The Benefits Of A Daily Green Smoothie For Kids

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Hi everyone, welcome to the show, I’m Dr. Nicole and today my guest is my good friend Jen Hansard. Jen has an amazing story about how she has used the power of green smoothies to support her family’s health, more specifically, her kids’ health — and you know I’m a big believer that getting more greens and produce in general into kids’ diets is super important, but it can be a challenge too to figure out how to do that.

But it’s so important for building healthy brains and bodies, particularly if you’ve got a child who’s got some behavior challenges going on, some neurodevelopmental issues, mental health kinds of things. This is a very simple food-related change that can be the start of lots of positive improvement for your kids. So I’m excited for her to share her info with us.
Let me tell you a little bit more about Jen. Jen Hansard is on a fresh path to health and happiness — deprivation not included. I love that!

Her healthy obsession with green smoothies has taken her into classrooms to do green smoothie demos, lead entrepreneur workshops, speak on stage and she’s been featured on The Doctors to spread the green smoothie love far and wide. Through the power of green smoothies, she has seen the amazing health benefits firsthand, including more energy — which has been the catalyst to healthy living for Jen and her family.

Her wildly popular website has changed the lives of over 1 million people, and made them the #1 online green smoothie resource, I would say if you haven’t been to her website, you definitely will do that after the show. It’s amazing. The simple green smoothies lifestyle does not involve counting calories or eliminating an entire food group, instead it encourages you to make one simple change — drink one green smoothie a day. Jen lives in a small country town in central Florida with her husband and their two little rockstars, Jackson and Claire and their chickens Duck and Doug, welcome to the show, Jen!

Jen:
Aw, thank you Nicole! So happy to be here!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
So great to have you here and to talk about not only your story but the practicalities of this. I love just this focus on getting a green smoothie in everyday, it’s going to be so helpful for the parents who are listening, who are thinking, “I know my kid needs to eat more of this stuff, I know I should be doing better with feeding my family healthy things, but I feel overwhelmed — I don’t know where to start.” And I’m really excited that what you are going to share is going to give people a starting point — so let’s jump in and talk about why are you so passionate about food and smoothies. How did you get into this?

Jen:
Yeah, well I think I was always passionate about food, I just think it was the wrong kinds of food. I used to love Lucky Charms — pretty much that’s how I grew my son in my belly, it was just bowls of Lucky Charms and so I’ve always cared about what I ate as far as taste, but I didn’t actually know that nutrition mattered. I thought calories were calories, get it in when you’re tired you just need to eat more, you need more caffeine and it seemed to work for a long time.

But what really started this catalyst for a whole new way of looking, pretty much going from lucky charms to green smoothies was when my son was 2 years old — and his name is Jackson and he was 2, I had a newborn daughter, Claire, and I was in the thick of it and we thought it was a great idea to have them 18 months apart. At moments, I definitely regretted it because Jackson was always sick with the cold, he always had an ear infection, I was going to the doctor between the newborn visits and then his checkups or what was going on with him it was like every week, every 2 weeks, and they were always saying, oh he just caught another cold, let’s put him on antibiotics.

And that’s what we were doing, and I kept doing the cycle and it kept saying he just caught another cold, like that was their solution, it was antibiotics. And eventually his stomach started hurting, he wasn’t eating, he was super sick and I just said there has to be a different way, this was not working for my son and I’ve got to figure this out. And thank goodness, a friend came into my life who we’d do a lot of park dates together and she just said one day, when she could tell I was out of my wits end — because I’ve done everything they’ve told me to do and he’s still sick.

And as a mom, that’s the hardest thing, all you want to do is help your kids feel their best and I was doing everything I thought would do that and it was not working, it was making him feel worse. And he’s only 2 years old. He’s too little to be like that.

