My Green Smoothie With Parsley

The Green Smoothie

The best thing about being confined at home is I make some of my days very fruitful and that is finding recipes or planning my projects in the future, procure the materials needed to start the project... Also I am inclined to try new recipes to make use of what I have at home.

The other day, I remember seeing in one of the magazines about incorporating parsley in cooking or drinks. Although the recipe called for some other ingredients, I simply have to look around my kitchen and see what fruits are available that I could incorporate in this smoothie..

Well, I always have apples. lemon and kiwi at home, these two are standard in my household.... we go food shopping once a week and even at this time of lockdown, we buy fruits that could last for a week and before the new food shopping day comes, I saw to it that all fruits and veggies are consumed. And so this smoothie was born.

As you can see in the above ingredients, they are familiar, I just added the fresh strawberries that I bought from that turkish supermarket. I always buy my parsley there because they come so freshly delivered in the morning.

Green Smoothie With Parsley

Ingredients: ( makes about 1 Liter smoothie)
1 apple, diced
1 kiwi , peeled
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 mandarine, peeled
5-6 strawberries fresh (or frozen will also do)
1 handful of parsley leaves
3 tablespoon sour cream
1 glass skimmed milk
steevia powder, according to your taste.

Stevia powder is a plant based sweetener used as sugar substitute for those avoiding sugar.. The powder is used according to the ration 1:1 which means that for every 1 tablespoon sugar , use 1 tablespoon of the stevia powder.

Preparations:

1... Simply toss all the ingredients in the mixer and add half glass of the skimmed milk, add the sour cream and stevia powder.

1. Pulse your mixer for about 15 seconds, then add the rest of the milk, pulse again for another 15 seconds until all ingredients are almost liquified.

2. If you want a finer consistency of the smoothie, adjust the button of the mixer to number 1 and run the mixer for another 30 seconds or until the mixture becomes finer in consistency. Adjust the sweetness according to your taste and transfer to a container and refrigerate.

There are so many benefits that can be derived in adding parsley to our food especially if it is processed raw and fresh. It delivers important nutrients to our body which are as follows:

Nutrition Source
According to the United States (U.S.) Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Nutrient Database, one cup of chopped parsley contains:
22 calories
1.78 grams (g) of protein
0.47 g of fat
3.8 g of carbohydrate
2 g of fiber
0.51 g of sugar
The same quantity of parsley provides 984 micrograms (mcg) of vitamin K, as well as 79.8 mcg of vitamin C, and 5,054 international units (IU) of vitamin A. One cup of parsley provides 1,230 percent of the recommended intake of vitamin K.

Moreover, according to the above source the following are the main benefits of parsley namely;

1..it prevents cancer since it contains flavonoids, a substance that
counter - fights disease causing agents in the body.

2...it protects us from incurring diabetes where the substance called myricetin lowers the blood sugar and also removes the fat in the blood.

3...ten sprigs of parsley are enough to reach the recommended daily intake of vitamin K. It helps in improving bone health thereby reduces bone fractures.

If you would like to know more on the benefits of parsley, below are some references:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/284490

https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/herbs-and-spices/health-benefits-of-parsley.html

I skipped dinner last night and have enjoyed a glass of my smoothie instead. It was delish, try it!

Take necessary precautions and stay safe everyone!