Recently I participated in a bike ride sponsored by the Austin chapter of Organic Athlete to visit various vegan restaurants around town.  One of the stops was at a new place called Beets, located on 5th St near Mopac.  Beets was offering the cyclists discounted smoothies, and so I tried one that was made of blueberries, orange, and either spinach or kale (I forget now which).

Almost 20 years ago, I embarked on a mission to become an expert juicer.  I read Juicing for Life, got myself a juicer, and started juicing like crazy.  I tried all kinds of combinations, including recipes that were supposedly tried and true winners.  Frankly, I found most of them disgusting, and dealing with the juicer was a big hassle (cleaning too for-ev-er).  Didn’t take long for me to abandon juicing in spite of the nutritional benefits.

Fast forward to the blueberry-orange-green smoothie.  I was skeptical, but willing to try it.  Lo and behold, it was pretty good, actually.  Even my daughter said it was “okay,” knowing that it had lots of greens in it.

I went back to Beets a few days ago and had another smoothie: the tropical green.  It was bright green, and again, I was skeptical, “knowing” it was going to taste just like ground up greens like back in the juicing days.  Wrong. Tasted like mangos and bananas!  Delicious.  Amazing.  Not just “okay” but rocking!

At the restaurant, they had for sale a book called the Green Smoothie Revolution, by Victoria Boutenko, which I picked up to give me some ideas.  It is chock-full of green smoothie recipes, and so far I am 2 for 2 from that book and looking forward to trying more.

I’ve put in an order for a Vita-Mix (heavy duty) blender based on several recommendations, so I’ll report on that when it comes in.  I’m told that using the Vita-Mix versus a regular blender is like day versus night, and that it is worth its weight in gold, so we’ll see…