Homemade Green Powder for Smoothies and Washing Greens the Easy Way

Ever wonder how many fresh greens fit inside a one pound container of powdered greens? Wonder no longer.

Homemade Green Powder for Smoothies
Every year I try to dehydrate lots of green things, turn in to powder and use in our smoothies (just remember to add a little extra liquid to the smoothie!). I've been wondering for a while how many greens I am actually putting in to my smoothie when I add a tablespoon or two and since Google turned up no answers for me (IMAGINE THAT! Maybe I was not using the right search words??) this year I decided to figure it out myself.

To begin my experiment I started with one pound of two kinds of greens: kale and spinach. In each photo they are pictured side-by-side, kale on the left and spinach on the right.

FRESH

DRY

POWDER

I did two different kinds because I wanted to see how they compared when dehydrated and turned in to powder. Both were the same ... each pound produced about 1/2c of powder (maybe a tablespoon over a half cup) and weighed nearly the same (a gram or two different).

Now, on to WASHING all of those greens.
Sometimes I have to wash about 25lbs of greens in one day. That's a LOT of greens to try to put through the salad spinner!!! So what I do instead is wash the greens in a bowl of water, put into a pillow case, secure the end with a rubber band and put it through the SPIN CYCLE of my washing machine. This works prefect! Of course I still have to spin them in several batches but it is a real time saver.
For those who do not know, spinning greens helps pull the water off and dries them quite a bit. This in turn helps them to keep longer in the refrigerator. If you are planning to dehydrate them, do not bother spinning :)

Beet greens ready to spin.

Set dial to final SPIN cycle.

I hope this was helpful! Maybe you have a more efficient way than this? If so, please share!