Feeding your skin with Smoothies!!!!
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free skin care · Fri Aug 14, 2009 11:47 am

Olivedaisychain,

What are you putting in your green smoothies...it really isn't unusual, if it's very intensely 'green' (not so much fruit, etc.)to experience detox symptoms at first..doesn't necessarily mean you have heavy metal toxicity in your system (although, of course, you may...it's just that you can't tell from detox symptoms in general.)

Don't know what you personally need of course, and there are so many different approaches to health and healing, some advocating colonics, some feeling that they are detrimental..

same thing with 'one-remedy-for-all' detox systems...which probably aren't the most sophisticated thing you can do for your symptoms..

but..if it were me..I'd get the colonic ...

and then see a professional holistic healer..perhaps an acupuncturist/Chinese herbalist...or a western oriented herbalist with a 'vitalist' approach (an understanding of what your system is really, uniquely, needing to rebalance/regenerate, revitalize itself.

)

free skin care · Fri Aug 14, 2009 12:12 pm

To add a bit more,

according to 'vitalists' like Matt Wood, herbs are really highly tuned healers that offer their healing qualities uniquely to those who resonate with them (and not necessarily the qualities that are attributed to them in herbal manuals)...these are called herbal allies....and a little bit of an ally can do more than a huge quantity of a herb not right for our particular 'soul' (body, mind, spirit)...

so... often we are just forcing our bodies to response to an herbal formula that's not 'ours'...

and although in the short run it may be effective..in the long run it can be detrimental (this is often referred to as 'heroic' herbology..what we are currently most familiar with...rather than 'wise woman' or 'vitalist' herbology.... which i'm trying to tell you a bit about here..because I feel you may resonate with it.)

But..when all is said and done...best to follow your intuition and go with what your gut says is your next step..you seem to be doing really well with it!

free skin care · Sat Aug 15, 2009 1:33 pm

I saw this in my newspaper the other day, and thought it would be useful here. Bare with me, while I type the bloody thing out.. Crying or Very sad

Save your skin! Eat these foods to stay youthful. (By Dr. Jason Posner, PS + Dr. David Goldberg, Cosmetic Derm) From 8/13/09 Palm Beach Post.

1. Avocados: Full of vitamin E, which helps skin health + also may relieve menopausal hot flashes ( Very Happy

).

2. Watermelon: Contains vitamins A, B + C. It's seeds contain essential fats, zinc + vitamin E, all of which help guard against free radical damage, which ages our skin.

3. Water: Drinking eight glasses a day will keep your body healthy and give your skin a natural glow.

4. Blueberries: Full of vitamin C, an antioxidant that gives you a smooth complexion by fighting free radicals.

5. Walnuts: Contain essential fatty acids that allow skin to stay moisturized, making it look healthy and younger.

6. Tuna: High in selenium, which keeps skin cells healthy. Some studies even show that sun damage is lessened if skin cells are high in selenium.

7. Green tea: Helps skin fight ultraviolet rays from the sun. This protects us from inflammation and wrinkles and lowers risk of skin cancer.

8. Extra virgin olive oil: Keeps skin lubricated, which lowers risk of getting wrinkles.

9. Sweet potatoes: Keep your antioxidant level up, which prevents skin wrinkling.

10. Spinach: Dark green, leafy vegetables are high in vitamin A, which aids in skin cell turnover, keeping skin from being dry, tough and scaly..

free skin care · Sat Aug 15, 2009 4:34 pm

Kassy,
I have been imagining all the wonderful smoothie recipes you are going to whip us for us. You give DIY a whole new meaning!!!

free skin care · Sat Aug 15, 2009 5:33 pm

LOL! I'll be running amok in my kitchen, as soon as I feel a little better.

