Simple Green Smoothies: 100+ Tasty Recipes to Lose Weight, Gain Energy, and Feel Great in Your Body

I LOVE this book. (I paid for this book out my own pocket and did NOT receive it in exchange for anything). I love things that are simplified. This book does it all and not only has easy, delicious recipes, it gives great tips for beginners on everything from blenders to washing produce. But don't get me wrong: this book is great for the "experts" among us too. The organization of the book is very handy: I would consider it "functional" as in if you feel sick you'd go to the "Healing and Immunity Boosting" chapter; if you feel bloated or are focused on weight loss, you head to the "Lean and Green section", if you are heavy gym rat or runner, head to the "Fitness Fuel" chapter, and so on and so forth. I personally love the "Natural Beauty" chapter. I also love the index at the back of the book, so that makes it easy to find what you're looking for too. The little "tip" boxes are fun and add value to what is already useful information. The recipes are straightforward, use normal, easily accessible ingredients, and are easy to substitute other ingredients with if needed ( they have a guide for substitutions, recommended veggie-to-fruit rations, and similar info in the front section of the book). There are even a couple of "dessert" and savory recipes in here too. As an added bonus, the photos are gorgeous, and make actually reading the book a joy. The only thing I wish they added were calorie counts for each recipe. Obviously you can just throw each ingredient into a calorie counter app, and "save" the smoothies as individual meal, but it would be nice to just have that info in the book for those of us needing that level of specificity. Of course, the calories you're getting from the smoothie are guaranteed to be "good" (wholesome) calories, so it may not matter for most folks. Jen and Jadah make incorporating green smoothies into your life fun and effortless. I am getting ready for my wedding later in the year, and have started making smoothies for breakfast. I just pick two recipes for the coming week, put the ingredients on my weekend shopping list and, throw it in the blender in the mornings. Plus, the recipes make two servings, so if you're "cooking for one" like I am, each time you make a recipe, you have breakfast for two days made in advance. No matter if you're a green smoothie novice or die-hard fan, there's something in here for everyone. It's a "must-have" on your shelf, and dare I say, on your kitchen counter for years to come!

While you can't judge a book by its cover, the quality of this cover is a hint of the quality within. I'm a book lover, so I appreciate the little details. Though this is described as a paperback, the "paper" is sturdy and will wear well, important for a recipe book. I also love that the cover is hinge scored near the spine. Such a score allows you to fold back the cover and open pages in a way that saves the binding and keeps the pages in the book. Now on to the inside. The authors have put a lot of time into this book, making it more than just a collection of smoothie recipes. There is a discussion of their story, the health benefits of daily green smoothies, suggested blenders, and so much more. Even the sidebars contain practical goodies: how to clean your blender, the difference between blending and juicing, how to make smoothie "ice" cubes to save time and money and improve the quality of the smoothie... The recipes are accompanied by beautiful photos. (Kudos to the photographer.) They are also broken down into categories, such as "Energy Boosting," "Fitness Fuel," and even "Delicious Desserts." Once they have gotten you started with basic smoothie recipes, they give suggestions on how to vary the recipe by adding a few extras--and they give the benefits of each of these additions. A big plus is the index at the end, which allows you to find smoothie recipes by looking up a particular ingredient, useful when you have berries to use up or when you find there is a great sale on kiwi that week. One thing I found interesting is that there is no dairy in any of the recipes, surprising to me since all of my smoothies in the past contained milk or yogurt or both. You also won't find any "animal-based products, processed sugars, and gluten." On top of all this, the book is just well written, easy to understand and easy to read. As an editor and a reader I rejoice that the authors put in the time and effort to make this a great book inside and out.

I am a health conscious person and I do enjoy my green smoothies. This book has lots of recipes for a variety of green smoothies and most of them are very tasty. One of my favorites is the beginner's luck green smoothie. The book not only has lots of recipes, but is a myriad of excellent quality pictures as well and some nutritional suggestions through it as well. There are shopping lists and a 10 day kick start plan for you to start with. They have suggestions for items that you can purchase from them, but being on a fixed income, I have to watch my dollars that those are not at all necessary if you don't want to purchase them. You can certainly get by using what you have already in your home. Overall the book is packed with good information. Use it as a guide, not a gospel type of book. You can customize these to fit your lifestyle, but if you are looking for ideas, this book is a great start.

