Grow Your Own Sweet Green Drink: Stevia

Last year i blogged about sugar substitutes (click here to link to post), where i refer to my fave, stevia.  When purchased in store you'll get the liquid or powdered version of the dried plant, sometimes along with preservatives or other sugars like malodextrin and silica, so make sure you read labels!  But did you know this is an incredibly easy plant to grow at home?  We've planted ours outside in a raised bed in full sun and water it about every other day (though i'd imagine you can put it indoors in a sunny window and maybe water it a little less).

Outdoor Growers: A great way to keep your greens organic and not buggy is to spray them with a mixture of neem oil.  We use a neem product we picked up at the garden store - about a tsp to a small spray bottle of distilled water, and add a small drop of dishsoap to help emulsify the mixture (allowing the oil to disperse).

Here's a pic of the full stevia plant (bottom right corner).  We've got so many amazing greens in our raised bed: cilantro, basil, chard, and a few varieties of kale

It's great to have even a small garden growing so you can pick your greens and your sweet greens (stevia) for salads and smoothies right from the garden.  Talk about living energy, straight from plant to plate!

Pick a few leaves to put into your smoothie.  Bite into the stevia leaf, they are super duper sweet!

blending

Pour your smoothie into a big ol' glass or jar, step outside, and soak up sun; allow your body to drink it's Vitamin D.  This jar was bigger than my head, albeit my head is very small.  haha.  

RRRRAWRRRR - giving me awesome energy today for SHO-GA!  What up Mayurasana - I so have you today!

okay, the jar was way too big...insert a straw for civilized sippin'

mmmmmmmm