And she said, “Look, this may sound weird but I have a chiropractor friend who I think you should go talk to.” And I was like, well that doesn’t make any sense, but I was desperate. And when you get desperate, you’ll try weird things — so I did. I went and I made an appointment for a chiropractor visit with my friend’s chiropractor and during that visit, instead of just getting the adjustment that I thought was going to happen to my son, he sat down and did a whole food intake on us first.

That was the number one thing he did, and I was like — this is strange… why do you want to know what we’re eating? And I’m breaking it down, I’m like, well we have goldfish for snacks, we’re doing French toast sticks — like normal things that I just thought were acceptable and we’re putting Aunt Jemima syrup on it, that’s what we would dip it in — and after that he said well, we’re not going to do an adjustment today, but we’re going to do muscle testing and this was a way to figure out food sensitivities.

And through that process which was very foreign to me and very just scary — because he was using a whole new approach to healing that I never heard of and didn’t understand.

But within one hour of being in that office, we left there with him telling us that my son was sensitive to corn. And that if we removed every kind of corn from his diet that he would probably get better really quickly. And I was like okay, that’s easy! Just corn on the cob, frozen corn, take it out!

And then he would share with me that corn is pretty much in everything you’ve been feeding your son. And that’s when I learned about corn syrup and corn starch and maltodextrin and all of these things that I’ve never even looked at before.
And so for the next week, I was willing to do it. I said, “Whatever it takes, let’s try this.”

And so we totally went on a really strict diet where we removed all gluten, dairy, processed sugars, everything — even peanut butter, and I remember being like, “Peanut butter! I can’t live without peanut butter!” And so he was literally eating rice cakes with almond butter on it and a little maple syrup on top. And it was really hard, he was crying — he didn’t want the food.

It didn’t taste good. But I didn’t give him any other options and as hard as it was, how much he was begging for other foods — I just said no this is the choice, that’s it right now and after a few days of this he started to eat it and he started to give in to it and be okay with it. And within a week, he was completely better.

All his allergies went away, he had so much more energy, his stomach was feeling better and that was the moment for me when I realized how much food affects our bodies, and this lightbulb went on and I just kind of dove in deep to this world and trying to really understand the food industry which I thought was helping us and giving us foods that would make us live a great life, and what was actually happening to people like my son.

And so that is how the switch started, but I’ve got to fast forward a little bit to how green smoothies came into the picture, which was in 2011 and my son was 4 then, so Jackson had just turned 4, he was going into pre-school — we had moved from Los Angeles to Florida, so my husband who was a new pastor he could start a church there and we were struggling financially — starting a church is no financial gain — and so we found ourselves on WIC which is a government subsidy program to help us just get groceries for our kids and we didn’t have any health insurance and that stressed me out so much. Just, I felt like the safety net had been pulled from us.

Because health insurance was that thing we always relied on. And we didn’t have it anymore. So I began thinking, how can we not get sick? Because I would go to bed at night, thinking when the next sickness would come. And thank goodness we weren’t dealing with ear infections and cold anymore because we had figured out, if you stay away from corn, this child was good to go — but what if he breaks his arm? What if they catch the flu from all the viruses going around? Or what if he does get a normal seasonal cold from a friend at school? And so I did research into how do you boost your immune system — because I didn’t want to be, I guess… what is the word? On the defense anymore.

I didn’t want to wait for the next sickness, I wanted to be the one that prevents it in the first place, and so I learned about green smoothies. And that was something that came up on google back then and a friend was also drinking them as a way for her to lose weight, so I heard two good things about green smoothies in the same week and that’s when you know, sometimes things just align a little bit like that and you’re like — there might be something to this.

