Green Smoothie: What It is, Where It Came From and How to Make It

1. 1920s

   The fridge and the blender

   In 1922 Stephen Poplawski patented a blender with blades at the bottom of the jug, designed for mixing soda-fountain drinks. The first electric refrigerators for the home went on sale in the same decade. These two inventions were behind the experiments that eventually gave rise to the whole world of smoothies, fresh juices and other liquid and creamy foods and drinks.

2. 1926

   Experiments with orange juice

   Two names feature in the history of the smoothie – Julius Freed and Bill Hamlin. The story goes that Freed had previously sold cigars in Montana without much success, so he set off to seek his fortune in sunny California. In 1926 he opened a freshly squeezed orange juice stand in downtown Los Angeles. Prohibition was in force across the United States at the time, so selling orange juice looked like a genuinely promising business plan.

   It got even better when Julius’s friend, the estate agent Bill Hamlin, entered the picture. Plain orange juice was too acidic for him, so in 1929 he came up with a mixture that was gentler on his stomach – the juice was blended with ice, sweetener, milk, powdered egg white and vanilla. The drink was frothier and creamier, and the stand’s takings jumped from about 20 to 100 dollars a day. That is why Orange Julius is often described as the forerunner of today’s smoothie.

   Fans of the chain still remember the original taste with nostalgia; its secret lay in freshly squeezed orange juice. Today’s version, they say, is a different thing altogether. But even that cannot take away Freed and Hamlin’s place as the first to experiment.

3. Mid-20th century

   Giving greens the green light

   For the birth of the green smoothie we largely have Ann Wigmore to thank. She spent her whole life promoting raw food and was a great champion of wheatgrass juice.

   Ann Wigmore regarded green juice as the cornerstone of her diet and – in her own words – of her recovery. It is her personal commitment to promoting green drinks that still earns her a place as a key figure in the development of the green smoothie.

4. 1973

   The dairy-free smoothie

   Although Freed and Hamlin opened the door to the world of liquid nutrition, history had to wait a little longer for the smoothie as we know it. The next step was taken by Steve Kuhnau. As a teenager he worked at a soda fountain, but being lactose intolerant he couldn’t drink the milkshakes he was making. So in the 1960s he began blending fruit, juices, protein and vitamins in search of a nourishing drink that could stand in for the much-loved milkshake.

   In 1973 he opened a shop in Kenner, Louisiana, which grew into the Smoothie King chain. The word ‘smoothie’ had already appeared in the 1940s in recipe books for Waring blenders, but it was Kuhnau who helped bring it to the general public.

5. 2004

   The green smoothie gets its flavour

   Our look at how the green smoothie evolved would not be complete without the last name on the list – Victoria Boutenko. The Russian-born author and teacher has devoted her life to raw food and to popularising it around the world. She built on Ann Wigmore’s work and gave the green drink the one thing that made it far more popular – flavour. She simply balanced the bitterness of green leaves with sweet, creamy banana.

   By her own account she blended her first green smoothie – kale and banana – in August 2004, and a year later she published a book about it, Green for Life. And the green wonder was born…

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