One of our patients has invented a pineapple, ginger, lemon and kale drink to get her day off to a zinging start. Like me, Emily is in lingual braces. Unlike me she is revelling in the challenge of creating a new brace-friendly diet. I hate being deprived of crunchy and chewy foods. Nearly every day I crave a crunchy baguette, the very thing that would be a disaster for braces! Emily, meanwhile, never gets cravings and is loving the challenge to be inventive!
Mind you, she is a nutritionist and she does have a blender, which she describes as her new best friend. Last time she told me about some of the fantastic drinks she prepares, such as her fruit and vegetable shakes. She has concocted a pink shake, made of mixed frozen berries, red kale, pomegranate juice and pumpkin seeds. There’s that kale again!
What’s with the kale, I asked her? Well, it is very, very good for you, apparently. It has a high vitamin content – Vitamins A and C in particular. Given the choice, Emily would always choose kale in preference to spinach – Whatever would Popeye say! – and she wouldn’t have either out of a tin, but freshly blended into a drink or soup.
Here is the recipe for Emily’s pineapple drink:
2 inch slice of fresh pineapple with the core and skin removed
1 small pear or apple
1 handful of curly kale (frozen makes it sweeter)
Juice of half a lemon or lime
1 inch piece of fresh ginger (or to taste)
A couple of ice cubes
All the above added to a base of water, plain or coconut water, just enough to make a drinkable liquid.
(To add an extra zing of green and antioxidants she sometimes adds half a teaspoon of green tea, like Matcha.)
