Green Smoothie Challenge Week #3 - the final

My mum is one of those people who wins everything. She saves gold coins for when she goes away on holidays so she can play the pokies and she always ends up winning. She's won significant lottery amounts a couple of times. Unfortunately her luck is not hereditary, nor is it transferable, as I've discovered when she's visited and I've made her buy me a lottery ticket.

However, my luck may be changing, because for the second time recently I've won a prize! Yes, first UD Naked 2 (pat pat, stare at naked Paul Rudd), and now I have won a prize in the Green Smoothie Challenge, thanks to Echolife, who hosted the challenge, and are fast becoming my favourite online shopping store. If they sold food I'd never leave the house. I won a $50 gift voucher, which I've already spent because I couldn't wait - I spent ages on their site late last night deciding and ended up getting some Weleda Skin Food and some rosehip oil, both products I've never tried before but have heard good things about.

As for the challenge itself, it's now over, but it seems that quite a few of the participants (myself included) enjoyed it enough to continue. They do say it takes 21 days to make or break a habit! I don't think I'll be having a green smoothie every single day, only because I'm fed up with washing my blender so often. If I had a manservant I'd be all for it. I am having one this morning for breakfast, though.

I forgot one day in the last week - I don't know how I managed that. However, for 20 of the 21 days I faithfully drank my greens and I do feel a bit more springy for it. Thank you Sabine and Echolife for finding a sneaky way to healthify us!

Day 15: soy milk, banana, yoghurt, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, flaxmeal, baby spinach, baby cos lettuce

Day 16: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, flaxmeal, wheatgrass, spirulina, baby spinach, parsley

Day 17: oat milk, yoghurt, banana, blueberries, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, cinnamon, ground ginger

Day 19: oat milk, yoghurt, banana, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, flaxmeal, avocado, baby spinach

Day 20: oat milk, banana, yoghurt, wheatgrass powder, spirulina, muesli (home-made) baby bok choy

Day 21: oat milk, blueberries, honey, vanilla, wheatgrass powder, spirulina, flaxmeal, avocado, English spinach

Green Smoothie Challenge Week 2

Still really enjoying this challenge, and in fact there has been discussion about having a Winter one with soups, which I'm all over because I LOVE soup, and I have loads of quick, easy recipes for them. Come on, cold weather!

I didn't really change up my ingredients much in my smoothies this week, mostly because we are coming up to two weeks now that have hovered around the 35 degrees mark or higher every day, and it's too damn hot to trek to the market for supplies. OVER IT. Aside from that, I have a ginormous bunch of English spinach that I've been working through. Hopefully next week the weather will finally cool down a bit and I can shop for something a bit different. On the bright side, spinach is good for you, so having a couple of big handfuls of that each day certainly isn't going to hurt.

Day 8: skim milk, banana, flaxmeal, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, English spinach, avocado, parsley

Day 9: soy milk, banana, yoghurt, flaxmeal, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, English spinach, cos lettuce

Day 10: soy milk, banana, yoghurt, flaxmeal, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, English spinach, parsley

Day 11: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, blueberries, flaxmeal, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, baby spinach

Day 12: soy milk, banana, English spinach, spirulina, wheatgrass powder

Day 13: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, English spinach, cos lettuce, wheatgrass powder, spirulina, flaxmeal

Day 14: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, English spinach, spirulina, wheatgrass powder

Green Smoothie Challenge Week 1

I'm quite enjoying the Green Smoothie Challenge. I can't honestly say it's made me feel much different (I eat a lot of vegetables anyway), but it's certainly not doing me any harm. My only complaint is having to clean my blender every day - normally I'd only use it once or twice a month.

Day 1: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, blueberries, flaxmeal, chia seeds, baby spinach

Day 2: soy milk, yoghurt, flaxmeal, banana, ice, baby spinach and parsley

Day 3: apple, butter lettuce, cucumber, water, ice

Day 4: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, chia seeds, flaxmeal, parsley, English spinach

Day 5: soy milk, flaxmeal, banana, butter lettuce, wheatgrass powder, spirulina

Day 6: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, butter lettuce, parsley, flaxmeal, wheatgrass powder, spirulina, ice

Day 7: a 'Green, Lean and Clean' from Boost Juice, which had pineapple, celery, wheatgrass and a couple of other things I can't remember

Random things:
1. I took Amy's advice and peeled my bananas then froze them. I already have a pile of unpeeled bananas in my freezer as I can't eat them once they get really ripe so I throw them in there for muffins. However, peeling them while frozen is impossible, and letting them thaw makes them turn to mush (which doesn't matter for muffins but defeats the purpose of having an icy cold banana in a smoothie).

2. I won't cheat and go to Boost again. It was ridiculously expensive for what amounts to a bit of juice, and no doubt it was packed full of sugar. And it gave me brain freeze.

3. I prefer the milky ones to the non-milky. I didn't really like the apple, cucumber and lettuce one. I would probably like it better if I had a proper juicer (I am saving but those things go for several hundred dollars so it will be a while), but the texture in just a blender was kind of slushy.

4. I don't know why I used soy milk as opposed to the regular skim milk I have at home. I think I just wanted something organic. I know you can get organic skim milk as well, so that's not really very logical. Oh well.

Sabine from Echolife has done a round-up of how other people have been getting into the challenge. Did you do it? How is it going?

21 Day Green Smoothie Challenge

Woo, I'm a blogging machine today! I decided to join in the Echolife 21 Day Green Smoothie Challenge after hearing about it on Twitter. I've been vaguely considering getting into these anyway as I've been reading some books about skin and health and they rave about the benefits of greenery.

Although I did buy some kale and parsley at the market yesterday, I wanted to start off slowly so all I did for day #1 was add baby spinach to what would be my regular smoothie recipe. I don't measure when I make these, I just eyeball it. So for my first time I used the following:

organic soy milk, probably a bit less than 2 cups
a few tablespoons of plain yoghurt
a heaped teaspoon of chia seeds
a heaped tablespoon of flaxmeal
a banana
a handful of frozen blueberries
two big handfuls of baby spinach
a smidge of vanilla extract (at Noodles' insistence, I wouldn't normally add this)

The colour came out more purple-green than the bright, lush green I was expecting, thanks to the blueberries. The taste was quite nice - it just tasted like a regular banana-blueberry smoothie with a little bit of a tang. Tomorrow I might try some parsley and throw in a bit of apple. It was quite filling - I had mine for morning tea but I could probably get into them for breakfast.

Noodles hated it, though more because of the texture than the taste. She's not a fan of smoothies because she doesn't like 'smooth' food. She also hates blended soups. Oh well, she eats her vegetables and salads so I'm not going to push her on this one.

Ever had a green smoothie? Did you join in the challenge?