So maybe this smoothie is not a “people eater” per se, but it is purple and it is delicious so I think you need to make this green (err purple) smoothie recipe so you can become a purple smoothie eater! “Purple People Eater” is just a silly song from the late 1950’s about a monster that comes to earth because he wants to be in a rock band. He happens to have only one eye and one horn as and he apparently only eats purple people, so most of us should be ok… I said should… if you drink a lot of this smoothie there’s no guarantee that might not turn purple! Just sayin. I warned ya…
I like to keep my green smoothie recipes fairly simple, so bananas are a very common choice as a base flavour and natural sweetener for my green smoothies. Next I like to throw in some ripe mangoes if I have it (or frozen if I don’t). Make sure your mangoes are soft to the touch like a ripe avocado and the skin will be slightly wrinkled. Ripe mangoes should smell fragrant and have a dark yellow or yellow/orange flesh on the inside. If your mango is still firm, not very fragrant and pale yellow and too tart when you cut it open, it’s not ripe enough yet. It’s not a bad mango, you just didn’t let it ripen and let those enzymes do their job and create the natural sugars that make fruit sweet when ripe.
Baby spinach is a really easy addition to any green smoothie recipe, and if you don’t have any other greens to work with I suggest to start with that or even some leaf lettuce. Swiss chard is a great green to use in smoothies as it’s generally fairly available at the grocery store or farmers markets. If not you can easily grow it at home. It comes in green, red and rainbow coloured stems, any kind will do for a green smoothie. You can either just use the green portion or blend the stalk and the green. The stalks are actually really tasty steamed if you want to save them as well or add them to a fresh stir fry.
One of the best parts about a purple green smoothie is that it looks fairly similar to store made smoothies and no one will know you put some greens in there. So it’s good to give to children or your spouse and they won’t be as likely to turn their nose up to it on account of it being green and looking like a swap smoothie. But you never know, green smoothies are fairly popular, even trendy nowadays and many people who aren’t even into raw or vegan foods are making green smoothies and throwing things like green vegetables into their blenders assuming that will do the trick…
By the way I don’t recommend you throw anything like a bunch of broccoli or really strong cruciferous vegetables (Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower etc) into your green (fruit) smoothie either. They contain sulfur and can be pretty strong and untasty in combination with sweet fruits. Save those veggies for blended soups or raw vegan blended salads or savory smoothies and mask the taste of them with a combo of tomatoes, cucumbers and mangoes (or dates) and this will mellow out the flavour.
Greens like Swiss chard and kale can still get by in smoothies without being too overpowering or strong if you use them in moderation. I would start with 1 leaf (stalk removed) if you’re new to green smoothies and blend it with the rest of the fruit and taste test it before deciding to experiment with more. Even myself I don’t really like more than 2 large leaves of chard or kale in my smoothies as they can add a stronger flavour and some grittiness to it. Baby spinach can always be added as it barely affects the taste of a green smoothie, so that’s why I’m throwing it into the mix as well.
Purple People Eater Green Smoothie
Serves 1-2
Ingredients:
2 ripe spotted bananas
1 ripe mango (flesh only) (about 1 cup)
1 handful of baby spinach
1-2 leaves of Swiss chard (stalks optional)
3/4 cup fresh or frozen blackberries
1/2 cup of water (or more to blend as desired)
Directions:
Place ingredients into Vitamix or blender in order above using the tamper if necessary and blend. If you have a low powered blender you may want to blend the bananas and water first, then add the mango and blend, then add the spinach and blend and so on so that each item is incorporated in the smoothie. Add more water if necessary for your type of blender.
Additional Tips:
To make this smoothie nice and cool you can use frozen blackberries and frozen mango or substitute one fresh banana for a ripe frozen one.
Have you ever used Swiss chard in a smoothie? What combination did you use?
Hi Veronica
Thank you for the purple greenie, I will try
this one too.
I have made drinks with Swiss Chard and
the taste is great as with other greens.
I use at least 3 bananas and another sweet
fruit and sometimes with a few soaked dates.
It is cold and rainy in NZ and tomorrow is the
shortest day.
I have a thermos filled with a greenie at my desk
at work and I keep wanting to drink this
yummy greenie. Am hoping more of my
Workmates will get on this too.
Warmest wishes
Margaret (NZ)
A really great Swiss chard smoothie recipe is:
4-5 leaves of chard
3 oranges
3 medjool dates
A handful of ice cubes
Blend til smooth. Delish! Chard is one of my favorites. It took a long time to grow on me, but now I love it in green smoothies and use it all the time…
HI VERONICA,
LOVE YOUR RECIPES AND SITE!
QUESTION FOR YOU…I’VE RECENTLY READ ON TWO RAW FOOD SITES THAT ADDING JUST A BIT OF FAT (LIKE COCONUT OIL) TO GREEN SMOOTHIES WILL INCREASE THE ABSORBTION OF THE MINERALS, ETC…IN THE GREENS.
DO YOU FEEL THIS IS TRUE?
I HAVE ALSO READ SOMEWHERE ON FRED’S SITE THAT EATING FATS WITH FRUITS (LIKE IN GREEN SMOOTHIES) COATS THE CELLS, THUS KEEPING SUGARS FLOATING AROUND IN THE BLOODSTREAM FOR TOO LONG, THUS FEEDING CANDIDA.
SO…I’M CONFUSED. CAN YOU HELP?
THANKS SO MUCH! LAURA
You don’t need to add oils to your green smoothies, it’s too concentrated and 100% fat with little nutrition. If you’re really concerned you’re not absorbing enough nutrients (which may or may not be the case if you are eating lots of plant foods and salads) you can add some hemp seed or ground flax seed to your smoothie.
You have to remember though that we never use 100% of anything we absorb, the body uses what it needs, and you cannot assume that more is better, or you should try to get the most out of every meal. The body is intelligent and just because some scientific study says that you get more out of x by doing x to it, doesn’t mean you have to do it or something bad will happen to you. Herbivores in general eat many many greens and plant foods and don’t eat fat with them, they don’t have a problem just because they eat greens regularly and lots of them.
Perhaps if someone already had trouble absorbing nutrients or knew they were deficient in minerals they may want to try to get more out of what they eat, but that’s not generally the case.
You want to have a healthy diet with lots of healthy plant foods, and small amounts of healthy omega 3’s from things like flax, chia, hemp or nuts.
What Fred was talking about is eating large quantities of fat with fruit and it impedes sugar from being transferred to the cells by keeping blood sugar elevated for long periods of time. Having a little bit of fat in a meal does not cause problems for most people, but if you were to add a lot of concentrated fat especially oil with lots of fruit or sugar it can cause problems with any kind of blood sugar issue. If you don’t have candida or have not tested for it, don’t assume that you have a candida problem. Everyone has candida but not everyone has a candida overgrowth. If you have an overgrowth problem you will have lots of symptoms and not be guessing if you could have a candida problem or not.
One more question. What is the best way to cut a mango; there is so much waste on a mango with that hard core.
Cut off both cheeks of the mango around the woody core. The core is not efible and is larger than the core of an apple. Then i carefully slice off around the short sides. Then if you like you can bite or suck the remaining little juicy parts off the core yourself.
When you say flesh only for the mango, what does that mean–is that just the skin or just the fruit.
Flesh means juicy fruit part only. Not the outer skin and not the inner woody core which is the mango seed.