And so we went to the grocery store, we bought our spinach, our strawberries, bananas, blueberries and some orange juice and we did it all through our WIC truck, so we were able to afford it with WIC and we blended our first green smoothie as a family. I remember putting it in the colored sippy cups just so my kids wouldn’t be like “What are you giving me?” And I gave it to them with a little plastic straw and they gulped it down so fast that I couldn’t even believe it. Because I just gave them a whole handful of spinach in a cup and they were happy to drink it and that never happened before. So I knew this was really one of those huge wins as a mom where I could feel really good about something I gave them and they felt really good about it too.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Love it, love it. And I think that there are so many parents listening who can relate to your story with your son about that cycle of chronic illness and chronic problems and when kids physically are ill all the time, that impacts not only their physical development, but it impacts their brain and just their functioning too, right? They’re miserable, they’re irritable, they’re not feeling good from the antibiotics, just all of those kinds of things and it impacts — especially as kids get older, their ability to learn, their ability to manage themselves emotionally, behaviorally — you were able to identify that stuff for him when he was really little, which was so awesome.

I just want to say, if you’re a parent out there thinking oh my gosh that’s kind of my kid except now my kid is 6 or 10 or 12 or whatever, so worth looking into that stuff and making those changes now at whatever age: You’re an adult listening and you’re like I’ve always the chronic illnesses and the chronic congestion and catching everything that goes around — what I love about this approach is we can all implement this. At any age, at any circumstances, this is such a great, simple tool for starting to make changes.

Jen:
Yeah. And all you have to do is give it a week, like literally just tell yourself one week, I’m going to try this. And get really serious, really disciplined and you can do anything for a week, especially if it can change your life. So just cut out those things that can inflame you, cut out dairy, cut out corn, and see what happens. And then if it doesn’t work, try something else. You don’t really have much to lose, you have so much to gain.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely, and even for people who are like, I don’t want to do an elimination diet, I’m not ready to do that — well, we start with the power of something simple like a green smoothie, right?

Jen:
Yup.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
You got to a practitioner who was able to give you specific insights to do more of a specialized diet first and then you found the green smoothies. I think it’s perfectly great too and I’m sure you know tons of people in your online community who had done this who had started with the green smoothie and then maybe over time found a practitioner or got more specific kinds of information about things to avoid, you can do it either way, right?

Jen:
Yup, it works either direction you go. And I almost think it gets more powerful when you start with the green smoothie alone, because you’re not changing everything in your diet. You’re focusing on one thing and it’s making that green smoothie every morning, making sure it tastes good so that you’re looking forward to it again and also that has all the vitamins and minerals you need to just have the energy to go through the day.

And also, it boosts your immune system, so you’re not going to get sick. And what happens just by doing that, is your taste buds begin to change on their own and so you’re not forcing them to like foods that they normally don’t like — they’re actually telling you that I would actually prefer if you didn’t give me this French toast today, like I want a fresh apple. Something like that. It’s so crazy but your body adjusts really quickly once you give it the good stuff and it begins to communicate and tell you that it wants more of that.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
So true, and I think that, and you touched on this with your own kids, you blended this up and you gave them some and they actually wanted more of it, and I know that most parents are aware, oh I should be giving my kids more fruits and vegetables — and that can be a challenge, especially for younger kids or kids who are really picky. But I think he smoothies are such a great way for putting that in there. Like you said, wow my kids drank that little cup of smoothie and it had a whole handful of spinach in it.

I mean if we’re going be able to get things like spinach and different kinds of greens and vegetables and fruits in more easily and efficiently in a smoothie, I think, than sitting down and saying here’s this whole plate of all of these greens and all these things you need to eat.

I mean, we get overwhelmed with that as adults, kids do too, and that’s why I think this is a really efficient strategy. And for people who say, I’m so busy — I can’t figure out how to feed my kids well, because we’re so busy. To me, this is one of the keys for families who are super busy, because this is such a simple, time-effective way to work that in and then you know, they have this smoothie, they have all these different great produce items in it and now whatever happens during the rest of the day, okay — but I got this in and I think it’s a great starting point.

