We've all been told, be it by a nutritionist we saw on Oprah or your mom: to be anywhere close to healthy, to prevent cancer and a host of other diseases, we need to have at least two servings of green vegetables per day. Sounds simple enough, but how many of us actually do this? With the hectic schedule of the modern Canadian, who has time to think about when we last had a piece of broccoli?

Enter the Green Drink. I consider the green drink to be one of the greatest innovations to come out of the health foods field. Here we have a simple and easy way to get one of the two recommended servings of greens. Brilliant.

Basically, a green drink is a product where they've taken a combination of green vegetables, sprouted grains and grasses, possibly algae like spirulina or chlorella, and put them into a form where it can be drank. It comes in a dried powdered form which is mixed with water and/or juice, liquid form ready to use, and frozen form, to be thawed and drank. All of these forms have their advantages. The trick is figuring out what works best for you.

But aside from the right form, there are so many different products on the market, how do you know which one to use? One of the most important things to look for in a greens product is the processing it goes through. Cold processing is a term used to denote that the product has not been heated above a certain temperature, particularly important with a dehydrated, powdered product. The reason you don't want the greens heated too much is that you want the nutrients, most importantly the enzymes, to remain intact and usable by the body. If you're going to get a fresh bottled green drink, make sure it has not been pasteurized. Pasteurization kills a large amount of what is beneficial in the greens in the first place.

Also, look for a product that contains some nutrient-dense foods such as sprouted grains, grasses and algae, all loaded with nutrients. Products that just contain vegetables are good, products that also contain these super foods are better.

If I had a juicer, I'd be juicing the greens myself which is probably the best solution from a nutritional standpoint – it doesn't get much fresher than that. But alas, I do not have a juicer (I know, a nutritionist without a juicer – but like the Sasquatch, although rarely seen, we do exist). This is why I personally like a frozen version of green drinks. I thaw enough for a week in my fridge, putting the rest back in the freezer for the future, and have a shot every morning. It's not the most delicious thing in the world, but you can mix it with a little juice and water if it makes you gag. The reason I like it is that it's a raw, minimally-processed, whole food.

But remember one important point – these drinks are not a way to get your vegetables only to eat garbage the rest of the time. You still need to eat real vegetables! They should still be a regular part of your diet. There are many reasons these products can't completely replace whole, unprocessed vegetables in your diet (for one thing, green drinks don't contain the important fibre you get from vegetable sources), but I won't go into them here. This is a supplement, not a replacement. So keep eating your veggies!