Tonight I have my finicky grandson here, and I'm going to have a go at fruity ice cream with him.. (He already told me; "if I see pink, I hate it, I just want white or chocolate"..).. Little does he know he's getting chocolate (with a shot of rasberry.. Laughing

)

I'll share the good, the bad and the down right disasters, with all you "whirling diva's"... (Zoftig gets 5 gold stars for that perfect name.. Laughing

)

free skin care · Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:25 pm

rileygirl wrote:

I am of the opinion you really can use any blender and don't need to spend $400 to be able to have a green smoothie. I have been making them for most of the summer, and I use my cheap proctor silex blender that I bought years ago. It works just fine. Blends everything really well, no chunks, etc. So if anyone wants to try this that has a regular blender, go for it. It works. You have to blend a little bit longer, otherwise no problems. Very Happy

Thanks Riley, so glad that's the case. I just don't want to spend a fortune on a new blender so after following this thread for the first couple of pages I left it. I really don't know what made me have a quick look at the last couple of pages just now. Must be meant to be that I have a go at some of these delights. Smile

I best go through all the pages in this thread now.

free skin care · Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:50 pm

The first blender I bought was a L equip 228 for 89.00 and almost every way it is as good as the Blendtec. The Blentec has more functions but for basic smoothies it is killer and it operates just as fast as the BIG DOGS. From my reading you can make the green smoothies from regular blenders by just cutting up the veggies some and adding blending as you add parts of your smoothie, whereas the bigger motor models can liquefy it out immediately. I think it is wise to use what you have especially when you maybe unsure of how much you want to include this in your daily diet.

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 7:57 am

Smoothie tips for carrying them to work!!!!
I have a commute to work and leave before 7:00am
so here is what is helping me.

Smoothies stored in this(was a bottle of water)

This is what I pour the smoothie into and drink from(it is ceramic 20oz w/sip top cover)

this is a carrying tote for bottles(9 slots)drop frozen gels for keeping cool in no refrig.

tooth brush freshen up(keep the smoothie residue at bay)

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:35 am

In case it helps, I looked for a long time to find a container to bring my green smoothies and juices to work...this is the best one I found:

The Nissan Thermos Model FDH1405

http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Nissan-Ounce-Stainless-Bottle/dp/B000RHFRVS/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8%26s=home-garden%26qid=1250439850%26sr=8-16

It holds 48 oz (1.5 quarts), it's opaque and discrete so no one can see the green goo you have inside Smile

if you use a straw, it functions as a thermos keeping cold things cold, and it has a 3 inch wide mouth so that you can actually clean any remaining residue out of it (so many thermos have too tiny openings!). I think the only drawback is that it isn't dish washer safe, if I recall correctly. But if you just use it for smoothies and juices (with no oils and no dairy) and wash it out right away after finishing your smoothie, you don't have to soap it very often, so it usually takes only 20-30 secs to clean by hand.

I hope this helps! Smile

Sun Aug 16, 2009 12:07 pm

Toby mentioned that she initially lost weight when she started drinking smoothies.

Is anyone gaining weight by drinking so many smoothies? How many calories are in the typical greens-plus-fruit smoothie?

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 12:25 pm

Face4ward wrote:

Is anyone gaining weight by drinking so many smoothies? How many calories are in the typical greens-plus-fruit smoothie?

I've never gained weight by drinking the smoothies...only lost or maintained my weight. For the green smoothies, I make an entire meal out of them so I aim for 400-600 calories per smoothie (and I eat 4 meals a day). For the 400-600 calories of fruit, that would like would be like 4-6 bananas, 4-7 large pears, 2 bananas + 2 lbs of strawberries, 4 large mangoes, etc. But even a 400-calorie fruit smoothie is very fulfilling, especially with greens, because of all the fiber and water in the fruit + greens...so it takes up a lot of room in the stomach. I wasn't able to eat a whole 400-600 calorie green smoothie when I first started, but I quickly worked my way up to that amount....it depends on how much volume of food you are used to/able to eat.

HTH Smile

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 12:32 pm

P.S. The greens have so little calories, so most of the calories come from whatever fruit or anything else (e.g., dairy, flax oil) you put in the smoothies. Even eating a lot of greens--like 1/2 lb of greens--you're likely to get only 30-50 calories from greens...unlike you use a high calorie green like kale, which has 100 calories per half pound...but that is A LOT of kale Smile

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 12:36 pm

Face4ward wrote:

Toby mentioned that she initially lost weight when she started drinking smoothies.

