The Healthy Green Drink Diet (2 page)

anybody can do it.

You are the author of your own health, so let’s give you what you need to know.

Why Go Green?

Often used to signify nature, fertility, prosperity, growth, renewal, freshness, harmony, youth,

conservation, energy, balance, and well-being,
green
is akin to life itself. It’s no wonder the greatest

food a person can ingest is, well,
greens
.

But like I said previously, this book is not concerned with preaching a specific diet like vegetarianism or

veganism. Truth be told, I lean toward the Paleolithic diet more than anything else. Green drinks

supplement whatever diet you have already chosen. Luckily, they’re greeted with open arms by

vegetarians, vegans, meat-eaters, Paleo eaters, and Zone diet practitioners alike. No one, it seems, can

dispute the health benefits of eating greens.

Protein

First, let’s put that “but I need protein” argument to rest. Whether or not you eat meat doesn’t really

matter. Plants, despite what you may have heard, can give you all the protein you need. Which, according

to the Institute of Medicine’s (IoM)
Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat,

Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids,
is about 50 grams per day for the average adult. A

better way to gauge this is to make sure 10 to 20 percent of your total food intake consists of protein.

Proteins are made up of twenty amino acids, nine of which are known as
essential
because the body

cannot make them and therefore requires them from food sources. You may have heard the argument that

animal protein is a “complete” protein and vegetable protein is “incomplete,” however that isn’t exactly

true. According to the same report, a protein is said to be “complete” if the nine essential amino acids

make up these percentages of the protein being eaten:

Since most of us eat a varied diet, and the green drinks we’re going to make use a wide variety of leafy

greens, fruits, and other superfoods, there are absolutely no issues with hitting those numbers and more.

Not to mention, most green vegetables
do
contain all nine amino acids, just not in the amounts that make

them “complete.”

Furthermore, many prominent experts still insist that vegans combine foods at every meal to make up for

the so-called “incomplete” proteins. This is an absurd notion. We don’t have to eat an optimum amount of

any other nutrient at every meal in order for our bodies to use them properly, so why do we have to

combine foods to complete the amino acid chains? We don’t. As long as we eat a variety of fruits and