The One Dietary Addition That Packs a Vegan Punch
- Brainz Magazine
- Aug 15
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 3
Written by Sonya Gammon, Level 2 QHHT Practitioner
Sonya Gammon is a Level 2 QHHT ® practitioner and spirit travel guide who enjoys helping clients delve into their past lives and connect with their highest selves and friends on other dimensions. The sixth book in her New Earth series is titled “The Relationship of Souls: How We Create Our Worlds Together.”
Even if you changed nothing else in your diet, adding tasty green smoothies to your daily routine can give you a boost. Leafy greens are the most nutritious edibles on the planet, too, so your body would get what it really needs, and that would curb the cravings. Read on to learn how easy green smoothies are to make and what makes them delicious.
Going raw
I’ve been almost vegan (occasional fish and eggs) for most of my 50-year life. The benefits of a whole-foods vegan lifestyle are delineated in “The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-term Health” by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., and Thomas M. Campbell II, MD. Then I became a raw vegan 19 years ago. Raw food means food that has not been heated above 105°F, or 40°C. This preserves enzymes and cuts down on advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), which are proteins or lipids that become glycated as a result of exposure to sugars. They are bio-markers implicated in aging and the development or worsening of many degenerative diseases, such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. The higher the cooking temperature, the higher the AGE levels, i.e., frying is worse than steaming.
I would never have been able to keep to my diet without my daily green smoothie. The cravings were intense for the first three weeks; it got better after that, but only one step at a time. The cravings for cooked food totally went away only about two years after starting the diet. That is how long it took for my brain to rewire itself and my taste buds to completely be switched over to not wanting the food that I had to cook for other people in my household.
When I went on vacation a year after the change, and I couldn’t get my green smoothie every day, the cravings for everything came back at the old intensity, so those smoothies really do make a difference. One of the green smoothie benefits I noticed right away, even before I went totally raw, was not having to take antidepressants anymore. I also had more energy throughout the day.
The Boutenko family started me on the green smoothie/raw vegan journey. Their book “Raw Family: A True Story of Awakening” chronicles the family’s journey from illness to health through a raw food diet, and “Green for Life: The Updated Classic on Green Smoothie Nutrition” details all the benefits you can get from regular consumption of green smoothies. The book also includes recipes, although it’s easy to come up with your own combinations according to what’s in season and readily available.
How to make green smoothies
The one piece of equipment you will need is a high-powered blender like a Vitamix or a Ninja. The powerful blender breaks the greens’ cell walls, making all of the nutrients more bioavailable. We could never get the same results just by chewing because our teeth are not like the teeth of our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, who consume vast quantities of greens and fruit in their diets. With a regular blender, you may have to use a lot of water to get the greens blended better.
The smoothies have two basic groups of ingredients: 1. Greens and 2. Fruit. You have to rotate the greens, i.e., don’t use the same greens for more than two or three batches of smoothies in a row. Different greens have small amounts of alkaloids that act as defense mechanisms against pests. The alkaloids can be harmful in large quantities. Some greens don’t have them, for example, stinging nettles, because their defense mechanism is their stingers. You can use more than one type of green leafy vegetable and different kinds of fruit in any one smoothie.
In the winter, I often buy organic salad mixes from the grocery store for my smoothies. When it’s growing season, I can pick lamb’s quarters, dandelion, prickly lettuce, etc., from my own backyard. I also have the perennial favorite, kale, growing in my garden. Other greens I often use include spinach, chard, and beet greens, which have more iron than the root vegetable itself. Adding some fresh herbs like parsley, dill, cilantro, or basil can give extra flavor and more of a variety of nutrients to smoothies.
Apples, pears, and bananas are what I most often use as the fruit portion of the equation. I use a lot more fruit than greens. Mangos, plums, peaches, and nectarines add a lot of sweetness. I often throw in whatever else I might have available, for example, the peels of the pitted fruit I’ve served to my kids. I usually eat berries fresh, but when blueberries are in season and I can buy a box, I might include some in a smoothie, as well. I also measure in a few tablespoons of chia seeds and/or hemp seeds to make the smoothies more filling and nutritious.
You might think that starting a green smoothie regimen might be difficult. Those smoothies are green! Won’t they taste bad? You can double down on the fruit to start with to make sure the taste is great, and gradually increase the proportion of the greens. It may take some time to make your taste buds totally used to the green goodness, but it will be worth the effort. Your tastes will change, and you’ll want to eat more salads. That happened to me, anyway. Please check out my blog post to read a story about different-tasting foods.
I will close with a quote from my fifth New Earth book, “The Mysteries of Our Adventurous Universe: How Evolution Shapes the Worlds We Live In.” “It is the truth that human beings are the main intelligent species on the planet, and as such, it is your prerogative to keep your bodies healthy and to keep your souls in linkage with your bodies as much as you can. This means that you have to feed your body in a way that will further its health because when a body is healthy, that body can call in the light so much better than when a body is diseased.
“The healthier a human body is, the more able it is to call in the highest light available anywhere in the cosmos. Souls need to be able to work through human bodies here, and the best way to do that is to concentrate on consuming fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, a vegan diet, and to make sure that your body has adequate exercise and is clean, of course.”
A Quantum Healing spirit journey session may also help you achieve more clarity about your health and your current life circumstances. If you can travel to Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, you can check out my practitioner page and contact me to book a session, or you can find a practitioner in your area.
Read more from Sonya Gammon
Sonya Gammon, Level 2 QHHT Practitioner
Sonya Gammon is a pioneer in conscious, drug-free, spirit travel. She started her spiritual journey at age 12 through meditation groups and grew up in a New Age church that was widely regarded as a cult. She worked for a decade as a newspaper journalist before becoming a stay-at-home mother. After Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique ℠ helped her cope with challenging life circumstances, she branched out into providing diverse spirit travel experiences for her clients that transcend the label of hypnosis and can bring about deep healing from trauma. Her newest book talks about how we evolve as souls in this adventurous universe.
