Green smoothies are a great way to get a lot of extra nutrition in your diet. As the name indicates, they include plenty of greens along with other fruits and veggies. Let’s take a look at the different types of greens you can include in your green smoothies.

Dark Leafy Greens

The bulk of your green smoothies should be made up of dark leafy greens for the biggest nutritional bang. Spinach, kale, romaine lettuce, mustard greens, collard greens, chicory and Swiss chard are all great choices. If you’re growing root vegetables like beets for example, chop off the greens and use them in your smoothies.

Any Type of Salad Green Goes

Of course you don’t have to stop there. You can toss any salad greens including lose leaf lettuce or the leaves from heads of lettuces in your smoothies. If you have a bag of lettuce sitting in the fridge, grab a handful and add it to your smoothie. It’s a great way to use up those salad greens before they go bad.

Micro Greens Offer Big Nutrients

Micro greens are easy to grow and they offer a big nutritional boost to your smoothies. You can also pick them up at your local grocery store. They are small plants of lettuce and herbs that have a lot of concentrated nutrients. While they shouldn’t make up the bulk of your smoothie, they are a great add-on that makes your smoothies even healthier.

Throw in Some Herbs for Flavor and Nutritional Boosts

Last but not least, let’s talk about herbs. Like micro greens, you can easily grow them at home on your kitchen counter. They add a lot of flavor to your smoothies and can provide even more nutrients. Play around with herbs like parsley, basil, cilantro, mint and such The stronger the flavor of the herb the smaller the amount you should use in your smoothie.

Play around with different types of greens and mix it up. You’ll never know what yummy flavor combination you’ll come up with. Mixing it up and using a different type of leafy greens is always a good idea. Sadly we live in a world where much of our produce, including the greens we use in our smoothies and salads are treated with various pesticides.

Mixing things up will make sure you don’t ingest too much of one single poison, keeping the overall dosage at low levels. More importantly though, each plant has different micronutrients that we can benefit from. By switching things up and using different greens (and different fruits and veggies as well), we make sure we get a large variety of nutrients.