Green for Life - Victoria Boutenko

Summary:  People everywhere know that they need to eat more fruits and vegetables, but rarely approach even the minimum FDA-recommended five servings.  An overlooked powerhouse of nutrition in this equation are greens, which contain a remarkable bounty of minerals and nutrients.  Green for Life includes information on the abundance of protein in greens, the benefits of fiber, the role of greens in homeostasis, the significance of stomach acid, how greens make the body more alkaline, the healing power of chlorophyll, and more.

Bestselling author and raw food expert Victoria Boutenko provides an easy solution for how to consume greens in sufficient quantities: the green smoothie.  This simple and delicious drink benefits everyone, regardless of lifestyle, diet, or environment.  Green smoothies eliminate toxins, correct nutritional deficiencies, and are delicious, too.  Green for Life includes the results of a pilot study that demonstrate the effectiveness of drinking just one quart of green smoothies a day without any other changes to dietary intake.  New green smoothies testimonials and additional recipes in this updated edition give readers even more confidence and inspiration to explore green smoothies for themselves.  (Summary from back of the book, book free for review, and image from publisher)

My Review:  This was more the book I thought I was getting when I opened Boutenko's book The Green Smoothie Revolution.  It offered more information, background, logistics, health information, facts, and even a short study with people trying out the smoothie lifestyle. I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

I need to admit I was very leery of this whole green smoothie idea.  After reading The Green Smoothie Revolution, trying a few smoothies myself (I'm at 3 different smoothies now (6 different servings), and now reading this book I'm afraid I might be converted.  I noticed a difference in myself after only one day drinking the smoothies.  That shocked me.  I felt so betrayed by my own desires of wanting 'regular' food.  I felt more energized, didn't need as much sleep the night afterward, and could tell my digestion was better.  Ugh.  To be wrong is sometimes painful.  But I'm glad to be wrong.  I'm glad to know there's an easy way to add greens and fruits to my diet without much work or effort on my part.  I was also skeptical that the process of preparing the food for the blender would take too much time.  It didn't and again I had to swallow my pride and accept that this was easy enough for me to do.  I made one in the evening, drank half of it and saved the other half for breakfast.  I had no problems foregoing a typically heavy dinner and drinking the smoothie--and I was surprised yet again.  I had plenty of energy the next day and wasn't hungry until lunch.  I'm as surprised as you probably are reading this.  I think I'm going to have to incorporate this into my lifestyle.

The only aspect I felt the book was lacking is more information on how to make soil healthy.  Boutenko talks about the importance of healthy soil to produce nutrient-rich greens.  While I agree, I need some help in that area as I like growing my own produce and I'm sure other readers do too.  I need to know what to add to my soil to make sure it is healthy and what I can do to plant my greens for the best possible yield.  That is my only gripe about this book.  Everything else is so helpful and informative.

I'm converted.

Rating:  4.5 Stars--for information purposes.

Sum it up:  A more thorough look at how the green smoothie can benefit your life.