No Moves like Jagger but Smooth like Montel

Mulitple sclerosis meets smoothies

I don’t actually have moves like Jagger. It would be cool if I did, but I don’t. About the only way someone could say I moved like Jagger was if that someone happened to be drunk and listening to Brown Sugar while they watched me try to recover from a near fall. In such a case, I would proudly own my Jagger-esque move.

Honestly, I only mention the Rolling Stones frontman as I am a fan of the band and try to sneak in Stones references wherever I can- see laugh lines for some classic Keith commentary. Or, check out this pic of my young nephew. While I held the camera I told him to show me his Keith Richards face and this is what he came up with. I swear the child is brilliant.

I had hoped that by improving my diet, I might improve my chances of at least having Jagger’s energy. It didn’t work. Turns out the diet for health and energy I designed, combining the wisdom of Dr. Terry Wahls and my Portuguese upbringing, had some flaws. I guess when Dr. Wahls mentioned 9 servings a day of leafy greens, she wasn’t promoting 9 bowls of kale soup, 9 slices of bread, 9 pieces of pastry, and 9 glasses of wine like I assumed.

If you are totally confused, you might have MS. But see my last blog post, Kale, the New Frontier for some clarification.

This eating healthy stuff is totally confusing. Since I wasn’t able to accurately decipher Dr. Wahls’ plan, and I don’t move like Jagger, maybe I can be smooth like Montel. My sister Laurie told me that Montel’s plan involves smoothies. I love smoothies! Especially the kind with peanut butter cups swirled in.

Oh, wait, that is actually a Blizzard and not likely endorsed by Montel. Dammit. Montel is fit, gorgeous, famous and black. 4 things I am not. Ok, maybe I can’t be smooth like Montel but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try his eating plan.

As you know, Montel Williams is the handsome, debonair TV personality who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis more than ten years ago. He has used his fame to show MS’er’s ways to cope with this illness. Montel believes in eating better. He says we need to start our day with veggie juice and make fruits and veggies a regular part of our day.

Do we have to? Has Montel even bothered to check if ice cream, cookies and popcorn have any essential ms fighting nutrients? What about birthday cake? Maybe that is filled with nutrition? I bet he hasn’t checked.

Montel says he has done some research and understands folk’s dread of vegetables. Here is where the smoothie idea comes in. He suggests putting leafy green veggies in the smoothie so you won’t know you are eating them. He mentions spinach and, like Dr. Wahls, also recommends kale.

I was committed but before I went out and bought a blender my mom suggested that I come over to her house and try out her fancy new appliance to see if I would even drink the stuff once it was made.

For Christmas, Laurie had given my mom the hot new juicer/blender/food processor system that due to potential legal issues I probably shouldn’t name here. For fun, let’s call it Ancient Warrior. Laurie had bought the Ancient Warrior after she saw it on an infomercial and thought it might help her eat healthy too. When she opened the box, it looked really complicated and exhausting so she gave it to my mom instead.

I made a plan with my mom to test her Ancient Warrior, and went to the grocery store where I bought spinach, blueberries, and strawberries. Next to the convenience store for bananas. Yes, the grocery store sells bananas but they weren’t ripe for the smoothie experiment so an extra trip was required.

At my mom’s house we pulled out her Ancient Warrior and set it up. Then we washed out the pitcher and all the fancy attachment thingys that came with it. Then we tried to figure out how to use it. This took a while. Especially since we were trying to figure out how to use her Ancient Warrior by reading the instruction manual for her Bose Wave Music system.

Once we realized the reason why nothing looked familiar, we went looking for the right instruction manual. Then we pulled out a colander and washed the strawberries, the blueberries and the bananas. I know most people don’t wash bananas since you are just going to peel them anyway but I am pretty anal. Do we wash the pre-washed bagged spinach? We got into a debate about that and settled the issue by washing half of it. That seemed to be the easiest way to settle the dilemma and I was starting to get tired.

Then we dried the produce. We pulled out trays of ice cubes and tried to crack them open without getting any on the floor. We picked up the ones that we missed. Next, I complained about how much work all of this was-Montel must have an assistant that makes smoothies for him. MY assistant was getting impatient so we started throwing the produce into the Ancient Warrior. We topped it off with ice and pushed all kinds of buttons.

The roaring sound gave us both a headache. We struggled with how to take the top off of the pitcher, but eventually figured that out. The smoothie was a pretty pink with specks of green swirled in. I had hoped it would look and taste like a Shamrock shake since St. Paddy’s day was coming up. It didn’t. I cautiously tried it. And it didn’t suck. Montel was right- you really couldn’t taste the spinach. It almost tasted like a regular smoothie. A big almost but it wasn’t horrible.

We used the energy it gave us to clean up the mess we made. My mom cut her fingers on the blades of the Ancient Warrior and cursed. She packed up the appliance and gave it to me to take home to make all the smoothies I want. And I will. As soon as I get enough energy to repeat the above……

Image: zirconicusso / FreeDigitalPhotos.net