Veggies - in a smoothie???

(Originally posted by Jana)

I don’t know if you all get the RealAge emails, but if you don’t, head to their site and sign up.  There are lots of good health and diet tips (though I don’t always agree with some of their recommendations).  Anyway, last week sometime I got one that talked about increasing protection from pancreatic cancer by eating 9 servings of veggies a day.  My husband’s father died of pancreatic cancer when he was the same age as my husband will be this year.  So I’m obviously anxious to do whatever we can preventatively.  But get him to eat nine servings of veg a day?  It seemed unrealistic.

We also just bought a new blender, however, that makes really nice smoothies.  He’s been making a fruit smoothie every night for a month (again, because I told him he doesn’t eat enough fruit).  He said, “How about adding veggies to the smoothie?”  Um, okay, hun, whatever.  But you know what?  They’re good!  Even the kids like them!  So, here’s the formula we’ve come up with:

Veggie Smoothies

• 3 cups prepared Crystal Light or similar drink mix (we like lemonade, apple, or orange best) - this would also work with Kool-Aid prepared with your choice of sweetener
• 1 cup frozen strawberries
• 1/2 cup frozen veggies (we have tried broccoli and we’ve tried carrots - both excellent)

Blend 3-4 minutes until very smooth.  This makes 2-4 servings, depending on how much you can drink at one time!  Next, I’m thinking Brussels sprouts.  I’ll let you know how that works.