can even make up your own.

I started out with the book Raw Energy: 124 Raw Food Recipes for Energy Bars, Smoothies, and Other Snacks to Supercharge Your Body by Stephanie Tourles, who also wrote Organic Body Care Recipes: 175 Homemade Herbal Formulas In Raw Energy, Stephanie has a great chapter on "raw food basics" which offers great info on digestive enzymes, organic food, the value of snacking and how you can make snacks a part of your day to increase energy.

The next chapter covers all the "how to" of the raw food diet. What foods you should have on hand and what equipment you need, such as a dehydrator and a food processor, which is also a must for green smoothies. After much research I decided to purchase a Vitamix but there are several good ones out there.

For many raw snack recipes you only need a bowl, a spoon and the ingredients, which includes nuts, dried fruit and something like raw peanut butter or almond butter to hold everything together in a ball. Refrigerate your raw snack for 24 hours and they keep in the frig for about 2 weeks - if they last that long.

Once I made a few of the raw snack recipes in the book, I was able to make up my own recipes, using various ingredients like oatmeal and flax seed.

As the name implies, though, Raw Energy: 124 Raw Food Recipes for Energy Bars, Smoothies, and Other Snacks also has recipes for delicious raw food smoothies made of fruits and veggies, juice blends, raw food bars and granola. Your kids will love these healthy snacks and recipes. They make nutritious additions to your kid's school lunches too.

The Vitamix website offers great recipes and information on green smoothies and the raw food diet. If you find a Vitamix is a good purchase for your family, you can also get free shipping with this link - a $25 value!

Find more information on beginning a raw food diet.

Join the Green Smoothie Revolution

I recently joined the Green Smoothie Revolution. My diet is pretty healthy but after reading about making smoothies from whole, raw fruits and veggies, and all the health benefits, I decided to take my lifestyle program to the next level.

What Are Green Smoothies?

Green Smoothies are made of nutritious and delicious fruits and vegetables.
In green smoothies, you break down these veggies into liquid, which releases all the wonderful nutrients and enzymes for use by your body. Cooking often destroys many of these so by eating them raw, you're getting the full benefit.Once these whole foods are broken down to smoothie form, the nutrients are more usable by the body and users report more energy, weight loss and a decrease in health issues.

When blended into a delicious smoothie, you can use veggies like kale, spinach, Swiss chard and mustard greens - all wonderful foods that we don't eat enough of.

Moms report that even kids love them! I plan to try this concept on my three grandchildren, who are all under age 5, and test it out for myself. I'll keep you posted on the results.

I've loved healthy smoothies for years and always start my day with a fruit smoothie made with banana and blueberries. However, I wanted to start incorporating more whole foods into my daily diet by adding some green smoothie recipes as well.

Plus, green smoothies are convenient. Whip them up the night before and they are ready to grab on the way out the door in the morning. You can keep your green smoothies for up to 48 hours in the frig so if you whip up a large batch, it will save time.

What Do You Need to Make Green Smoothies?

1. Lots of fruits and veggies, fresh and preferably organic.
2. A powerful blender - a regular blender just won't cut up spinach and kale, or whole lemons!

That's really all you need. I researched blenders through Consumer reports and asked the folks on my organic foods forum for recommendations. The most recommended blender was the Vitamix. It the power and features you need to make Green Smoothie Recipes easy. Plus you can lots of other things with it as well.

Check out the Vitamix website and if you order through this link, you'll receive free shipping - a $25 value! The Vitamix website also offers a Green Smoothie section with recipes.

Stay tuned for future blog postings about my Green Smoothie journey. I'll be posting recipes, tips for saving money, like growing your own sprouts, and giving my honest opinion of the value of green smoothies on the Path to Healthy Living.