Overall, pretty decent. The layout of the book is fun and easy to read, designed to help you skip around. The recipes are approachable, not a lot of extremely expensive/exotic ingredients. Anyone with a Wal-Mart or decent size grocery store could put together the recipes. It also has a great balance of breakfast/snack/dessert/meal replacement recipes. I haven't really tried it as a "diet", so I can't talk about weight loss. I'm on a medication that can absolutely kill your appetite, and sometimes I have to force myself to eat. The feeling is similar to trying to eat on an already full stomach, kinda makes you feel queasy and gross. But, you can't not eat, so I tend to reach for a lot of soups, smoothies, and other liquid meals. So if you have a kid that just will not eat, or someone who has a difficult time eating enough to stay nutritionally satisfied, this is a great book to have around. The only reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5 is because there was a good chunk of blogger-ish filler. I wasn't really expecting that, I thought this was more of a straight up nutrition/recipe book. So there was a lot of focus on the authors and their family's side stories that didn't really contribute much to the book. There were also some surprisingly churchy passages that took up page space but weren't relevant to the subject matter. It is still mostly recipes and nutrition talk, but they probably could have cut out a good 15% - 20% of the book and made it even better.

I never liked cooking, but I’ve always been interested in blending things to a pulp. (I had bought a shredder and it really helped my anxiety for some reason getting to shred stuff, so I was hoping it would be the same with a blender and it is, oh it is!) I’m getting older now and I’ve started learning how to cook, so why not learn about smoothies and blending too? I don’t have a big budget and cooking with a microwave for the last decade, I didn’t want anything with a lot of steps, lol. At least not at first! If we do something too challenging at first we could lose interest all together, right? So I decided on the Simple Green Smoothies book as it seemed to have what I was looking for. I’m vitamin deficient probably from a combination of health issues and a poor lifestyle, and I also have absorption problems. I really hate taking supplements, especially when you need 10 different ones, who wants to do that every day? So I needed good, green smoothies that were as easy as possible so I would stick to it. Jen Hansard and Jadah Sellner have created a book that not only has a large variety of budget friendly, good, green smoothie recipes, it has tons of information about smoothie culture without being judgmental if you get it wrong. This is the best first smoothie book I could have purchased, as it has everything from blenders, to buying/washing/storing produce, prep, -this book even teaches you how to blend, need I say more? It has it all! I can’t wait to try their smoothie ice pops this summer with my nephew. I’m going to teach him about smoothies and being healthy too. I can’t recommend this book enough, might even be life changing for me.

I am a tired, slow, hypoglycemic, hypothyroid, overweight mom of two. I used to be muscular, energetic, lean and highly attractive. I bought this book when I turned 40 to try to kick start of lifestyle and nutrition change for my health. The book is great. There are really good explanations for everything (what benefits and nutrients/ vitamins do you get from each ingredient or food), instructions, advice and of course recipes including a 10 day green smoothie start plan. I have been doing green smoothies now for 4 weeks and I feel better already. Totally worth the purchase !

This book has changed my outlook on nutrition and has helped motivate me to incorporate more fruits and healthier foods in my life. After I purchased this, I bought a new blender and headed to the store with the list they’ve prepared for you. It is great how they have the 10 day challenge laid out for you and the shopping lists divided up so you’re only buying a week at a time in order to have the freshest fruit. The shopping list was SO HELPFUL! It made it so much easier for me to just plan my smoothies out and successfully complete the challenge. I have been drinking 1-2 green smoothies a day now. I am to a point where I crave them rather than what I used to eat for breakfast. I’ve become more intentional with the foods I’ve been eating and much more mindful about meal planning. I can honestly say that this has given me the inspiration to become healthier! The recipes are awesome and not complicated. If you’re looking for an honest book with great recipes— BUY THIS! You won’t be disappointed!

I looked at a lot of smoothie books before purchasing this one. I like the practicality of it. The 10 day smoothie challenge is easy esp with the shopping list, no crazy expensive ingredients. Once you do the 10 days, curiosity takes you to the other chapters to try other more adventurous smoothies with some unheard of ingredients ( at least to me). If you fall off track, you can just go back to the 10 day challenge because it is so doable. I like the fact that there is a substitute list in the back of the book, eg what do you use if you don't have bananas etc, super helpful. I normally get recipe books like this and they gather dust on the shelf but with this one, I have been using it every day and I do feel physically better for taking them. I do one smoothie a day, typically in the morning, using their recommendation on meal replacement so I get protein. I make enough to use in the am and then take the other half in the afternoon then have dinner at night. Haven't tried every smoothie but have read the whole book and bar maybe 1 or 2 recipes, they all look very easy and appealing to put together and won't break the bank. I like the concept of starting off slow and slowly take it up a notch so change is gradual. Now, about 1 month in, I have purchased some ingredients I probably wouldn't have used and am enjoying experimenting. I also use a portable blender by popbabies so no crazy Vitamix here....what I am trying to say is you don't need lots of money to start or continue this health journey and it will get you thinking about your lifestyle habits in general without any pressure.......my experience, anyway.