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Green smoothie vs Green Goddess Soup - difference??


trish148

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Getting ready to start the program with my husband and daughter.  I don't have much of an appetite in the morning and don't like eggs so was very disappointed to read my green smoothie is not recommended.  I am underweight so don't care about losing weight.  My smoothie is mostly baby kale & spinach greens with W30 approved coconut milk and about a half cup of frozen fruit mix (peaches, strawberries, etc..). with flax & chia for omega3 and fiber.   I've always felt it is a nutritious way to start the day since I'm not hungry enough for a meal.  

In reading through the recipes on this website, whole30.com, I ran across the 'Green Goddess Soup' which is basically pureed veges.  Here is the last instruction:

PUREE soup with an immersion blender or in a blender or food processor until frothy and smooth.

I don't understand how this is approved yet a green smoothie is not.  

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Here is the last line:

Empty your fridge and throw your favorite veggies in the pot (the greener, the better), and pair a bowl of this soup with your favorite protein for a full Whole30 meal. Best of luck and Happy New Year!

http://whole30.com/2016/01/soup-sunday-part-four/

 

Does this mean that I can have my green smoothie for breakfast if I have it with a protein?  

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Will you put it in a bowl and eat it with a spoon? Or at least leave out the fruit?

Officially, smoothies are not recommended, but they're not completely ruled out. Here's what the Can I Have list says:

Quote

 

Smoothies: We’d rather you didn’t

This is a very popular question, with a very unpopular answer. Smoothies (generally made using lots of fruit) are technically compliant on your Whole30, but we strongly recommend against it. Food that you drink sends different satiety signals to your brain than food that you chew. So when you drink your meal, your brain isn’t getting the feedback it needs to tell your body that it’s had enough of what it needs. Plus, smoothies are generally really fruit-heavy, and starting your day off with a liquid sugar-bomb sets you up for cravings, hunger, and volatile energy levels throughout the day. In summary, we’d rather you just eat the food, and skip the smoothie.

 

We would strongly encourage you to consider this 30 days an experiment to see what happens when you change not just the actual foods you're putting in your mouth, but the way you think about them. Sure, smoothies are convenient. But they're not the healthiest thing you could possibly eat.

I know you think a half cup of of fruit isn't a lot, but consider that many people find that if they have the exact same breakfast on different days, but one day add fruit in addition to whatever they'd had the other day, despite eating more food, they find themselves hungry faster. Sometimes even a small amount of fruit can affect your blood sugar levels in negative ways, especially first thing in the morning when you've been fasting since dinner the night before, which is probably what is happening with these people  -- the blood sugar rise and then subsequent crash is causing them to feel hungry sooner than if they hadn't included the fruit. Does it affect you the same way? I don't know. The only way you can know is if you skip the fruit for a while and see how you feel.

If you do decide to continue with the smoothies, definitely be sure you have enough protein with them, and be sure there's lots of vegetables in them. Enough protein would be 1-2 servings the length, width, and height of your palm, or if you're having eggs, as many whole eggs as you can hold in your hand.

Finally, I would point out a fact that people sometimes get a little annoyed by when we mention it here in the forum: if there's a grayish area in the Whole30 rules, and you're fighting hard to make something compliant because you don't want to give it up rather than just accepting that for 30 days you're going to see how you go without it, that food has an awful lot of hold on you, and you might want to consider why you feel the way you do about it. (It's not just you, and it's not just smoothies -- people go to great lengths to try to come up with compliant versions of sweet, creamy coffee drinks, oatmeal-like breakfast foods, bread-like or tortilla-like items, and other stuff. I personally tried really hard with the coffee on my first Whole30 before finally giving it up completely about a week in because it just wasn't drinkable without sweeteners and creamy stuff. I get it, I do, but just think about it. You may or may not ever do another Whole30, might as well get the very most out of it that you can.)

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The key to what you're saying is that you have a hard time eating at breakfast... this is potentially because your hormones are out of whack... when you eat real food within an hour of waking, your hormones become balanced... and the thought of real food in the morning is no longer repulsive...

The other difference is that most people don't have a soup habit... most people don't replace an entire meal with a blended concoction in the way that smoothies replace breakfast... You're right in that the smoothie and the soup are almost entirely equal... except where the mental aspect comes in.  Smoothies are discouraged because they don't get you thinking about food differently, they are not a balanced template meal and they don't do a lot to help regulate your hormones... but there is no Whole30 police that are going to come to your house and knock the smoothie out of your hand.

Please know tho, that if you end up struggling between breakfast and lunch, need snacks when your meals should last you 4-5 hours, the first piece of advice will be to ditch the smoothies... 

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I had blended soup and protein for breakfast many days during my Whole30 because I could meal prep it and have a quick breakfast in the morning. *Hot* soup, not cold like a smoothie. It was a savory like a soup instead of sweet like a smoothie. Some days I drank my soup out of a coffee mug and some days I ate it in a bowl with a spoon. Best breakfasts ever were the zucchini soup from Mel Joulwan and Whole30 compliant baked Scotch Eggs. Yum. 

I used to have Shakeology every morning, but I haven't even considered going back to that since I started having savory breakfasts on Whole30 a year ago. Seriously, give up the smoothie. 

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