Jen:
Yeah, and that’s really how we live our life now. It’s like green smoothies are the foundation of the day, but we’re so busy, the kids are getting older, they have their own opinions, they want things a certain way, they have school lunches. And so they can choose to buy or not. I’m okay letting all that stuff go because I at least know they’ve had the green smoothie and they’re feeling better, they’re doing amazing just because of that.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah. And that’s the thing I think so many parents — we beat ourselves up over not doing everything perfectly or not doing everything the way it’s supposed to be done and my thing is just start somewhere, have something that you can feel good about, and something that like you said, we may not have made great choices or there may have been things the rest of the day that I don’t feel so great about, but I did this one thing and doing that, I think really it provides a foundation for change in other areas too, because when we and our kids can start to feel really good about even one thing that we’re doing, that kind of gets the ball rolling, right?

And then we start eating or making choices for other things. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that because you’ve shared a little bit already about how drinking the smoothies has impacted your kids, but I know that it also was a springboard for you and your family to just eating a lot more plants in general, right? So can you talk about that? How drinking the smoothies, eating the plant-based foods has impacted your kids, how that sort of has evolved, how you as a family eat and look at food?

Jen:
Yeah, so just by making these daily smoothies, and I included the kids in it too — I was like you guys come help me, let’s — and I was making my son… he was bored, he was cutting the tops off of strawberries and he felt so cool because he was doing this. But even we go to farmers’ markets on the weekends and buy ingredients and we get so excited when we find kale that was on sale.

And for me knowing that this was part of their lives now and they enjoyed it because we immersed them in it in such a fun way, it wasn’t something that they were dreading, it was something that they were looking forward to. And so that worked really well and we built upon that because we all started craving more fruits, more vegetables. It was easy to get them to have a side of carrot sticks at lunch or whatever, because this was kind of what they naturally craved now.

And so we have expanded it into doing snacks and meals, I’ll make granola, we’ll do trail mix — even meals for dinner, we do a lot of veggie bowls and it’s up to them. My husband loves his meat still, and sometimes I do. And so we’ll throw some chicken on top or salmon, but it’s really just the kids know this is their new normal and they’re happy with it.

They enjoy it. And yeah, sometimes we’ll go through Taco Bell and get our fast food when we’re running around town, and we’re okay with that too. But because of eating like this, I would say the two biggest side effects for us are more energy and we’re not getting sick. And because of that, we really feel like we have gotten our life back. We are not stuck at home, we’re not sitting in front of the TV, trying to nurse ourselves back to health or just too tired to get out of bed.

And now we do a lot of traveling, I do ultrarunning and my kids get to see that — they get to see their mom who is so full of energy and just happy to go after the day and really just to dream bigger than I ever thought before. So I’ve been to Morocco recently and rode motorcycles with the girlfriends and these are things that I never imagine being able to do. But because I’m taking care of my body and have the energy and I’m not getting sick, I can do these things more easily.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yes, I love following your adventures — I’m like oh, where is Jen this week! Oh she’s on motorcycles in Morocco and I forget, you were somewhere else just last week, right?

Jen:
I was in Cambodia.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Oh she’s in Cambodia! It’s sort of like where is Waldo? Where is Jen? But I want to just speak to that a little bit, the energy peeve for kids, because we tend to think of that for ourselves as adults, right? Like Uh, I don’t have any energy, I’m so stressed, so busy, not sleeping, whatever, we think about every a lot for ourselves — but we don’t often think about that for kids, and kids need a lot of fuel to have the energy, not only to do the things that kids do, but also energy to fuel optimal growth and development too.

Kids really do need a significant amount of energy to do that. Now some parents might be thinking, oh my gosh, my kids have got too much energy, they’re bouncing off the wall. That’s a different type of thing.

What we’re talking about is energy, having the right fuel in your body to help, literally on a cellular level, your body be able to do the things that it needs to do so that brains can function well. Bodies that are deprived of enough of the right kinds of fuel to build and produce energy, our brains don’t work as well.

