Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness

Everyone has something different they need to get started in the morning. For some it's the Diet Coke, others have to have coffee or tea, and others guzzle down milk. As for me, I don't have anything that I chemically need first thing--caffeine doesn't do much for me, and I can live without it. My favorite thing is some sort of mass of ground up vegetables, like V8. These days there are a ton of such blends on the market, and of course people roll their own with juicers.

I recently became enamored of Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness. Full of wheatgrass, spinach, a bunch of fruits, and everybody's favorite cyanobacteria, spirulina. Basically pond scum, this little photosynthetic microorganism has been around for three billion years and is full of all sorts of goodies. If you've spent much time fishing and pulling algae off your line, the aroma is unmistakeable. (Lest you be concerned that you're not getting a full algal load, this beverage also contains an unnamed blue-green algae, Chlorella, a green algae, and Palmaria palmata, a red algae.)

Banana and pineapple aromas and flavors dominate, but there's a lot of grass and dirt. In fact, it reminds me a lot of mowing the yard. I know this sounds terrible, but if you've come to love and appreciate earthy and vegetal characteristics in wine, then it's easier to enjoy them in other foods as well. Plus, I never have to worry about The Roommate swiping any beverage that's the color of the paint used on tanks, Jeeps, and other Army equipment.