So this one's a bit late. Woops.
So my mom has had a Nutribullet for a while now, and whenever I'm home, we make these fruit smoothie things. Just fruit, because apparently that's what one does. No ice cream, no milk, nothing. It's like juicing, but we peel all the fruit before it goes in.
So I went grocery shopping, and I got everything that I thought might be good in a smoothie. Strawberries, bananas, cherries, white flesh peaches, black plumcots, and then I wandered by something, and on a whim I bought it. Limes. Limes are good, right? There are always lemon-lime flavors in everything. And, confusing them with kiwi, I thought that strawberry and lime were together in all sorts of flavors for foods. So, I bought a few of those, too. Also, on my mother's request, I bought organic baby spinach. Again, because that's simply what one does.
These choices have led me to two maxims that I believe apply to smoothies and also to life.
1. A little bit of lime goes a really long way.
2. Spinach really does go in everything.
For the first, I should have realized what I was doing as soon as I cut one lime open. I could smell the tart, excellent citrus smell as soon as I broke its skin. I had decided to use one lime, in addition to a bunch of cherries and strawberries. And spinach, which I still was not sold on. My mother convinced me that I probably should just start with half of a lime, and I could add more later if I needed to.
See, I had forgotten the taste of wild lime. I was used to manufactured, sugary lime tastes, like in starburst and skittles. I had forgotten the sharp, tart unforgiving tang of actual limes. And so, I blended it all up, and took an experiment sip. I'm still not sure if my mouth has gotten back to its original shape yet. It was SO sour. It may have been better with just a quarter of a lime, but even after we added another half-banana, it was undrinkable. We even added some sugar, which COMPLETELY defeats the point of a natural fruit juice, but made it drinkable, at least for a few sips. It ended up in the garbage disposal. Way, way too much lime.
This concept holds true in real life, if the world 'lime' is replaced with 'change.' Any time I have ever tried to do a radical change, I ended up doing all sorts of new and different things for a few days, and then burning out. That new idea ended up in the metaphorical garbage disposal, and I went back to what I was doing before. That's why, this summer, I'm trying to start slowly, with a bit of Ancient Greek a day, gradually becoming more organized and more fit. If I demanded that, say, this blog was done on time everyday, as well as everything else I had ever dreamed of doing this summer, I would have no blog, no drive, and no Ancient Greek. And that just won't work for me. A quarter of a lime at a time, if that.
For the second rule, baby spinach gets put in every smoothie. Every single one.
Starting out, baby spinach sounds gross. And it looks gross. And it sounds like vegetables, and so no one wants to eat it. I certainly didn't. Looks gross+sounds gross= I don't eat it. However, it turns out that baby spinach is really, really good for you. Spinach in general has tons of iron, vitamin C, calcium and potassium, as well as being low (as in practically no) calories. (from http://home.howstuffworks.com/spinach3.htm). And baby spinach is smaller and milder in taste than regular spinach.
I was wary at first, the spinach turns the smoothie green, practically no matter what else you put in it. Green things are scary to drink. Also, it ends up as little flakes, which you'd think would be unpleasant to drink.
The thing is, it's really, really good. It tastes just like a smoothie, and it's really good for you. Which leads me to my practical application. Spinach is like all the little things in life that are good for you, like getting enough sleep, exercising, eating well, etc. They're things that you may not want to do at times, in favor of things like late nights, lazy days, and quick eats. But like spinach you know that they're good for you, and they don't drastically change your life. The things that flavor your life are the other things, the people you're around, the things you wear, where you go during the day, like the fruit that you'd put in with the spinach. So, like spinach, we should put lots of the things that we're sure are good for us into our lives, and let the other things file in around the necessities. I can't wait to try new fruits, and experiences, around my daily Greek and sleep.
Ancient Greek tally: 3/102
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