Smoothie Making…. only 13% of Americans are getting enough fruits and vegetables. [1] There are many vitamins and minerals needed for your body to function properly many of those nutrients come from fruit and vegetables. Additionally, there are antioxidants that are found in fruits and vegetables that are critical to fighting diseased states and protecting healthy tissue.

Nature has been making our food for a long time. The amounts of nutrients, calories and fiber all are in perfect quantities. It was explained to me, the nutrition of a plant comes as a packaged deal. Think of it like a symphony, all the instruments (nutrients) are great by themselves but when played together they not only compliment but also help balance each other out. In a symphony no one sound will be overbearing or you can think of it as no one nutrient will be too much for our body to handle. I’m sure someone can ingest too much of a particular food and get sick or get a toxicity but these foods in general, are man-made foods, such as refined sugar, refined flour, industrial seed oils and processed soy. [1] It is believed that we will not over eat natural, unaltered food, probably due to the amount of fiber contained in natural foods. When our stomachs become full with bulk, nerve sensors detect the stomach wall stretching and in turn tell our brain that we are getting full. Man-made food with lots of “empty calories” do not cause the same effects (we will go further into this later).

Next, think of the body like a city. If we were building a city we will need the right equipment (body systems working together). We are also going to need the right building materials (nutrients) and we are going to need workers (enzymes). There is a whole list of nutrients that are required for your body to FUNCTION properly. When we lack any one of them our “construction job” will get held up and get behind schedule. In the body the consequences of missing construction material can lead from anything from muscle cramps to impaired brain function and even chronic disease states and death. It is actually pretty simple, once we obtain the tools and knowledge we can easily pick the foods that will give us optimum benefits.

See eating for health for more info.