Smoothies, A Year Later

It has been over a year since we bought the Blendtec Blendor and started making our own smoothies every morning. After attending a Qigong Event put on by Jeff Primack, we decided to give this a try. (see post on Food Based Healing and Smoothies).

To be honest, I was not sure what to expect. We weren't trying it because we needed to solve some health problem or disease. If anything, we wanted to work on better digestion and better overall nutrition for ourselves.

While I know there are many claims made and many recipes given for the smoothies that state they are for all types of health conditions, I have no way to prove this one way or the other. So for the people that want definite proof of what these will and will not do, I can not give that to you. If you are looking for someone that is going to call this a fraud, you will not find that here either. I'm just stating my review of what this has done for us and why we chose to do this.

First off, regardless if I can prove what phytochemicals are in a smoothie, I am smart enough to realize that eating fresh, raw vegetables and fruits is one of the best things you could do for your body in a day. What better way to get much needed nutrients into your body without processing the ingredients and cooking or freezing them. Just how many of us would sit there in a day and eat this quantity of vegetables and fruits complete with the skin and seeds. I doubt very few of us would do this. So regardless of what anyone may think of the science behind this, it seems like a very healthy thing to do. So much food that we consume in a day is frozen, cooked and processed that by the time we eat it, there is little value left to what we consume.

Second, his claim about helping and improving digestion is right on. I can completely agree with him on how it does this and it makes a world of difference in how my body physically feels. I did not realize this until we started on the smoothies and while stress, anxiety and other factors may impact digestion, the smoothies do help.

Third, since we've been doing this, we do not get sick with flu/colds like we did. We never really got sick that much before but usually once a year, we would get a cold or flu. Sometimes we feel like we may be picking up some bug that is circulating around the community but it doesn't get that severe nor does it pull us under. I've actually found that if I am feeling a little under the weather and I drink a little more of the smoothie, that the symptoms go away much quicker. It is like a major pick me up for my immune system or that's how it feels. Most likely, we were all taught growing up that if we eat our vegetables and fruits, that we will be more healthy so it stands to reason that this would be the case. Again, I'm just trying to apply common sense here.

Fourth, is that I've been noticing how my tastes for various foods are beginning to change. Things that I once craved are no longer something that I have to have. Foods that I never really cared much for are beginning to taste differently to me and attract my attention. I'm finding that overall, foods have much more taste and flavor in them then they once did and that I'm choosing more wisely what I eat.

Fifth, there are some of the vegetables that we would never eat in a day that have significant health benefits for a body. We just don't care for the taste of them by themselves but when they are mixed together in the smoothies, it is fine. Granted, some days the smoothie tastes different than others, but overall, we have no problem drinking it every day. At points, I've wanted to take a break from it for a few days and so I listened to my body and did that. After a few days away, I'm more than ready to start it up again.

There are many health drinks, health pills, juice products out there today and while I know people make claims of the analysis and research, I have to question them. Anything that is processed in my view and opinion has already lost part of the battle for me. Plus, many of these so called "health drinks and nutritious products" will drain your wallet quickly. Someone is getting wealthy from them and often it is the company that makes the products. Many of these companies employ a multi-level marketing (MLM) to help push their product and so income becomes the reason for people to get you to try this. Yes, I understand that it is cloaked in the benefit to the person, but if they weren't getting a commission from it, would they still be pushing the product as hard? I remember a couple of these products where someone hounded me to buy it so badly that it got to the point where I wanted nothing to do with the person. Telling them no, meant nothing. It was almost as if a used car salesman was trying to sell me a car I didn't want.

The best thing with these smoothies is that we can go down to our local grocery store and buy everything we need. It isn't like we are having to make special orders to any particular company and attempting to earn commissions in the process. In fact, we could grow everything in our garden if we so desired which would be the best way. After all, why should you have to pay outrageous prices to drink or eat something that claims to make you healthy and cure all. That sounds a little too far fetched for this brain to agree with.

I see the ads on TV for the yogurt based products you can buy that claim to regulate your digestion in so many days. Of course, I'm sure they have extra sugar in them and they are processed foods. It is advertising and marketing to sell a product but in the end, one has to use common sense as to what they are eating and what they are buying into. With the smoothies, you don't add sugar and outside of blending them for a couple of minutes, there is no processing to them. There is no packaging to throw away either by doing the smoothies like there is when you buy these products from the store. So, in a small way, you are helping the environment rather than adding to the problem.

I just want to say that I don't get paid a thing in writing this blog post. I'm not earning a commission or selling anything. All I'm doing is telling you about something we do and we have seen a positive benefit to it, so we have kept it up. When we started it, we weren't sure if we would keep doing it forever but now it is part of our morning routine. We've worked the process out so that it is not a difficult thing to do every day. The BlendTec blender we bought is still going strong and we actually use it to make regular fruit smoothies and homemade peanut butter. The cost of the Blender was quite high at the beginning but seeing how it has performed makes us happy we purchased this and didn't attempt to buy some other brand.

So at the end of the day, each person of course has to decide what is best for them to do. No one size fits everyone. I'm telling you my personal views and opinions as I review what this has done for us. Some people are concerned if Jeff Primack is a fraud but to be honest, it is like everything that you hear - learn from the people, take that which works for you and keep everything in perspective. Not everything you hear is completely thought out at times and not everything you hear is a fraud. What Jeff Primack shared in the Qigong Seminar has worked for us and we'll continue to do it. Outside of that, it is up to you to evaluate what effects it may have upon your life. I was happy to see that Jeff Primack was very careful about the claims he made and how he was really trying to apply common sense to what he was saying.

