Book Review: Green Smoothies By Fern Green and my seven day detox

Posting about a green smoothies book or a detox just before Christmas might not seem right, but you would surely appreciate this information post all the holiday binging and while making your 2016 new year resolutions that revolve on healthier eating.

The first thing you notice when you look at the Green Smoothies book is how clean it is- in its photography, recipe writing and overall look. Given that it is for someone who aims for clean eating, its a good first impression.

Before receiving this book, V and I had invested in a Vitamix (we narrowed on this one and love it) and had been drinking a green smoothie everyday. We had the WholeFood book that came with the Vitamix, and I had been trying the recipes in that book alternating with a glowing green smoothie recipe that V had given me. While the WholeFood smoothie book has a great variety of smoothie recipes, all of them are not green or vegan or necessarily good if weight loss is your prime concern.

The recipes in Green Smoothies by Fern Green are all raw and full of vitamins and minerals. After each recipe the author highlights the benefits of the smoothie. I really liked the notes on the benefits, so when I drank a particular smoothie I knew whether it was immunizing, skin enhancing, detoxifying, blood nourishing, fat flushing or muscle and bone building. There are a total of 66 recipes in the book.

Impressed with all that the author had to say and the nutrients each smoothie of the 7-day detox would bring to my diet, I decided to give the detox try and tried 14 different recipes in the book over a span of a week. Some were less palatable, but not too bad that I had to struggle with them. Most of them tasted nice. And I liked the fact that I knew what each juice or smoothie was doing to my body.

If your goal is to include more smoothies in your life, or to strive for cleaner eating, or to include more nutrients in your diet I would highly recommend this book. The book releases on December 29th, 2015 and you can order it through Amazon by following this link.

I am sharing one of my favorite recipes from the book and the detox. The Beetroot Beauty. This was my breakfast on Day 6, and has half the recommended daily intake of vitamin C, while being fat flushing, detoxifying and skin cleansing.

Beetroot Beauty

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Total time

10 mins

 

A fat flushing, detoxifying and skin cleansing juice.

Author: adapted from the book Green Smoothies

Recipe type: Juice, raw, vegan

Serves: 1

Ingredients

• 1 pomegranate
• 2 beets
• a bunch of red grapes
• a squeeze of lemon

Instructions

1. Cut and deseed the pomegranate and juice it. Juice the rest of the ingredients except the lemon.
2. Squeeze in the lemon and stir. our juice is ready.

1. If you do not have a juicer, blend all the ingredients except the lemon juice in a blender. Once blended strain the mixture into a glass using either a very fine tea stainer or using nut milk bags. Add the juice to the strained juice. And drink

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So what’s my take on the detox?

I was surprised that how doable it was. I only really suffered on Day 2. Rest of the days were not too bad. By Day 6, I was kind of hoping that it would last a little longer, because I had no cravings to snack in between meals with chips or some chocolate chip cookies. And that felt nice. I do have a tendency to eat out of boredom. Our meals are pretty healthy otherwise, and I do like eating fruits and vegetables. Its the snacking because I have nothing else to do that spoils it for me. But being on the detox , I realized I can be fine without snacking. I was aware that snacking was more a want than a need but the whole detox kind of drove the point home; that even if I am not busy or am bored, I really don’t need a snack to make things more enjoyable.

Each day’s plan on the detox had one juice and one smoothie to drink. The juice taken everyday was about 10 ounces and the smoothies 24 ounces. We don’t have a juicer. We neither have the money to invest in one nor the space to keep one. For the juices, I just blended the ingredients in our Vitamix. The first two days I did not strain the blended ingredients for the juice and drank it like a smoothie. But since I was constipated on both days and the book does mention that the reason for juicing is that it makes it easy for the body to absorb the nutrients, and that’s why they are to be taken during the day in the plan, I started straining the morning smoothies to make juices. I used this Nut Milk Bag  that I found on Amazon and comes highly rated to strain the smoothies. With the help of the nut milk bag, I was able to juice the blended ingredients. I used the leftover pulp, to make indian flatbreads or paranthas for V and was happy that was no wastage. You can check this post to see how to use leftover pulp to make paranthas.

Here’s my day by day break down of the detox:

Day 1
Till the afternoon I was fine but then I opened instagram and was flooded with all christmas related food posts. Loving food means your instagram and facebook and twitter accounts are full of food related social media accounts. And that does not help. While I was physically showing no caffeine/sugar withdrawal symptoms during the day, my first night of sleep was horrible. The whole night while sleeping I felt a constant headache. It was also the first night we slept with our heater on and it could just be a case of dehydration or it could have been the withdrawal symptoms. I did feel thirsty a lot during the detox.

Day 2

Day 2 was my least favorite. The juices and smoothies were my least favorite. And I felt sick the whole day. There was a constant headache and fatigue and I wondered if I should continue. Wasn’t the detox supposed to make me feel good? This was nothing but good. Since I was feeling so weak, I cheated and ate 5 bites of the rice and chicken dinner I had made for V. I did read up later that initially when you do a detox, such symptoms are normal and one should not get disheartened and should continue on the detox.

Day 1 and 2 I was constipated, which is weird because I hardly ever have poop issues. I thought the smoothies with all their fibre would make me go, but there was no such luck. I am not sure why that was the case with me. I did try to research on it but found nothing substantial.

Day 3

This day started off better but since I was so beat on Day 2, I didn’t do the necessary shopping for my smoothies for the day and breakfast got delayed a bit. I felt a little dizzy on the way back from the grocery store. So I cheated again. I had a bite of V’s sandwich.I also experienced a mild headache throughout the day. Not as bad as Day 2, but not too great.

Beetroot Beauty Juice

The book does say to cut sugar and grains a week before you start your detox to smooth the cleanse. Next time I will heed that advice more seriously.

Day 4

This day was much better. I cheated with a chocolate truffle. V had got this box of truffles and kept raving how good it was. I got tempted.

Day 5

Day 5 started off rough because I had slept late and everyday since we both wake up at 5.30am, I ended up not getting enough sleep. Rest of the day though was fine. The biggest problem with a detox is that you miss out on flavors- herbs and spices. And of course warm food.

By day 5 it did become easier though. I was fine watching TV shows that showed cooking and not feeling hungry- of course feeling greedy is something I continued to feel.

Day 6 and Day 7

I was fine both these days. While I never had that hungry, not full feeling till Day 5, and felt satisfied with what I was drinking, Day 6 and 7 were different. By the evening I would feel hungry and felt the smoothies were not filling me up. Day 6 I slept early to avoid hunger pangs. And today is Day 7 and I had planned to do the same, but am finishing this post.

The Overall experience:

I ended up losing 4 kgs. But the detox was more than just the weight loss. It introduced me to many new veggies and leaves that I probably would never have experimented with otherwise. I woke up feeling light and not heavy every day. I realized I seriously do not need to snack to kill time.

My only advice to anybody doing a cleanse or detox- if you decide on a detox or cleanse, start eating responsibly at least a week before you decide to do one. It will help the transition and you might be better off with respect to withdrawal symptoms.

Disclaimer:

I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. 

Also, there are affiliate links in this post, which means that I may get a commission (albeit very tiny) if you decide to purchase anything from those links. I only recommend products that I use and love myself, so rest assured. Your support in purchasing through these links enables me to pay my grocery bills and keep dishing out recipes for you to keep this blog alive. Thank you.