cheap nutrition
Q: Dear GreenSmoothieGirl, I work crazy hours and am rarely home to make myself good food. Can you recommend anything to make and eat quickly that is really healthy?
A: Yes. Of course I recommend green smoothies, because they are quick to make, and you can put them in the fridge for up to two days (shake it up well before drinking). A friend of mine loves Living Fuel, which is a great product with live, dehydrated foods for excellent vitamin/mineral and especially enzyme content. However, it’s about $6.75/serving! Some time ago, I looked for an alternative affordable by more people and found The Ultimate Meal
Things I love about The Ultimate Meal:
- It takes 60 seconds to make in the blender.
- It’s primarily made up of sprouted quinoa and millet, then brown rice and yellow pea protein, then flax seed, spirulina, and broccoli. Great ingredients, freeze-dried so enzymes are mostly intact.
- It contains every nutrient necessary for optimal health and eliminates the need for vitamin supplements.
- It has 16 grams of protein, which should make those worried about plant foods not having enough protein quite happy. Also 8 grams of fiber!
- With half an apple, and a banana, it blends to be a crazy green color, but it tastes pretty good.
- The shake, with apple and banana, has 350 calories and keeps you satisfied until the next meal.
- This can be a meal replacement shake twice a day. This would be SO much better for dieters than SlimFast and all the other chemical-additives, corn-syrup and cheap-ingredients-added shakes and soy diet products on the market.
- Most of the ingredients are organic, and it has 4 grams of good fatty acids, no soy or whey, no genetically modified foods, no yeast, salt, or sugars (just stevia), no animal products.
- It lasts 3 years on the shelf (2 months after opening the can, so freeze some if you won’t use the whole can in that time). It’s great for food storage.
Robyn,
Thank you for posting this. I was wondering about this very question. I just purchased UM from Amazon. I am in desperate need to lose weight- 30 pounds worth. I want to start using the shake as a meal replacement twice a day. My question for you is what would you recommend for the third meal? I am new to the raw lifestyle and would like to make a good dinner that is simple and time effectvie. Thank you for all of your great infromation!
Hi Addie, I don’t recommend drinking an entire day’s meals, because it can get boring. Sometimes I have Ultimate Meal for breakfast, a quart of GS and some almonds or flax crackers for lunch. Today next to my computer I have on one side of the monitor my quart of GS, and on the other side, some whole-wheat pita bread I cut in trianges and broiled as chips, and my sprouted-garbanzo hummus I got out of the freezer yesterday.
But we start to feel that deprived “diet mentality” come on if we don’t get to sit down to a meal, I think. Plus dinner is a time to reconnect with the significant other and/or kids, right?
Do you have my main dishes recipe collection? It has 30 plant-based main dishes. If you have the salads and dressings collection, and/or if you are a 12 Step subscriber having received Ch. 2 and 3, you know my recommendation is to make an interesting salad your main course rather than a side dish. Make the hot dish the “side dish.” More raw, more enzymes, more calorie burn!
Robyn
Sooo—has anyone tried to make a home made version of this wonderful meal replacement? If a person had a dehydrator and dried spinach, kale, wheat and barley grass added some kelp, nutritional yeast and any other nutritious ingredients, ran it all through the blend tec to get it all smooth, store it until needed, mix and drink. I’m sure we could come up with a good alternative. Does anyone have a good idea for a do it yourself recipe?
” sprouted-garbanzo hummus ” m-m-m-m n I haven’t tried making hummus from sprouted garbanzos yet, but I have some in the pantry to try. How long do you sprout them? And normally we eat it all, but does it freeze well? and do you just let it thaw in the fridge?
I sprout the garbanzos until they have a 1/4″ to 1/2″ tail, rinsing and draining them twice a day, which takes about 3 days. The hummus freezes and thaws great! Yes, I let it thaw in the fridge or on the counter. Watch this blog, and sometime in the next few days I’ll post a really yummy hummus quesadilla recipe using sprouted hummus that my friend Cheryl and I kind of made up as a tag team.