Everyone should have a pal like my nutritionally-hip friend Myra. She’s the one who introduced me to the whole grain farrow. Yesterday, she gave me a bag of nutritional yeast flakes (“the full complement of B vitamins,” Myra says, great in smoothies and on popcorn). Myra told me about krill oil, and says it is better for you than most other fish and flax seed oils. She uses kelp power as a condiment (though she says it doesn’t really have a flavor), shaking it into every cold salad and steaming pot of food that she creates. “It’s like seasoning your food with the iron you need,” she says. At night, she puts some millet, barley, whole wheat berries, or farrow into a bowl with water and a splash of fresh lemon juice; then she rinses the soaked grains in the morning and cooks them up for the day.

“Eat more greens and grains! Eat more greens and grains!” she tells me.

I say, “Myra, I just want to come to your house and follow you around.”

Here’s how Myra makes her morning breakfast shakes: She uses green tea or goji berry tea as a base. Or, sometimes she uses any alternative milk as base like soy, rice, almond, oat, or hazelnut. Then, she adds whatever she’s got around in the house (not everything in the house, but any number of the follwoing things in compatible combinations): cacao beans (also called nibs), dried organic goji berries, hemp seeds, nutritional yeast flakes or Brewer’s yeast, bee pollen, oatmeal, sunflower seeds, pepitas, flax seed, almonds (or any raw nut), nut butters, frozen berries, frozen bananas (peel them first and freeze in plastic bags), and plain whole milk yogurt.

Blend, taste. Add a little unfiltered honey if you must. I’ve come to really like the nutritional yeast taste in the morning, but I understand it might not be everybody’s thing. One of my sons craves it, the other doesn’t.