Is anyone gaining weight by drinking so many smoothies? How many calories are in the typical greens-plus-fruit smoothie?

I think you could only if you were adding in a lot of fruit and not cutting out anything in your diet to compensate for the extra calories coming in from the smoothies! Very Happy

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:13 pm

Wow, this is very informative. So to start, I need to get a good blender (Blentec or Vitamix), a selection of fruits/veggies and supplements, and then start? Any precautions -- other than too many fiber may have me spending unexpected time in the loo?

Toby, I am very impressed by your system to take your smoothies to work (love the 9slot bag!!)

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:34 pm

cm5597 wrote:

In case it helps, I looked for a long time to find a container to bring my green smoothies and juices to work...this is the best one I found:

The Nissan Thermos Model FDH1405

http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Nissan-Ounce-Stainless-Bottle/dp/B000RHFRVS/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8%26s=home-garden%26qid=1250439850%26sr=8-16

It holds 48 oz (1.5 quarts), it's opaque and discrete so no one can see the green goo you have inside Smile

if you use a straw, it functions as a thermos keeping cold things cold, and it has a 3 inch wide mouth so that you can actually clean any remaining residue out of it (so many thermos have too tiny openings!). I think the only drawback is that it isn't dish washer safe, if I recall correctly. But if you just use it for smoothies and juices (with no oils and no dairy) and wash it out right away after finishing your smoothie, you don't have to soap it very often, so it usually takes only 20-30 secs to clean by hand.

I hope this helps! Smile

cm,
The thermos idea is so convenient but with lemon and other things in the smoothies we were concerned about leaching nickle out of the stainless steel. I think that was mentioned toward the beginning of the thread by someone. After seeing that information I have been looking for ceramic or glass since there are concerns with plastic as well.

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 2:08 pm

Toby--Very, very interesting...thanks so much for sharing. Tt sounds like that's why you choose plastic over stainless steel.

Without knowing anything in particular about the leeching of chemicals from plastic vs stainless steel, I generally prefer that any small amounts of toxins that I absorb to be smaller in molecular weight/size, hence I'd rather absorb heavy metals such as nickel over plastics or other polymers. The reason why is because I suspect small molecules are cleared from the body more readily than larger molecules (plus I would suspect that from an evolutionary standpoint, the body might actually have detoxification pathways for heavy metals, but that's just a guess). Of course, way more nickel might be leeched by the acid in lemons than plastic would be leeched, making this reasoning all null and void....Or perhaps nickel is just way more toxic than plastics...??

So I confess that I have done ZERO research on this, whereas it sounds like you have really looked into this. How did you make your decision? I'd love to hear. Thanks so much! Smile

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 2:47 pm

The smoothies are stored in glass(maybe it looks platstic but it is not, the big tall vosso glass cylinder 27oz.

I drink them out of ceramic cup(the sip top is just to make sure they don't spill in the car)I take it off when I drink it. I take no credit for doing reseach my decisions have come from this thread(the more experienced posters. This post is what got me thinking because I had been using stainless steel.

sigma wrote:

I also have Vitamix for the past 6 years and use it daily - mostly for morning smoothies. Eben though it was very expensive it was by far one of the best kitchen tool I have ever bought.

I also wanted to mention that there is some concern about using metal containers with acidic products (most stainless steel products contain nickel), and there are some scientists who do not recommend it(tomatoes, lemons, etc.). I take my shake in either glass or special plastic containers that do not outgas.

HTH

A big thanks to sigma for this....I thought about the plastic that has the special rating but when I went to purchase it I was told it wasn't that safe either.....so I am using glass and ceramic.....if that is a problem I will pretend that I am Peter Rabbit and eat out of Mr. McGregor's garden.

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 7:47 pm

Toby- your ceramic cup is beautiful!

