The Green Allergy Cure

Have I mentioned that after a lifetime of suffering, my husband is no longer allergic to Spring?  And maybe even dogs?  Here is the marvelous story:

For about a month and a half, we have been drinking daily Green Smoothies consisting of frozen fruit (usually mangos & pineapples), bananas, spinach and water - all blended up into a delicious and delightfully green smoothie.  Rob also adds locally-produced honey to his.

(Before you say "Eww, gross.  I could never drink spinach," you MUST make one for yourself and taste it.  It is very, very yummy; you can barely taste the spinach.  In fact, you should take the Green Smoothie Challenge, as we did.)

We started out enjoying about 16 ounces each daily, but Rob started having more and more. He would make a blender full every morning, drink half for breakfast, and take the rest to work to drink with a bowl of soup for lunch.  

Rob also began to add more and more spinach (or kale) to his smoothies, using the locally-produced honey to offset the extra green flavor.  He typically uses around 16 ounces of fruit, about 3/4 of a bag of spinach and two tablespoons of honey daily.

Well, as you know, spring has finally arrived and with it, we expected the usual month of Rob Not Being Able To Breath because of his allergies.  This would entail constant sneezing, loud sleeping, and just altogether miserableness for him.  We would buy lots of very expensive Claritin, which may or may not help but must be tried.  And allergies lead to asthma, which leads to chronic inhaler use, which leads to even more general misery.  And Spring is not the only thing he is allergic to, if you'll recall this post and this post.

BUT NOT THIS YEAR!!!  This year, Rob has been allergy-free!  He has had nary a sneeze and has been so quiet as he sleeps that I sometimes wonder if he's ok.  But I look over and he is still breathing - silently!   We have even visited his parents twice, and he has had no reaction whatsoever to their dog.  Normally, he would need the inhaler.

I cannot explain what an amazingly, fabulously, wonderful change this has been in our lives.  While I did not suffer the allergies directly, I always felt the effects of a chronically miserable husband (not to mention feeling so bad for him.)  Rob had tried the daily use of local honey in the past to no avail.   We think it is the combination of the greens and the honey that has helped him this time.

And the money we spend on frozen fruit, bananas & spinach is NOT being spent on Claritin, inhalers and tissues!  By the way, the cheapest frozen fruit around here can be found at Whole Foods, surprisingly enough.  It is drastically cheaper, also, so check it out.  (I haven't tried Sam's, but even Walmart and Costco were much more expensive than Whole Foods.)

Butterfly LOVES the smoothies also.  Her favorite way to drink it is to put on her lamb ears, climb up on the table and drink it in a crouch while baaing.  She apparently thinks it is the way a little sheep would drink it. 

So...will you try a Green Smoothie?  

Here is the recipe we started out with:

8 oz frozen fruit (we use 3 parts mango, one part pineapple)

1 banana

1 cup of water

2 handfuls of spinach

Blend the fruit and water until it is all smooth.  Add the spinach and liquify it.  Pour into a glass and drink with a straw.  Yum!

Try it.  It could change your life!

(This post is part of Watercooler Wednesday at the blog Ethos.)

Gloom! Despair! Agony!

I have had an unwelcome visit from a stomach flu bug, and in addition to the physical unpleasantness, the extraneous disappointments have really gotten to me this time. 

• I was really doing well on The Green Smoothie Challenge and was on my 10th day in a row of yummy, healthy green-ness. (I started a week early.)  However, now I feel like I never want anything green ever again.
• A while ago, I banned High-Fructose Corn Syrup from my house.  Yesterday, I was forced to allow 2 liters of the carbonated crap in the door (and in my body) in the form of ginger ale.  I didn't have the heart to ask my husband to travel 45 minutes out of his way after working hard all day (and before cooking his own dinner, caring for our toddler and cleaning up) to get me the healthier version from Whole Foods.
• Ditto on the white noodle stuff.  You can't get chicken-noodle soup made with whole-grain pasta at Kroger.  I wonder if you can get it anywhere.
• My daughter has probably become a Curious George addict since she has watched multiple episodes a day for the last three days.  But I wanted her to have a little fun since I certainly haven't provided any for her.  Except for pretending to be the baby when she was the mama and cooking food for me in her little kitchen.  She did like that.  
• Since I joined the Y on Valentine's Day, I have been very consistent in exercising multiple times a week.  Not this week.  My muscles are surely atrophied by now.
• I hate missing much anticipated, once-a-year events because of a stupid virus.  Today I have to do that.

So there you have it.  The blahs.  From the melodramatic viewpoint of an ENFP.  But the good news is that I am the last member of my household to experience this evil, so when it's gone from me, hopefully it will be gone forever.