So if you’ve got a kid who is hyperactive and bouncing off the wall and can’t regulate themselves, actually that kind of hyperactivity is an indication that the body is not working the way that it should, the brain is not working the way that it should. It’s not that they have too much energy, it’s that their body’s not working in a way that’s properly supporting their brain to function, so energy — this fuel, is so important in giving our kids the right kind of fuel, to have the right kind of good, regulated, sustained energy.

Not the kind of energy that comes from Lucky Charms first thing in the morning, woo woo, off-the-wall for 90 minutes and then I crash and burn, right? Which a lot of kids are doing all day long: That up and down energy spike from sugar and then the crash. What we want is good, clear, stables sustained energy throughout the day.

And that is super important for kids just as much s it is for adults, and I’ll say too — helps them sleep better. When they’ve got good consistent sustained energy levels during the day, that helps relegate those wake and sleep cycles and it helps them be able to settle down and have a good night’s sleep, which is so important too.

Jen:
You’re right on, Nicole. And I was going to share — you kind of got me thinking about something, because my kids are not perfect and they’re not always on their A-game. I mean for the most part they are because the way we eat and the way we live and we’re just disciplined with sleep too — but we took them to Disney World, it was probably 3 years ago and we do Disney World a lot because we’re in Florida, but this one night, it was later at night, we took them and we got Dole Whips at one of the places.

And we’re walking to the parking lot with the kids and Ryan and I are dragging them and they’re running around and they’re so crazy, and I’m just like who are these kids? I don’t even recognize them and my brain was racking — I was like there was something that happened today that affected them.

And so the whole drive home, I was looking into all the foods that we ate at the park — and it came down to the Dole Whip, which had food coloring in it and so one of the beautiful things with eating more plants is you learn — your kids learn to have this as their new, healthy normal. And then when you bring in ingredients or foods that aren’t on that same level, they react so strongly that you know and you can start looking into it and really figure out what to stay away from.

So for us, we stay away from food coloring and chocolate. Those are the two things where my kids go crazy and I don’t even — they can’t control themselves, they can’t think clearly, they’re emotional, they act up — so that’s for us, we know now because of the way we live and eat.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
And that’s so helpful because it makes it clear then — what do we need to absolutely stay away from, like you said you have a lot of leeway for your kids to make choices and to eat things that maybe aren’t your favorite things for them to eat but you also have these sort of boundaries where you are like no — this does not work for you, we’re not eating this — or if we are going to do that then I have to be prepared to manage for the next 12 hours!

So I want to give people some tips and starting points, but I think it would be helpful for you to just talk about what would a typical eating day look like? I mean you talk and about starting with the green smoothies, I think it would be helpful to map that out and maybe share just a couple of simple tips that you have found for how can people make this easier for themselves? So I think we’ve got people convinced that this is a simple great starting point, and now they might be like oh my gosh, what do I do, how do I do this — so share something about that.

Jen:
For sure, so I start my day with coffee — not going to lie. I love my coffee. That is the key to happiness for most mothers. And so for me I like to add collagen, I like to add grass-fed butter to it. And I do that because it keeps my energy levels more stable, I’ve learned that I’m less angry when I come off the caffeine high when I do it this way. And I don’t need to get more caffeine as quickly. And so for me, I start my day with that, and then have a snack of a green smoothie. And so we’ll blend it in the morning before the kids go to school, usually. And it’s so easy to do.

I do 2 cups of spinach, throw in some frozen mango, frozen pineapple, a banana and water and just blend it up, and it’s this tropical green drink. And they will either drink it on their way out the door, or if they only get half of it down, I’ll pour it into a popsicle mold, freeze it so they can have it after school, and then I put mine in the fridge until I’m ready for a snack. And so coffee, green smoothies, I always keep granola on hand, that is a super affordable thing to make in bulk and it’s really tasty too.

And I’ll have a snack with some almond milk with it or some fruit. Also do a lot of trail mix where I just take a bunch of almonds, cashews, put some olive oil, rosemary, salt — season it up, bake it on trays. I’m all about tray cooking because it’s one dish for as many things as possible.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Yes, absolutely.

