Green Smoothies in India

Gee I never realised that i would miss my green smoothie as much as I did. It went something like this. Before we left for India I had to consider just how I would make a green smoothie without my Hi-Blend or my Vitamix super blender. We were going to be away for the whole month and I knew without any doubt that it would be difficult to survive without my Green Smoothie for all that time. First was how to replace the super blender to produce something that would resemble a Green Smoothie I also knew that I could Never achieve the level of creaminess of my regular smoothie but that was still an acceptable compromise. I did a test drive on various stick and personal blenders and finally settled on taking a powerful 400 watt stick blender and a seed grinder to pre-grind the seeds and nuts.

The smoothie package looked like this:

A pack each of almonds, cashews, macadamia, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds.
Barley green powder, raw cacao powder, hemp seed powder, and maca powder that I decanted into enough single smoothie packs for the anticipatednumber of smoothies that I could make.
A packet of dehydrated kale in case of emergency where I could not get any greens.
A sharp knife (had to remember to put it into the suitcase going into the hold otherwise it would be confiscated, just like another 2 pen knives that I forgot to transfer).

We stayed in Mumbai one night so breakfast was a milky tea and a rubbery parathas. The next breakfast was in Delhi where the selection for breakfast was sweet milky tea, porridge and milk, toast and butter or toast and jam. Mmmm, to eat or not to eat, that was the question. I chose the toast and jam and tea.  I am a firm believer that the benefit or the detrimental effect of what we eat relates to our state of mind and intention, so, being wheat and dairy intolerant, I had the choice of focusing on the problems of the wheat bread and the dairy in the tea or to see it as great food that my body would lovingly accept to nourish me and remove the pangs of hunger. So, before taking the first bite, I waved my hands over the toast and said “Green Smoothie, Green Smoothie”. This was a bit like looking for a miracle similar to Aladdin saying A b r a c a d a b r a!

Our next breakfast offering was a simple Indian breakfast of wheat porridge, buffalo milk, brown sugar, toast, butter and jam. It was now 3 days without a Green Smoothie and I was beginning to have withdrawal symptoms. I had managed to accumulate a bit of fruit so was contented with a fruit , nut and seed smoothie knowing that I would be into my greens Very soon.

DAY 4 A Green Smoothie at last! We found green leaves in abundance and the limited variety of fruit was fresh and of good quality so we made some simple Green Smoothie combinations such as:

Pawpaw, Banana, Naartjie, Apple, Lime, seeds and nuts and one of the additives and a load of spinach leaves. It was pure heaven! For 6 days we delighted in a big jug of Green Smoothie where flavours were altered by increasing and reducing the quantities of fruit and the variety of additives

DAY 10 The train journey to Delhi certainly did not offer Smoothies in the menu and no, please don’t ask me what we had for breakfast.

Day 11 Another bread and jam and milky tea which means another day without a Green Smoothie and more Abracadabra

DAY 12 The first day at the Ayruvedic Centre and guess what? Not even an Ayruvedic Smoothie for breakfast. Well that didn’t last long, I quickly convinced the Doctor that I REALLY needed Green Smoothies

DAY 13 Request for green leaves were met with general confusion about what I was looking for. The kitchen manager agreed to go and bring back green leaves from the market. Based on this, we enjoyed a fruit smoothie, upgraded with some raw cacoa, seeds and nuts.

DAY 14 To my absolute amazement the trip to the market proved unsuccessful. Can you imagine no green leaves! I mean absolutely No Green Leaves!! After some investigation I established that the Indians in the province of Kerela do not eat green leaves. So, what now? How do you make a Green Smoothie without green leaves? Oh yes! I remembered that in my bag of tricks was a bag of dehydrated kale – not truly a green smoothie because quantities were limited and these had to serve my salad upgrades too.

DAY 15 Today I added some Barley Life to the smoothie which gave it a definite green tinge. It wasn’t really a Green Smoothie, but that green tinge just made me feel better.

DAY 16 Great excitement today! I established that the leaves from the ‘drumstick’ tree are edible so guess what? Today I was in celebration, the first Green Smoothie in 5 days. Mmmm, it looked like a green smoothie and tasted like one – Just So Delicious. How can I explain the passion.

DAY 17 Another delicious drumstick smoothie. And I am told that drumstick leaves are very nutritious.

