Pineapple Zinger

A zesty smoothie that's jammed packed with vitamin C. Yum!

INGREDIENTS

• 2/3 cup coconut water

• 2/3 cup filtered water

• 1 cup pineapple, chopped

• 1 orange, peeled

• 1/2 lemon, peeled

• 1/2 cup spinach

• 1 celery stick

• Handful of fresh mint leaves

• 1/2 – 1 tsp super greens powder

• 1 cup ice cubes

DIRECTIONS

1. Roughly chop all fruit and vegetables. Peel the orange and lemon.

2. Place the coconut water, filtered water, celery, spinach, mint and super greens powder into a blender and blend on the highest speed until well mixed.

3. Add the pineapple, orange and lemon and blend until very smooth.

RAW TIP:

1. For an extra ZING!, use the whole lemon.

This recipe is featured in our Books.

A word from The Raw Food Girl

The idea for this recipe came from one that I saw posted my a friend’s health page, Kimberley Robb. Kim had posted a smoothie for a ‘Zinger’ which had a lot of lemon in it, to promote detoxification and alkalinity. Now I love a zesty lemon as much (or more!) as the next person, though my kids don’t really appreciate my smoothie efforts that contain this magic fruit. So this adaption is for them. My son Ashton absolutely LOVES pineapple and he’ll drink anything that has pineapple in it, even with the sneaky lemon hidden in the mix.. Hence: Pineapple Zinger. Pineapple are also an excellent source of vitamin C. In fact, a cup of fresh pineapple (165g) offers 131% of our recommended daily in take for vitamin C! (1). We all know that vitamin C is good for us.It helps ward off colds, boost the immune system etc…But why? Here’s what The University of Maryland Medical Centre have to say about it: ​ ‘You need vitamin C for the growth and repair of tissues in all parts of your body. It helps the body make collagen, an important protein used to make skin, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, and blood vessels. Vitamin C is needed for healing wounds, and for repairing and maintaining bones and teeth. It also helps the body absorb iron from non-heme sources.’ What fabulous stuff! In case some of the lingo is a bit hard to dicier, non-heme simply means from a plant source, as opposed to heme iron that if found in meat and animal products. Heme iron has higher bio availability than non-heme iron." (2) I recently met a lady at one of my Raw Food Workshops who was on a strict vegan diet and had really suffered from iron deficiency. Her doctors recommended the usual: red meat, iron infusion, iron-infused foods – but instead she tried a different approach. Understanding the role of vitamin C in iron absorption, she dramatically increased her consumption of vitamin C, both via the food she ate and vitamin C supplements. After a few months of this I was very interested to learn that she no longer has an iron deficiency! Amazing!! Incidentally, iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency in Australia. (4) I’ve always been low in iron too, but instead of using vitamin C supplements to try fix it I added 1 table spoon of spirulina powder to my lemon water every day. Spirulina is an excellent source of iron – one of the best you’ll find from a plant source. After about 2 months of doing this I had my iron levels tested – and they were back to normal range! Without eating red meat or synthetic iron supplements. I was stoked!! Eating pineapple with or before your greens can help your body absorb more of the iron.Just make sure it’s fresh, because canned pineapple contains only 32% vitamin C (5) In other words, canning this fruit kills over 4 times the amount of available vitamin C, so always eat fresh when possible.