Jen:
I can not stand doing dishes.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Yes, absolutely.

Jen:
And then we also do a lot of veggie bowls, and so that’s just an easy way to be constantly using the rice cooker for either quinoa or rice, cooking that up for a base and then whatever is leftover that night we make for leftovers and we’ll have it for lunch the next day. And then just roasting a tray of vegetables, sweet potatoes, we do a lot of asparagus, broccoli and then we can add any kind of meat that the kids want or that Ryan wants. So those are easy meals that take very little time and we can rotate them throughout the week too.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
I think keeping it simple, keeping it easy is the key and I think sometimes, in the world of social media, we’re on Facebook, we’re on Instagram, Pinterest, people are seeing all these things that people are doing, and I think it is really important for us to step back and go: It doesn’t need to be really complicated, it doesn’t need to be fancy, it doesn’t need to look pretty — you’re like, “I put things on a sheet pan and I put it in the oven.”

Jen:
Literally, yup.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
It doesn’t need to be Instagram-worthy, although I will say the photos that you do for your social media and your cookbooks and things are amazing! But I think it’s important for people to hear that you’re a real person, a busy mom — like this doesn’t have to be fancy. So if you’ve been on websites, social media and you’re like, “Ugh, I can’t do all this!” Look, just keep it simple, right?

Jen:
Yeah, if you want this lifestyle to work, you have to make it simple. If you go all the way into something that has 20 steps, 20 rules, you’re not going to stick with it, no matter how great the results are, and people promise you that. Just, realistically it’s not going to happen. And so for me we’ve been doing this for 8 years now with a daily green smoothie and it doesn’t get old! Like, if anything — we just get more excited when a new ingredient comes into the farmers’ market or a superfood is out and we want to test it. So it’s always getting more exciting for us.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
That’s awesome, and I think that for those of you who have really picky eaters or if you’ve got kids with feeding problems — do not rule this out. Because this is such a good way of starting to expand your child’s palette, and Jen, to the point you made earlier about the more your kids drank these smoothies, the more they wanted to eat those kinds of things and that’s so true.

We train our palettes in a certain direction, so keep up with this — it takes the brain a minimum of 10 exposures to something to be able to determine what our opinion really is about that. So for kids to say, “Ugh, that looks gross! I don’t like it!” Or they try the teeniest sip and they go, “I don’t like it.”

We say well, we keep at it, we keep exposing them to it, keep trying different things — what’s great about the smoothies is that you can change the blends up all the time, right?

Start with one that you think they’re going to enjoy with things that they like in it and then you can slowly start adding more of the greens or slowly start adding some new ingredients, you can really tailor this to help bring your child along to really start to, not really just tolerate these, but to actually start to enjoy them, and I just think that’s so important because a lot of time parents just go, oh my kid’s picky — won’t ever drink it. Well, look: You’ve got to start, and you start with it and you continue to expose them to it.

And I love what you said, you give them some in the morning — if they don’t drink all of it, you put it back in the fridge, or you make it into a popsicle for later, like continue to work at it and you will start to move their palette in this direction to be able to incorporate more of these things. I think that’s so important.

Jen:
Yeah, we have the kids’ friends come over all the time and the parents always say, “Please give them a green smoothie because they won’t drink mine but they will drink yours!” And so I want to share a few tips on probably why that is. And it really has to do with texture. So a lot of times just a standard blender is not strong enough to pulverize everything into this creamy, really delicious drink.

And that’s okay. So what you’re do if you’re just using the basic blender that I started with, something you get at Target, you’re going to need to first blend your leafy greens and your liquid base. So if you’re using spinach and water, put those in the blender, blend them first and wait until it’s totally gone — no more leafy chunks. And then add in the fruit and blend it a second time. And that’s going to drastically help with the leafy chunks.

