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Allergy labels: SF – Soy Free, GF – Gluten Free, DF – Dairy Free, EF – Egg Free, V - Vegan, NF – Nut Free

Smoothie recipes text has only ingredients. Instructions for making a perfect smoothie are given below and they are common for all smoothies:

Put the liquid in first. Surrounded by tea or yogurt, the blender blades can move freely. Next, add chunks of fruits or vegetables. Leafy greens are going into the pitcher last. Preferred liquid is green tea, but you can use almond or coconut milk or herbal tea.

Start slow . If your blender has speeds, start it on low to break up big pieces of fruit. Continue blending until you get a puree. If your blender can pulse, pulse a few times before switching to a puree mode. Once you have your liquid and fruit pureed, start adding greens, very slowly. Wait until a previous batch of greens has been completely blended. I use Vitamix blenders because they’re sturdy and offer seven year warranty. That was the best investment in my health.

Thicken? Added too much tea or coconut milk? Thicken your smoothie by adding ice cubes, flax meal, chia seeds or oatmeal. Once you get used to various tastes of smoothies, add any seaweed, spirulina, chlorella powder or ginger for an additional kick. Experiment with any Superfoods in powder form at this point. Think of adding any nut butter or sesame paste too or some Superfoods oils.

Rotate ! Rotate your greens; don’t always drink the same smoothie! In the beginning try two different greens every week and later introduce third and fourth one weekly. And keep rotating them. Don’t use spinach and kale all the time. Try beets greens, they have a pinch of pink in them, and that add great color to your smoothie. Here is the list of leafy green for you to try: spinach, kale, dandelion, chards, beet leaves, arugula, lettuce, collard greens, bok choy, cabbage, cilantro, parsley.

Flavor! Flavor smoothies with ground vanilla bean, cinnamon, raw honey, nutmeg, cloves, almond butter, cayenne pepper, ginger or just about any seeds or chopped nuts combination.

Not only are green smoothies high in nutrients, vitamins and fiber, but also they can make any vegetable you probably don't like (be it kale, spinach or broccoli) taste great. The secret to blending the perfect smoothie is using sweet fruits or nuts or seeds to give your drink a unique taste.

There are a reason kale, and spinach seem to be the main ingredients in almost every green smoothie. Not only do they give smoothies their verdant color, but also are they packed with calcium, protein and iron.

Although blending alone increases the accessibility of carotenoids, since the presence of fats is known to increase carotenoid absorption from leafy greens, it is possible that coconut oil, nuts and seeds in a smoothie could increase absorption further.