Healthy Drinks | The Holistic Kitchen

Ensure If you’ve read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, per my recommendation or otherwise, you’ll know this about what is considered FOOD:

Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
Don’t eat anything incapable of rotting.
Avoid "food products" that are

a. Unfamiliar

b. Unpronounceable

c. Contain more than five ingredients or

d. Contain high fructose corn syrup

I strongly support all of these statements by Mr. Pollan and would like to point out that many “Medical Foods” prescribed for gravely ill patients or those battling life threatening diseases don’t satisfy one of Mr. Pollan’s well researched criteria of what food is.

These so called Medical Foods will indeed provide calories, but these “non-foods” as Mr. Pollan would call them, are in large part responsible for our state of disease in the first place!

Calories from Medical Food may keep us alive a little longer, but what is absolutely needed to heal and thrive is the complex nutrition that only WHOLE FOODS can provide.

If you or a loved one has been prescribed this type of liquid nutrition for medical reasons, please PLEASE, research your (whole food) options. Visit The Holistic Kitchen.com for ideas. Send us questions. Read our post entitled Making the Most of a Smoothie.

Here’s to your health!

Chef Nancy

The great thing about liquid nutrition is that you can blend in all sorts of crazy nourishing things and still feel like you’re drinking a fun treat! If you pack a lot of nutrition in, a little bit can be very sustaining for one whose appetite is compromised. AND it allows you to take advantage of raw foods that are easily digested and available for the body to put to work, right away.

The trick is in the equipment, from the blender to the glass you serve it in.

I love the Vita Mix blender. It will completely puree whole foods to smooth as silk, without having to remove the skin or fibrous parts. You get everything nature intended using a Vita Mix blender.

For example, place a cup of water and 1/4 cup of almonds in a Vita Mix and in about a minute, you have your own homemade almond milk. Now add one half of a washed, organic apple (remove stem and quarter it first, but definitely use the core). Blend it up! Let’s get some green protein in there – how about a generous handful of organic, washed baby spinach. Toss in a teaspoon of bee pollen or royal jelly for a protein boost that offers B-12 too.

“But wait, that’s not all!” Don’t forget a heaping scoop of your favorite Micro Algae blend (I like the Green Vibrance powder from Vibrant Health – it is loaded with micro algae, probiotics, and enzymes, to name a few, and all from whole foods).

And then, some Omega 3 fatty acids: 1 tablespoon of whole flax seeds. Need to add some weight to your skeleton? Add ½ an avocado and/or a tablespoon of organic coconut butter or cold pressed virgin coconut oil. A note about these last three alternatives: The avocado will add creaminess and may increase the thickness of the drink, so you may need to add more water. The coconut butter or oil may harden if chilled from ice cubes or frozen fruit, but the Vita Mix action will warm it.)

Okay, so now we have to make it TASTE GOOD and get some colorful items for a balance of nutrients and antioxidants. I happen to prefer raspberries, myself, but you can put your favorite colorful berries in – fresh or frozen (just be sure they are organic). The berries will add some sweetness, but you may want more. You can try a 1-2 drops of liquid Stevia (a tiny bit goes a loooong way!) or a squirt of organic raw Agave nectar.

Once you have perfected your blend, transfer it to a beautiful glass and viola! A frothy treat that is meal in a glass.

Have fun experimenting with the fruits and vegetables you use. Mix them up (ha!) so you are getting a wide array of all the vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients. Think of trying to achieve a rainbow of nutrition throughout your day.

Happy blending!

Chef Nancy

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