And if you are able to afford it, I recommend getting a high-speed blender, it is the biggest game changer for me. So my first one was the Vitamix refurbished and you save hundreds of dollars immediately and it works just as good — and that blender takes 45 seconds, 30 seconds to blend a green smoothie, vs. 3-4 minutes using a standard blender and it’s so much better. So if there’s any issues with texture, those are some great tips to help with that. And then also freezing it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That totally works, I’ve had so many families who have gone to your sight and downloaded your material and that’s total game changer, they were like, “Ugh! That’s the secret! Blend it in stages like that!” Because really, a lot of kids do have pickiness around texture and things like that, and that’s a great tip. The other one that I think several families have commented to me on is your tip about removing the stems too.

Jen:
Yes, so if you’re doing spinach or kale or an her, take the leaves off the stem, the stem is the most bitter, off-putting part of those plants, and just do the leaves where you’re getting all the nutrients anyway. And plan ahead, that’s so helpful — you can make a whole week’s worth of smoothies in 10 minutes on a Sunday. Get all the ingredients, just throw them into bags, put them in the freezer, and then in the morning you’re just grabbing it, dumping it out, adding some water and blending it up.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Awesome, and how many days, because this question comes up a lot in my practice. People are like, okay I want to make some things ahead, what’s your recommendation of how long to leave a batch in the fridge?

Jen:
So if you’re going to blend it and you want to store it in the fridge, I would say 2 days max. But even after 1 day, the taste kind of changes and oxidizes a little bit. So I try to drink it the same day, and it’s usually an afternoon snack. I’ll have one for breakfast and one for a snack and it tastes just as good.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
And I love your idea of freezing it too. So that’s another way. If you think, uh — the kids aren’t going to drink all of this, or for whatever reason we didn’t get to all of it and now it’s not going to be good, just throw it in the popsicle molds, freeze it up and give it to them as snacks.

Jen:
Or you can, my mom, what she does is she blends the night before just because it’s too loud in the morning when my dad’s waking up. So she blends everything ahead of time and night and then she puts it in an old yogurt container — so it’s like white, she pours it in there, puts a lid on, freezes it — and then the next day, she pulls it out in the morning and let’s it defrost during the day and has it for a snack or at lunch time.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
That’s a great tip, so you can do that at night then if you think it’s going to be too much to deal with in the morning. I love it. This has been so incredibly helpful, and I know that people’s minds are just churning now about how they can do this. And I want to make sure that I have you share with people where they can get more information from you because you do have an amazing website, amazing things online, so first of all, what’s the website?

Jen:
My website is simplegreensmoothies.com — and we have hundreds of green smoothie recipes for all different personalities, like we’ve got you covered, I promise!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Love it, and you have a challenge too, and I think this is such a great starting point for people, so share a little bit about that.

Jen:
Yeah, so two years ago, I really felt called to find a way to help as many people as possible fall in love with green smoothies and that is through our free 7-day green smoothie challenge. And we made it where it’s affordable, it’s easy to do — we give you a shopping list, you’re only going to have to buy 7 ingredients, which I’ve price shopped at various stores, it can range from $15 to $25 to make 7 green smoothies. So that is so affordable, you can do this. And you can go over to simplegreensmoothies.com/simple7 and that’s where you can sign up for it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Great, and we’ll make sure that we have the links for all of that in the show notes too so people can access that. Perfect starting point for people. 7 days, start to build a habit — I’ve had many families at the clinic go through that and it’s been a great way to jumpstart this and just get started with getting comfortable with the process and incorporating it into your life, so that challenge is amazing. Thank you so much for being there today Jen, I loved the conversation and loved the tips and I really appreciate you spending time with us.

Jen:
Aw, thanks Nicole! It’s always fun talking with you. And if anyone has any questions, you can email me, I would love to talk more about this.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Fabulous, fabulous. Okay, everybody. Thank you for being here and we will see you next time for our next episode of The Better Behavior Show.