Easy 4 Ingredients Mango Banana Green Smoothie

My attempt at blogging during this semester was laughable and I clearly need to come up with a new and improved blogging strategy before school begins again. If you’re a blogger and you have any tips for me, feel free to leave them in the comment section.

Anyway, who’s excited for summer!? It felt amazing turning off every single one of my 27 morning alarms the day after my last final. Don’t ask me why, but for as long as I can remember, my morning alarm song has been Yeah! By Usher. I seriously don't when and why i chose that song and i just don't have the will power to change it. I’ve come to associate it with having to cut my sleep short which has kind of made me hate the song (sorry Usher).

It’s been a blast getting to sleep as late as I can without being yelled at to wake up by Usher but I think I’ve slightly abused my freedom. So, I might (scratch that WILL) have to enable some of those alarms again so I can force myself to start being productive before the afternoon.  I’m going to need to do this after I start working anyway, so why not start now?

As did blogging, yoga also took a back seat during this semester and I’m trying to redeem myself this summer. I honestly missed it so much! I missed practicing with, Yoga with Adrienne more than I realized.

BUT, I’m so proud to say that I have successfully added yoga back into my morning routine and I have only missed about two days! How about that! I feel very basic using that sentence now that it’s gone viral but I can’t think of another sentence right now.

I love making myself a nice cold energizing smoothie after killing it on the yoga mat, and I thought I would share one of my favorite recipe with you all.

If I’m being honest, I make most of my smoothies with whatever I find in my fridge and more times than not, they end up tasting pretty good, other times…let’s just say my face looked like that gif of Chrissy Teigen at the Oscars. Don’t worry though, the recipe I’m about to share actually tasted pretty good!

Alright enough blabbing for today. All you'll need for this energy boosting smoothie is, mango, banana, fresh spinach and some almond milk. 

Blend until you get a nice creamy texture.

Total Time

-         5 minutes

Ingredients

-         1 chopped mango / a cup of frozen mango

-         1 chopped banana / a cup of frozen banana

-         1 cup of spinach leaves

-         ¾ cup of Almond milk

-         1 cup of ice (if you’re not using frozen fruits)

This recipe will give you one large smoothie or two average size cups. 

Enjoy! and let me know if you tried this recipe.

-Yvanne

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Why I became a vegetarian (Do I miss eating meat?)

If you had told me a year or two ago that I will be writing a blog post about becoming a vegetarian, I would have laughed at your face so hard! I was one of those people who thought vegetarian/vegans were weird and always tried to make you feel like they were better than you. In fact, let me give a few reasons why back then, omitting meat from my diet would have never crossed my mind.

     1. This is going to sound super stereotypical, but I used to LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE chicken. I can’t remember a day when I was offered chicken and said no. If there was a world where chicken was the only meat available, I would have had no problem eating it on a daily basis.

     2.  In cases you didn’t know, I’m African. And in a typical African household it is virtually unheard of to not eat meat. Basically if the food doesn’t have meat in it, it won’t be as enjoyable as if it did. Think of it as having spaghetti and meatballs without the meatballs. The chances of us eating spaghetti with no meat balls are virtually non-existent. Out of every meal we eat, I would say at least 8/10 times it has some kind of meat in it. 

     3. I was uneducated. When I thought of non-meat eaters, I thought of hardcore animal lovers who would get upset with you for accidentally stepping on an ant and I simply could never relate. Ever since a dog took a bite out me when I was little, animals and I haven’t been the best of friends. I’m not a fan of them, and they aren’t of me. I’m okay with us co-existing and all but I’m not about to dedicate my life to saving them (do I sound heartless?).

Things quickly changed when I finally got a Netflix subscription and quickly developed a love for documentaries. After binge-watching too many documentaries to keep count, I finally stumbled on a documentary called FOOD, INC.  It was as if I had been blinded for years, and the movie basically removed my blindfold. I was completely flabbergasted by what I was watching. I never really paid any mind to how the food I was buying got to the grocery store, where it was made, and how?

FOOD INC. opened doors to many other documentaries just like it and before I knew it, I had watched Cowspiracy, Fork over Knives, Plant Pure Nation, Vegucated, and countless YouTube videos. With every documentary and video that I watched, it became apparent that I couldn’t allow myself to indulge in animal flesh any longer. The chicken I liked so much spent most of its days in an overcrowded room, away from sunlight and pumped with so many hormones to make it grow faster that it couldn’t even walk. The chickens’ legs will often give out because they couldn’t handle the abnormal weight of their bodies. Watching that and many more like it honestly made me want to puke.

Not only is Animal agriculture unsustainable but it is also a huge contributor to climate change among other things. One thing I learned that absolutely baffled is the fact that we could very well feed the millions of people who go hungry every day with the grains we reserve for livestock.  Learning facts such as these further reinforced my decision to stop eating meat.

And so after years of being a proud carnivore, at the beginning of this year I decided that it was time for me to break up with meat. I slowly removed meat from my meals and before I knew it, the sight of chicken I used to drool over made me nauseous. I will admit that at the beginning of my journey, I sometimes missed eating meat. Not so much the taste of it, but more so just seeing it on my plate. I’m not the biggest fan of change, so I think I probably missed the routine or familiarity of always eating my meals with a piece of meat on the side. Like I said earlier, in our household there wasn’t much we cooked that didn’t include meat.

Now that I am four months in, I can’t possibly imagine myself ever eating animal flesh again. My chipotle order now, actually costs less than before and that’s with guacamole! I walk by a chick-fil-a almost every day to get to school and I barely look at it whereas before all it took was the smell of chicken nuggets to get me through the door.

I eventually plan on transitioning to a vegan diet in the future, but as of right now, I’m having lots of fun trying vegetarian recipes and making vegetarian versions of foods that I used to eat with meat.

I’ve been really careful not to reinforce the belief I previously had about meat-free eaters when I get asked questions (even ones that are…challenging to answer to say the least). I always felt as though they were condescending towards carnivores which is why I was so quick not to show any type of interest in their lifestyles. I’m definitely not trying to tell anyone how to live their lives but I do believe that sharing what I learned with others could possibly encourage them to do their own research and take whatever action they see fit. I know I probably would have become a vegetarian sooner if I had been informed. With that said, here are some of the videos/movies I watched that helped me decide to become a vegetarian.

FOOD INC. (Netflix)

Forks over Knives (Netflix)

Cowspiracy (Netflix)

Plant Pure Nation (Netflix)

Best Speech You Will Ever Hear - Gary Yourofsky

-Yvanne

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