DAY 18 What a shock! Today my Ayruvedic detox started in ernest and Green Smoothies were no longer on the menu.

DAY 19-26 NO GREEN SMOOTHIES – Say no more!

DAY 27 Intense persuasion convinced the Doctor that I Really needed to get back to Green Smoothies so this morning I found some more drumstick leaves and savoured my first Green Smoothie in 9 days AND today we took an auto-rickshaw to the nearest town of Kottayam and low and behold, in a little vegetable shop I found and bought a bunch of one of two bunches of green leaves.

DAYS 28-32 We enjoyed not only Green Smoothies with green leaves
and our usual additives but now we had a Kerela
touch to things with the addition of what is known as tender coconut.
Oh, it’s great to be back home with my Vitamix Super Blender and enough home grown greens to make all the smoothies I like.

If you have any stories of passion about your green smoothies please share them, we would love to hear them.

Tomato Ice Cream

Here is Vita-Mix’s Tomato Ice Cream Recipe

Measures and terms have been changed to suit local lingo.

Tomato Ice Cream

2 cups (480 mL) ripe tomatoes, quartered 1/2 cup (120 mL) sugar, or other sweetener 1/2 teaspoon (3 mL) pure vanilla extract 1/2 cup (120 mL) nonfat dry milk (soy or othre milk may be substituted – CET)

2 cups (480 mL) low fat milk cubes 3 cups (720 mL) ice cubes (soy or othre milk may be substituted – CET)

Place all the ingredients in the Vita-Mix jug in order listed
Secure the 2-part lid and Insert tamper through lid. Select VARIABLE speed #1. Turn on machine and quickly increase speed to #10; then to HIGH. If necessary, use tamper to push ingredients into blades while the Vita-Mix is running.
In about 30 seconds, test the “stiffness” of the ice cream. If it will stand up in a cup like soft serve ice cream, it is frozen and should be served immediately. If it has the consistency of a milk shake, quickly add one more cup of frozen cubes. Blend for 5 seconds and serve. Makes about 5 cups.

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The Vitamix Tomato Ice Cream Story

It all started at the beginning of 1995.  We were keen organic vegetables growers, ran courses in growing vegetables organically and manufactured and supplied a start to finish organic vegetable growing system for the home gardener. To beef up my knowledge I subscribed to the American organic gardening magazine and became more and more intrigued with the advert about making tomato ice cream with a Vitamix blender. Following their offers in the advert I requested a 20 Page brochure! Who offered such huge brochures – Vita-Mix!

Not long after we had received our Vitamix I concluded that this would be a superb product to import. Importing was a lifelong dream of mine and so in October 1995 the first shipment of Vitamix Super Blenders arrived.

Now Vita-Mix Corp are a real conservative family-run organisation and so change does not come easy. It was about the time that Healthmakers became one of Vita-Mix’s first international dealers – I think Australia and Healthmakers started in the same year – open to correction – that Vita-Mix had just launched their Total Nutrition Center. This was a HUGE move from the Vita-Mix 4000. It had a stainless steel jug with a tap, so a move to a clear polycarbonate container  and a light white base was quite something.

So, it is now 15 years later and Vita-Mix have taken the plunge and upgraded the existing machine. The ‘New’ model 5200 is not characterised by a touch pad and anything digital. It remains the same basic machine with two switches and a dial – On and Off, High and Variable, and the Variable dial. It seems that at the end of the day the product is well proven and highly dependable. Vita-Mix Corp. obviously looked at where improvements could be made and ended up by launching the 5200 model with a quieter Swedish designed motor, an Eastman Tritan™ copolyester jug that is BpA free to replace the now less popular polycarbonate, a soft-grip handle to improve operation comfort, an easy-off lid to replace the more difficult to remove rubber lid and finally a slight design change to the jug itself to avoid that inevitable drip every time you put the jug down.  Well, it might not sound like much but when you have such an amazing product that, although it might still look a bit old fashioned, REALLY does the job like no other. There is, for me, just nothing to beat the experience of making, and the pleasure of drinking a completely wholefood (meaning, fruits with seeds, and skins, adding nuts and seeds and loads of greens) creamy smoothie made with a Vita-Mix. I’m a Vitamix fan!

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