Food fit for a viking - second edition

Right now I am spending time with my parents and sister and in the morning I am serving them a shot. Yes hardcore right :)  However, this shot is made of amazing leafy greens and fruits.

I am pretty sure I am shocking my parents on a regular basis nowadays with my healthy eating. I did not think shocking them was even possible after all my years on the road and the adventures I found myself in that they later learned about. But as a child, I did not eat my veggies. I basically did not eat anything. Food was a nuisance to me. I am making up for it now.

One of my favorite nutritionists is Kimberly Snyder. She works with a lot of celebrities and although that does not impress me too much, her celebrity clientele gave her exposure and I “found her." She has a Glowing Green Smoothie recipe that is the bomb. However, I like breakfast. As in eating my breakfast and not just drinking it. In Sweden it’s customary to eat open faced sandwiches for breakfast. So I have this smoothie as a shot. A large shot. I drink it first thing in the morning as you should always eat fruit on an empty stomach. This shot gives me some veggies and fruit and if I mess up my eating later that day, at least I know I have had some goodies in my system. Because I can eat. I eat healthy, but boy do I love food! Her recipe is as follows, but as with all my cooking, I am freestylin (and this has good results and disastrous results) with the quantities. And if you cant get your hands on or don't want to spend the money on organic produce, at least not initially, don't sweat it, use regular produce. I make a batch and keep it in the fridge. Each batch lasts for at least 2 days chilled.

• 1½-2 cups (360-480 ml) water
• ¾ pound (340 g) organic romaine lettuce, rough chopped, about 1 head
• ½ head large bunch or ¾ small bunch organic spinach
• 3-4 organic celery stalks, halved
• 1 organic apple, cored, seeded, quartered
• 1 organic pear, cored, seeded, quartered
• 1 organic banana, peeled
• ½ fresh organic lemon, peeled, seeded
• organic cilantro with stems (optional)
• organic parsley with stems (optional)

Chop it all up and blend away! If you can invest in a good blender it's great! Its awful trying to get into a good habit if you find yourself cursing over bad kitchen equipment that may not blend well and is hard to clean.

Recipe from http://kimberlysnyder.net/blog/ggs/

I believe in eating/drinking your vitamins and minerals when you can. That said, I used to take a whole lot of supplements. Because I have a lot of friends that are personal trainers/nutritionists etc and they love to use me as a guinea pig and see what changes we can do to my body.  I used to take so many supplements that friends asked me if I was terminally ill after they looked in my kitchen cabinets. So I had to scale back, but I did not remove all of them.

I know its been fashionable for quite a while in fitness circles to drink green smoothies. But not all of them are tasty and if they taste like grass clippings from your yard, you will probably not keep drinking it. Because this smoothie has a lot of fruit in it, it’s sweet and easy to drink. I also make smoothies with more veggies and that takes more determination to down. Some people have asked if I like juicing. Sure. But I prefer smoothies as its using all of the veggies and fruit, and you don’t get the issue of disposing of waste. You also get the benefit of the added fiber in your drink.

First it may seem a bit expensive to spend so much money on fruit and veggies as it takes quite a lot of produce to make a rather small amount of liquid. But trust me, your health will thank you.  And wannabe supermodels, this is better than spending money on expensive face creams. This is good for skin, energy level and digestive system to name a few things. Even the actual chopping can be beneficial to you health. I feel like I am doing something good for myself when I do this. Okay, this is a bit "hippe", but try to be present when you chop. If you cant feel the calmness of the act of doing something good, at least you wont cut your fingers off so its a win-win either way.

My family eats healthy, but I love that I can sneak in some adjustments to their dietary habits. Seriously, no one saw this coming, but it’s a testament to the fact that people can change.

Over and out! :)