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 8:11 pm

Toby,

what a great find with the Voss glass bottle. I use them to take my liquid supplements to work to sip during the day. I feel so daft for not even thinking about them to use for smoothies. GREAT idea!

The plastic containers (from supplements by Dr. Bob Marshal) are treated in some special way, so they are safe, but none are available for purchase (unless one uses the products).

The commercially available plastics are not safe,I only use them to carry lunch when my knee acts up and I can not carry the glass ones.

There are some thermos (warm bottles) with glass walls inside (made in Germany with eco friendly materials - like no mercury in the mirror, etc.), that can be good too if one can locate them.

Nickel in food is quite bad (I believe I was told it is a carcinogen); I do not recall the exact reason Dr. Bob Marshal said to avoid it, I just followed the advice.

Toby - I am also so impressed with the bag and the whole system - wow!! I admire the organization and creativity!

Thanks for great finds!

HTH

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 8:32 pm

I Love Toby's ceramic mug too.

I just got an avocado to try out for some more smoothies this week. My BF bought me tons of spinach at the farmer's market Saturday (and a huge free range chicken)and dropped them at my house. He's so romantic.
(Actually this is so much better than flowers to me).

My smoothie usually has one banana, spinach (lots), lemon juice, an apple, cucumber and maybe a tomato or some kale or parsely or flax seed - occasionally blueberries. It can't be more than 400 calories tops. And this is definitely a meal to me. It is so filling. I have not noticed weight loss but have also certainly not gained any weight. Have not noticed detox but drinking lots of water and feel good.

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:10 pm

Hey Sis, this boyfriend of yours sounds like a keeper. Bringing you spinach and chicken and such....my husband just rolls his eyes when I carry the tons of greens in from the store Rolling Eyes

Can we trade Wink

free skin care · Sun Aug 16, 2009 11:26 pm

I found a brand called Naked at Costco and they had several types in the refrigerator case. There was a green "super food" variety with all types of green stuff including parsley, algae, wheat grass, etc. I will wait till morning to try it. The question I have is how much should I drink a day?

free skin care · Mon Aug 17, 2009 6:43 am

Toby---Oh, sorry, I didn't realize that that was glass! I will have to look into this all more. Thanks so much for your help!

Sigma--Thank so much for all the great information!! I will definitely check out your recommendations Smile

milbader wrote:

I found a brand called Naked at Costco and they had several types in the refrigerator case. There was a green "super food" variety with all types of green stuff including parsley, algae, wheat grass, etc. I will wait till morning to try it. The question I have is how much should I drink a day?

Milbader--You definitely won't get the same effects as making your own green smoothies by instead doing the Naked or Odwalla super food/green drinks because

(1) They use WAY less greens that you would in a green smoothie or green juice. If I had to wager, I'd guess that you'd have to buy 6-12 of them to get the same amount of greens that people are putting into green smoothies that they are making fresh.

(2) They are pasteurized so aren't raw

(3) They aren't fresh, so have lost significant amounts of nutrients to oxidation already.

But if you like them, do enjoy them!

Though it might be a fun experiment for someone to try to compare their experiences with Naked/Odwalla superfood drinks vs fresh green smoothies!

HTH Smile

free skin care · Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:55 am

I thought the Naked would be a good place to start just to see if I like the taste or not. My blender probably isn't up to the task.

It looks so horrid sitting in the fridge. This is foreign territory for me so a slow start is probably best.

free skin care · Mon Aug 17, 2009 9:42 am

Milbader

I'm leaving this morning on a trip to Ca with my Magic Bullet Blender (very small), a bottle of Naked (for the liquid part of my smoothies), and a big bag of greens (I'll cut them small to blend) and I'm sure this will work. I only did the Naked as a "taster" in Costco and it was sweet for me but it will save me taking a bunch of bananas, a bag of lemons, and a pineapple in my suitcase. Laughing

I agree that the nutritional value will be lacking but I can't think of an alternative for the trip. My DH can't believe I'm taking all this trouble to have my smoothies but I know the blending divas will understand. Smile

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