No I’m serious, I mean EVER.

I’ve kind of touched on the fact that I am really awful in the kitchen before, but I think I’ve out done even myself this time. But first let me explain how this god awful smoothie came to be. It all started on Friday night at the grocery store when I stumbled across this:

 

 I’ve heard everyone and their brother talk about how great Kale is for you. It’s everywhere. Kale this, kale that, kale will cure cancer, rocket ship you to the moon, allow you to lift vehicles and a handful of it is a suitable replacement for 12 hours of sleep…

I decided to look up some of the benefits of this dark green leafy little gem myself so that I could see what all the fuss is about. Consider my socks “knocked off”. This stuff is the real deal!

 

1327% of your daily Vitamin K??? 354% of your daily Vitamin A???

Interested in particular about the “cancer prevention” properties of Kale, I dove a little deeper, and found this article from World’s Healthiest Foods that explains all about the health properties of this super food, and why we shouldn’t live another day without it.

The long and short of it is that Kale seems to do a really good job of combatting something called “oxidative stress” (or a compromising of our oxygen metabolism) and chronic inflammation. Both oxidative stress and chronic inflammation are risk factors for developing cancer. So preventing them is a good thing.

I’m sold. Into the cart the frozen chopped Kale went.

The problem that I often have when grocery shopping is that I act kind of impulsively, and don’t really plan ahead very well. I hardly ever take a grocery list to the store and I’m usually running a mile a minute just trying to get in and get out so that I can get on to whatever or whoever is waiting for me to finish up. The result is that I often end up with a hodge podge of ingredients, and bits and pieces of meals in my house, none of which really go together. It was the same story with the Kale.

By the time Sunday night came around and I started thinking about how this week was going to be awesome, how I was going to start eating really well and really get my training underway, I remembered the Kale sitting in my freezer! What a terrific way to start the week – with a big, yummy, cancer-fighting, energy powerhouse Kale Smoothie!

Of course, when push came to shove, I had basically no ingredients to put in my smoothie. My strawberries and blueberries had gone mouldy on my counter over the weekend, the only juice I had was orange juice (and I just couldn’t stomach the thought of putting orange juice on my Kale), I had one last, lonely banana that was nearly black and very soft and gooey, and a carton of 1% milk. After rummaging in my freezer a bit, I did also come up with a bag of frozen “Summer Fruit Salad”.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

This morning at 7:15am I cheerfully tossed about 2 cups of the frozen Kale, a handful of the summer fresh fruit salad, that black banana and about 2 cups (or more) of milk into my blender and whirled ‘er away.

Matt’s family was in town for a family wedding this weekend, and Matt’s mom Dianne happened to be up to witness this whole endeavor. She politely didn’t say anything while I floundered around the kitchen (although I sure would have liked to have been inside her head while she watched the whole thing) until I finished whirring away, and she wandered over and pretty much summed up the whole adventure in five words:

“It doesn’t look too good”.

 

Yuck.

Now in all fairness – I know not to judge a smoothie by its appearance. I’ve heard all about these “green” smoothies, and everyone swears that they taste fantastic, even though they look like pond scum. I decided to give my Kale Beauty the benefit of the doubt. Bottoms up.

It was absolutely, completely and totally, mouth puckeringly awful. And that’s being diplomatic. There wasn’t much taste to it, except for this really bitter, awful after taste that I STILL have in my mouth 4 hours later, but the texture was just repulsive.

Shudder.

I’m not giving up on Kale yet, but I definitely need to find a better recipe for it. Does anybody out there actually enjoy this stuff and have any suggestions for getting it down without your mouth puckering like you just took a Tequila shot?!?

Hope your week is off to a great start – what have you got on tap for training this week?! How about any eating goals?! Talk to me!

Happy Monday 🙂

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