Very Pretty Smoothie

Happy New Year!

Its already January fourth and we are now easing back into routine. The girls are in school, Noah is at work, and me? I'm writing, practicing yoga, making lists and preparing for the upcoming juice feast I am hosting. I am so excited to start off the new year with a weeklong cleanse that will start on January 15th.

Today it's sort of snowing and raining at the same time, Noah and I started our morning by having a wonderful smoothie and finishing our scrabble game we started the night before.

Very Pretty Red Smoothie

2 bananas

1 cup strawberries

1 thai coconut

1 cup beet juice

2 Tablespoons Pure Synergy

1 teaspoon bee pollen

Put all ingredients in a blender and voila! Superb!

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

~Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

Wild beets grow along the mediterranean coasts where they seem happiest just above the high tide mark--a land-bound, but sea loving, vegetable. Beets are a member of the ubiquitous goosefoot family.

As their color suggests, beets are a blood tonic and are good for anemia, the heart and circulation. They purify the blood, alleviate constipation, aid the liver, and promote menstruation. Beets reduce vata and kapha.

A starchy vegetable, beet roots are high in natural sugar. The greens have notable amounts of calcium, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus; they also contain vitamins A, B-complex, and C.

Why is it that one day eating a beet turns your urine pink, whereas another day and another beet produce magenta stool? According to nutritionist Jeffrey Bland, PhD., pink urine may indicate an iron deficiency while magenta stool indicates adequate iron.

Info about beets is from the New Whole Foods Encyclopedia, by Rebecca Wood.

Then for lunch I had my usual salad. I know it sounds weird but I love salad and I love to eat it everyday!

Simple Salad:

Green lettuce, chopped

1 avocado, diced

2 Tablespoons dried cranberries

dash of cayenne

dash of kelp powder

favorite dressing!

Sometimes I also add red onion. I like to slice it super thin!

Toss in a bowl and enjoy!

YUM!

I hope you have the best year ever!

Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. ~Walter Elliott

Love and Laughter,

Michelle

Please check out my personal site at: www.MichelleBerryShaffer.com