Let Us Now Praise LETTUCE

In my mind, lettuce used to be the Rodney Dangerfield of veggies and I accorded it No Respect.  Was this a function of too many ice berg lettuce salads foisted on me at a young age?  Perhaps.

In any case, I held lettuce in very low regard and wouldn't have thought of it as anything that could contribute massively to my good health.

Was I ever wrong.

Lettuce, as it turns out, and many of its sister greens, can be a big contributor to your good health.  For this knowledge, I have Victoria Boutenko and her book about Green Smoothies to thank. 

Last year, while cruising online bookstores, I happened upon Victoria's book, Green Smoothie Revolution.  I wanted to lose weight and become healthy and had tried almost every other diet you could name.  So, without much optimism, I tried a variety of the Green Smoothies mentioned in her book. What happened?   I lost weight.  I had more energy.   I was sold.  Now, I won't let a day go by without drinking at least one (and some days more) Green Smoothies.

Looks good, doesn't it?

In Green Smoothie Revolution,  Boutenko says that the green leaves of plants accumulate nutrients more than any other part of the plant.  And this, she says, "...puts greens in the category of the most nutritious foods on the planet."  (p. 5)  For those interested in learning more about the nutritional value of greens, you can consult her book, Green for Life.

Victoria Boutenko is not the only writer concerned about health who believes greens score high on the list of Super Foods.  In his book, Eat to Live, Dr. Joel Fuhrman says that when looking at nutrient density, Dark Green Leafy vegetables (kale, chard, spinach, and others) are the best things you can eat (p. 155)  And even Romaine lettuce scores high on nutrient density although not as high as kale and spinach.

After reading Boutenko's book, I whipped out my trusty Vitamix blender (amply praised by me in a previous post) and prepared a Green Smoothie.  I must say before I drank my first, I had doubts about whether any smoothie that was green could actually taste like something I wanted to drink.  Combining a selected fruit with the greens makes the taste delicious!  I was on my way.

Since I don't like vegetables all that much, and I don't like to cook, it has been hard for me to get enough good veggie nutrition into my diet.  Green Smoothies have turned that around.  Because of the ease with which they are prepared (and consumed!) I am now able to get a much increased amount of vegetables into my daily fare.  It is the ONLY THING that has ever worked for me.

Maybe it will work for you too!

Eat like a Rabbit, Live Forever?

Want to live longer and you're willing to make sacrifices by paring down what you eat?  Join the Calorie Restriction movement.  Various studies, including some led by the researcher, Dr. Roy Walford, have indicated that humans might obtain a longer lifespan by eating fewer calories each day.  And I do mean FEWER.

The primary experiments showing the value of calorie restriction were on rodents, but Dr. Walford (and others) maintain the effect has also been shown to apply to humans.  Support for this assertion can be found here:  http://www.walford.com/coleart.htm.  You can also get information from the association dedicated to the methods of Calorie Restriction, the CR Society International, which has a conference coming up soon in California:  http://www.crsociety.org/. 

Don't know about you, but I would LOVE to live longer in good health.  But calorie restriction to the extent required in this model -- well, I don't know.  Too hard for me and, I expect, too hard for many other people.  In my opinion this is an option suited mostly to those with an austere mind and a discipline that's beyond me.  I know because I've tried.

Here's some bare bones info about the diet (this is my summary so take how you will):

1. no junk food (pretty obvious, eh?)
2. LOTS and LOTS of salad (I think to do this diet, it would help to be part rabbit!)
3. eat lots of other non-starchy veggies.  As the CR website says, "By volume (and often by calories), vegetables are the major component of many calorie restricted but not nutrient deficient diets."

Put another way, kinda like being a vegan without getting to claim the hipster label and wear the cool non-leather shoes...

Because you will be restricting calories pretty severely, the diet seems to require you pay serious attention to calculating  and monitoring exactly what nutrients you will take in.

So, this diet falls off my list of "possibles" for 2 reasons:

1. severe restriction of calories and what you can eat;
2. lots of work keeping track of exactly what you eat each day and balancing it out with the other things you are eating.

That being said, I think this would probably be a great thing to do and encourage anyone who thinks they can keep up with such a robust program to take it on.  And then you are sure to live forever (without having to become a vampire -- there is no fresh blood on the CR diet!).

Jet Engine in your Kitchen? The Mighty Vitamixer!

I would be nowhere without my Vitamix blender.   There, I've said it.  Admitted my powerlessness.  Taken the first step -- I am addicted and I don't want to change.

If there was a fire in my house and I could only grab a few things before I ran out...I would grab the Vitamix.  SAVE THE VITAMIX! I'd yell to everyone in the house.

The Mighty Vitamix blender

By firing up my Vitamix blender with the contents of a Green Smoothie inside (the awesome Green Smoothie will be discussed in other posts), I was able to lose 10% of my body weight in one year and even better -- KEEP IT OFF!  And for me that was a big deal because I hadn't been able to do anything like that despite having tried many other diets (whose names you would recognize and may have tried yourself).

Want to know more about the Mighty Vitamix?  You can get the details here:  https://vitamix.com/

Why do I love my blender?  Let me count the ways:

1. It's lasted almost 30 years without needing any repairs.  So, what else could you buy that could do that?  A rock, maybe.
2. It's incredibly powerful.  You can blend up just about anything with it.  You could probably chop wood with it for your wood stove.  Don't put your finger or small children in.  Make sure you wear goggles when you're blending (...just kidding).
3. You can make soup, ice cream, or anything in between.
4. I hate to cook and I don't much like to eat vegetables, yet with my Vitamix I can whip up tasty, healthy Green Smoothies so fast and easy it would make your head spin if you were in my kitchen when I was blending.
5. You can buy parts for it online and almost always fix it yourself. If it needs fixing.  Which it probably won't (see Point #1 above).  Awesome, am I right?

So, don't waste another minute.   Talk to the nice folks at Vitamix and see what you think.  If you are going to lose weight and get healthy, I'd say you are  GOING TO NEED THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT.  First things first.  Get on board, get a Vitamix.

And then come back here so I can wax poetic about Green Smoothies.