Behold the next evolution in smoothie technology…the Elixir!
In these modern times in which we live, nutritional problems run rampant. Despite regular eating, mal nutrition is wide spread in our western society. Soil depletion, pesticide and other toxic chemical sprays, over cooking and pasteurizing, and GMO’s have left mankind at a terrible disadvantage. If the human body does not get balanced nutrition, how can you expect it to feel good? How can you expect it to work properly? How can you expect it to fight off disease? How can you expect the brain to think clearly?
My answer to these problems is raw foods and my method of choice is to blend them up into a liquid.
By blending foods up into a liquid one can balance a concentration of the foods that taste ‘bad’ with the foods that taste ‘good.’ With experience you will learn what combinations and proportions make for the best drinks. In this way you can mix some fresh or powdered green vegetables in without it ruining the flavor of the drink. Also since the food is raw, none of its molecules are denatured or destroyed by heat or pressure and because it is in liquid form you will be able to digest it quickly and easily.
Note: Please support Organic farming and agriculture as well as your own health by buying organic foods. In a capitalist society we vote by what we buy. Every time someone buys a GMO food over an organic one they are effectively voting for pesticides over natural food. Let’s vote for the good stuff not the bad. There are many natural methods and technologies that farmers can use to ward off pests from their gardens. I will elaborate on this in a later blog.
Getting back to the point, I’d like to share with you some different ways that you can get a healthy blend of organic nutrients into your body so you can revitalize and regenerate the body.
Types of Liquid Nutrition:
- Juices
- Smoothies
- Seed and Nut milks (hopefully soaked)
- Steeped Teas
- Decoctions
- And ELIXERS!
Juices: Everyone knows about juice. It’s all around you when you walk into a supermarket. But are these juices …really juices? One look at the ingredients will tell you. One should always always always check the ingredient lists on food products. Does watered down, pasteurized, fruit concentrate with corn syrup sound like juice to you? It doesn’t sound like juice to me. So I will explain what a juice is so that EVERYONE can be 100% clear on this. A juice needs no ingredient list because it's just a bunch of fruits or vegetables thrown into a juicer and what comes out, you drink. The only problem with juice is that it can take a mound of fruits or an even bigger mound of vegetables to make. This can get expensive. So I view juices as supplements since they are so highly concentrated. To drink a tall glass of Orange juice can be like drinking the liquid nutrients of 3 or 4 oranges! When do you ever sit down and eat 3 or 4 oranges? I never do. But you can drink that much and still have an appetite left for a meal. Crazy. To make my money go the distance I use fruit and vegetable juices as an added liquid base for fruit or green smoothies, liquid salads or cold soups.
Smoothies: I honestly have no idea where this term originated from. All I know is that smoothies are bomb! A smoothie can be thick, thin, icy, or if you’re into dairy, can be turned into more of a shake. Mix up your favorite fresh or frozen fruits and berries with some good water or coconut water and you’re good to go. I personally like to take my smoothies to the next level though. How do I do it? By being a food warrior. I like to mix soaked nuts and seeds, powdered supplements, bee products, herbs, and even vegetables up to make profoundly nutritive drinks. Revitalize yourself with fruits, regenerate and heal yourself with vegetables and boost up with good quality supplements.
Soaked Seed and Nut Milks: These are thick milky liquids that you make by blending nuts or seeds with water or coconut water together in a blender. After a mixture is thoroughly blended, pour and strain it through cheese cloth to remove any leftover chunks or fibrous particles. The result is a delicious nutty beverage, (or seedy one). You can get creative by blending in things like pitted dates to add more hardiness and enhanced flavor.
Something to keep in mind is the practice of soaking your nuts and seeds. Most nuts/seeds are covered with enzyme inhibitors. This means that your own digestive enzymes are inhibited from being able to break the nuts or seeds down, making them terribly hard to digest and therefore significantly less bio-available. Also when you soak nuts/seeds long enough they will begin to sprout which means that they have become more bio-active with enzymes. This makes them even easier to digest. Eating foods that are rich with digestive enzymes leaves your body the freedom to use its own for the thousands of other bio-chemical reactions that it needs them for. Remember, our bodies produce a finite amount of enzymes in our life. One to three days after we've produced our last enzyme, as it has been proven, you will be dead.
Steeped Teas: Teas are warm liquids made by softening and extracting the nutrients from herbs via simmering water. I LOVE TEAS because you can mix so many different types of herbs together to make different healing concoctions. There’s an herbs for almost every ailment out there so do your homework and think about incorporating some into your diet. One of my favorite combinations is Jasmine and Pau d’Arco.
Decoctions: A decoction is very similar to a tea. The difference is that decoctions are usually made harder or generally crude materials that require long boiling in order to extract their essence. Two examples that would require decocting would be roots and Chaga mushrooms.
Elixirs: The traditional definition of an elixir is a sweetened or aromatic liquid with a combination of alcohol, water and medicinal compounds.
Throw out the alcohol and you’re left with a more natural version of the same thing. My all time favorite way to make an elixir is to steep a medicinal or tonic healing tea, combine it with a nut or seed milk and then blend it up with other smoothie ingredients that you think should match in flavor. What you end up with is a warm, frothy, comforting, super nutritive beverage that is so satiating with healthy fats, carbs and proteins that it can more than replace a solid meal. Eating your meals in this way makes them easier and quicker to digest and rests much more lightly in the stomach so that you aren't weighed down when you want to be active. Like if you want to take a hike for instance.
Free Elixir Recipe!!!!!!
The Winter Siege Drink:
1) 2 cups tea consisting of: (measurements are for 2 cups of tea total)
- small pinch of Basil
- 1/2 tsp of lavender pedals
- pinch of Pau d’Arco bark. (strain the material out at the end)
2) 1 and 1/2 cup Almond nut milk
3) 1/2 of a Banana
4) ½ Tbsp raw honey (or a ½ tsp of green Stevia powder)
5) 1 Tbsp Coconut oil/butter
6) 1 tsp Spirulina
7) ½ tsp powdered Kelp
I will make a list of all of my favorite supplement and herbal ingredients in a later post along with descriptions of their health benefits.
Until then I wish you all the best of the best every day and in every way.
Sincerely Siege