Jessa Greenfield shows how to blend leafy greens into a smoothie. Blending breaks down 95% of plant cell walls versus 40% from chewing, which means your body absorbs more nutrients. She uses beet greens, kale, Swiss chard, apple, banana, berries, and hemp seed, aiming for 32 ounces daily split into two servings.
Questions this video answers
40%
95%
About 40 ounces
About 32 ounces per day
Two servings: ~16 ounces in the morning and ~16 ounces as an afternoon snack
Chapters
Hi, this is Jessa Greenfield. Ben asked me to show you how to make a green smoothie. The great thing about green smoothies is you get your full amount of leafy greens in one meal.
Each. Every plant has a cellular wall, and the way your body breaks it bakes the cellular walls down is by chewing. So by chewing, your body is able to absorb the nutrients and all the great things that you can find in leafy greens or fruits or, you know, peas, whatever.
The great thing about blending them is it breaks it down even better than what chewing would do. Chewing normally breaks down 40% of the cellular walls, which leads to less absorption. Blending your greens breaks down 95%.
So there's a huge difference there. Now, what I just put in here was beet greens. If you ever buy beets, always get the ones with the greens on it. You can use the greens like spinach or in your green smoothies. You can put them in eggs, you can put them in anything. They cook up just very similar to spinach. So they're great that way. So first I'm going to be putting in my greens. I've got beet greens, I've got kale. Kale is also a great leafy green. A lot of people think it's just a garnish. It's very good for you. One of the better greens for you. So I'm going to put that in there. You see how much greens I'm putting in here?
All right. Then I'm going to take some orange juice, or you can take water. It doesn't matter which one. Just so it's easier for this blender to blend it up, kind of give it a good start.
It's.
Okay. The next thing I'm going to put in here is Swiss chard, another great leafy green.
And we'll get that going.
All right. That's pretty green. Nice and smooth. And you're like, well, is that the only thing we're going to put in there is greens? That would taste gross. No, I'm putting in also a whole apple. I didn't even remove the seeds or the core or anything. If you have a regular, this is a Vitamix, and I recommend Vitamix. They do the best job of breaking down cellular walls and making it smooth. So they're a little on the spendy side, but they're well worth it if you're really going to be doing green smoothies. I do these every day, so it was worth it for me. So I'm putting in a whole apple.
We're going to give it another blend.
Okay. A whole banana.
I'm gonna put in some hemp seed. Hemp seed is great. It has a ton of omega 3s. Really, really good for the brain. And it's got some protein in it. So throw that in there.
And I'm also going to throw in some about a cup of berries. And berries are great for antioxidants.
And then that's going to actually change the color of the smoothie to more of a brown color so it doesn't really stay green. But you know what I'm talking about. Okay, so.
It.
Now this makes. I made about 40 ounces. Here.
Try to drink about 32 ounces in a day. Starting out with green smoothies, there's a few recommendations that I would do. I wouldn't drink 32 ounces in one sitting. Problem that people generally have with this is not many people are used to this much roughage in their diet. So it makes you very regular. So I would say if you were going to start out, I would split it up into 16 ounces in the morning and then maybe a 16 ounce snack in the afternoon or something like that. Also.
The smoothies have kind of a more of an earthy flavor. So people aren't used to that generally in a smoothie or not anticipating that. So you can start out with maybe fewer greens. And as you build up, you can add more greens to your smoothies until, you know, until you have a good amount in there. I mean, what I put in there is enough for me because I've been doing this for a while.
That amount of greens may not be enough, maybe too much for you in the beginning. You just kind of build your way up to it. The great thing also about these things is I have twin boys and I give this to them every morning. They get about 8 ounces in the morning and they love it. So it's a great way for kids to get their greens as well. So I hope you enjoy it. Give it a try. It's well worth it and you're going to enjoy. Healthier hair, healthier skin, more energy. It's definitely a great addition to your diet.