If you have been doing the food based healing smoothies, please feel free to leave your stories of how it helped or how it didn't help you. I'd love to hear them and I'm sure others would to. Of course if the comments are meant in a mean spirited way, they most likely will not get posted. If it is respectful comments that are balanced, than most of the time, they are posted to the blog.

For Further Reading: Food Based Healing Smoothies

*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

Food Based Healing & Smoothies

In May, I went to a Qigong Seminar at the Orlando Convention Center put on by Jeff Primack from the Supreme Science Qigong Center. It was a great seminar and one particular part of it was about food based healing. I will be honest in saying that sometimes I'm a little skeptical about these food based healing/nutritional programs. There are just too many out there claiming that their nutrition concepts and their products are by far the best thing since oxygen was created. With that said, this presentation was not "radical" statements but more down to earth, logically conceived thoughts. So it had my attention. We had considered "juicing" and "juice plus" and the "green drink" before this but were not completely sold on the concept of these things. Plus they were processed products being sold by some company that was getting rich off the concept. I really have a problem with that when it comes to my health.

If you go to qigong.com you will see much of the information that he presented in the seminar on this topic. In a nutshell, it is taking vegetables, fruits and herbs with the use of a high powered 3 hp blender to make smoothies. As he explained, this is not the same thing as juicing or taking supplements or other products. By using raw vegetables, fruits and herbs intact, you get the most benefit because of the phytochemicals that are located within the skins, stems, seeds, etc. The parts that most in our society discard as waste is where the true health benefits of these food items are located. Juicing removes these things and so while you are getting fresh juice, you're missing out on some of the greatest naturally occurring compounds for healthy living. Even all of these supplements, health candies and foods and all the other products on the market, do not have what you can find in raw foods. Processing does nothing positive to foods and so with the 3 hp blender, you're able to keep the foods intact but masticated enough where your body can easily and quickly digest them. I know I'm glossing over the fine details here but if you go to the link at the beginning of the paragraph, you'll see the details behind what I'm saying.

One of the biggest things that got everyone's attention towards the end and had people hysterically laughing was when he said if you do the smoothies every day, you will have big bowel movements (increased digestion). Amongst the gasps in the audience, he assured people that this was a good thing because it removes toxins from our body. Someone asked him how long that took, and he said when he first started doing the smoothies, it was the very next day. We found the same to be true basically. You do not necessarily need to go out and purchase things like Activia to do what natural foods from the grocery store can do for you.

Another thing he shared was that in his smoothie recipe book, there are many recipes that help people recover from all kinds of health conditions. Not only does it help but many people have reversed cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, and so on. I have no way to prove that but he has stated that many people have shared with him how the smoothies not only helped them but it reversed these serious conditions.

The thing I like about this is I am not buying some supplement that has been processed from someone that is getting rich from me. There is just too much of that out there and every time I see it, my eyebrows raise a few feet in the air. There are many claims made and there are many getting rich off of those claims. I have tried these things too and again, I'll just ask that you really and truly consider the "marketing" of these so called cures.

The smoothies are simple. It is pretty simple to cut things up and prepare. We use a recipe that is just for general health and includes the following items - cucumber, avocado, beet, fuji apple, corn, strawberries, lime, cilantro, rosemary, basil, mint, Goji berries, distilled water. Of course if you want the exact amounts, the recipe and more information can be found in the Smoothie Formulas book by Jeff Primack. Almost all of these products we buy in our local grocery store so it isn't like we have to purchase anything real expensive from any one person. The Goji berries are the only thing we have to go to a health store to buy.

Like I said, it isn't easy to prepare this and only takes a few minutes. We purchased the Blendtec 3 hp blender which isn't cheap but it grinds all of this up into a smoothie. Most regular blenders just wouldn't have the power to do that. We drink around 20 ounces of it a day or sometimes more depending upon the quantity made that day.

When we considered doing this, I thought I was going to not want to eat anything else after drinking that much smoothie. I was surprised that within a short time, I am hungry and have a strong desire to eat. This may be due to the fact that the food is so highly digestible in this state that the body absorbs it quickly.

If you do these smoothies, you won't be disappointed and it will not take long for you to see the results. Plus, there is no way I would normally eat all of these ingredients every day. I had never eaten beets or avocados before in my life. The herbs, especially the mint, helps give it a good flavor along with the strawberries. We're learning how to make it so that it tastes a little better to us as well but it has become part of our daily routine.

So, don't just take my word for it that it has helped the both of us greatly, but check it out and read more about it. And if you are wanting to enhance the health of your life, try it out for yourself and see if you don't see the benefits from it!

And NO, I do not make one cent on recommending this or writing this post. I am just doing it because we are pleased with the results. In fact, we purchased our blender directly through the online Target store website and got it a little cheaper plus had free shipping. I would recommend though that you purchase the smoothie recipe book or other information he has so you'll understand what you are doing better.

Just a final side note - the blender for this works in making all kinds of things. It is so simple to use, clean and it will blend anything together you put in it. It is an amazing blender!

For Further Reading: Smoothies, A Year Later