A recent enquiry was “why choose juice (extracts the fibres) rather than blending (retains the fibres)? The answer is we don’t choose, we use both! Freshly pressed juices are marvellous in that they deliver all the enzymes, vitamins and minerals, for virtually no digestive effort, and are absorbed very quickly. So a twice daily juice, before breakfast and before supper, not only gives an energy boost, but also delivers a bio available multi mineral supplement.

Blends give you the chance to make a complete meal in a bowl, you get the whole produce, it is easier to digest than chewing a salad, ( and you can take in three or four times the amount of salad at once, so you get the useful fibre). Further, you can add to your blender full of green leaves, some ground seeds or nuts, nut creams and seed sauces, for extra protein and as a thickener. This gives you a complete meal, which is broken down more efficiently than just chewing (most of us don’t do that properly) and in this form you can turn a juice into a protein rich, green power pack at breakfast or any time of day, which is much more easily assimilated than a hastily chewed salad.

Ideally I suggest a juice, a salad, and a green smoothie, every day. Note I haven’t mentioned fruit at all!! Fruit played no part in Dr Ann Wigmore’s energy soups originally, and here we use very little fruit. The problem is that the word smoothie often seems to mean mixtures like strawberry, banana and a few spinach leaves!! This plays havoc with your blood sugar! so if you have been using this type of recipe, let me persuade you to drop the banana altogether (very high glycaemic index) keep a few acid berries (excellent anti oxidants), but choose dark leafy greens as the main bulk of your smoothie/energy soup.

You can see the Energy soups we make here, on the short YouTube clip

We’d love to hear from you if you have a favourite recipe of your own you’d like to share!