Stomachs on legs are proud to present

And now for something slightly more trivial: a smoothie recipe.

It's not often I can claim to have invented something, but here is a smoothie that I created, which I am sure would be a panacea for Americans who have been overeating all Thanksgiving weekend.

It contains cranberries, which as my fellow members of womankind know, are not only tasty and tangy, but have certain curative powers.
Locavores beware, these come from Canada - as the label says, "straight from the bog". "Straight" here meaning out of the bog, into packaging, thence into a crate and a truck and then a plane or ship I presume and then a truck again and then finally at some point arriving at my local Rewe supermarket. For some reason the supermarkets in Germany are stocking plenty of them.

The smoothie also contains whole, raw oats. According to herbal medicine type people, oats have calming properties, but I've always assumed that any such properties would not remain once the oats have been steam-rolled and cooked into a mush. In any case, whole oats have cholesterol-lowering properties. They're also quite popular with horses.

Whole oats are called 'Nackt-hafer' in German ("naked oats"), which doesn't make too much sense since they are more clothed than the hulled and rolled variety.
I think I might be the only dirty-minded person who's thought of another reason for the name, concerning their feminine, 'fertile' appearance.

Soaking the grains and seeds aids their digestibility and blendability. Raw food fans claim it also aids the development of living enzymes, however nutritionists dispute the benefits of this. London-based nutritionist Bridget Naisbitt told the Guardian that "any enzymes you eat are broken down in your gut before they're digested and what you actually absorb are amino acids anyway ... we specifically evolved our own enzymes to fulfil the individual processes that take place in the human body, and an enzyme in a sprouting chickpea is unlikely to be able to fulfil that role."

Anyway, the soaking is necessary to make the oats softer, and the smoothie is much nicer to drink than milk-based smoothies: it doesn't leave you feeling bloated.

The smoothie has loads of fibre, and a creaminess from the seeds and oats which really offsets the tangy cranberry very well.

To quote a certain NYC-based hip hop producer in a group mail he sent us on Thursday, it might even give you "a very thankful BONER
On this Puritan turkey day!"

RUDE HOLIDAY SMOOTHIE

Soak a small handful of whole oats, a few tablespoons of linseeds/flax seeds, and one tablespoon of some other nut or seed of your choice (e.g. hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds) overnight in cold water.

Rinse well and either use right away or put in the fridge for a day or two, until needed.

Chuck into the blender with a handful of cranberries, 3-4 chopped dates and half of a smoothie-glass full of water (the smoothie should be very thick and creamy). Blend until it is a pleasant uniform pink shade (or as close as you can get with all those little bits of nuts).