The Dish: Get a vitamin-packed health boost with the Green O'Colada smoothie from Dope Botanicals

ByAlicia Vitarelli WPVI logo

Thursday, January 18, 2024

The Dish: Get a vitamin-packed health boost with Green O'Colada smoothie from Dope Botanicals in Rittenhouse

Dope Botanicals in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse neighborhood is showing us how to make the Green O'Colada smoothie.

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- In today's "The Dish," we are getting a vitamin-packed health boost!

Dope Botanticals is a plant-based apothecary and sanctuary in the center of Philadelphia's bustling Rittenhouse neighborhood.

It's the heart and soul of two sisters with over 30 years of experience utilizing food as medicine.

They're showing us how to make the greenest of green smoothies: the Green O'Colada! It's packed with all kinds of greens that sisters Nakia and Taahirah Stith source and blend right at their Rittenhouse shop.

"Everything here is made by hand," Nakia says. "Everything here is organic. It's done right here on 20th Street. Everything's mixed in small batches, and we keep our quality the way we want to see it."

For this smoothie, they're using their "Good Green" powder.

"Good green is full of all of the different tonic herbs," Taahirah explains. "It has a cereal grasses like alfalfa and barley. It also has moringa and ginger, things that are super nourishing. We can never have too many greens, right?"

Now, they add a plant based coconut yogurt.

"Gut health is top tier, so we want to make sure we have some full of good probiotics in there," says Taahirah.

They love to sweeten smoothies with fruit, so they're using dates. Pro tip: soak them first.

Now, add more greens.

"I like to do a green smoothie with spinach because spinach blends easily. It's smooth. It's not as aggressive as kale. Kale is too much for me," says Taahirah.

Toss in a small piece of banana, and some frozen mango and pineapple. But this is your smoothie, so choose your favorite fruits!

The Stiths are herbalists and nutritionists. Their smoothie secret? Add water!

"When you make your green smoothies, it's a better idea to use water, not a milk base," Nakia says. "We don't use almond milk or oat milk, because that can cause digestion and upset issues."

It's all about HOW we combine our food.

"Nuts and greens don't work well together in the gut," Nakia says.

The sisters opened Dope Botanicals at the end of 2021, as a passion project. They also package everything by hand, in house, and their messaging comes from the heart.

The labels read: "Your body is your most luxurious possession. You deserve to feel and heal good."

"That is part of our ethos," Nakia says. "Health is wealth."

It's something they learned from their father, who turned their backyard in Southwest Philadelphia into a farm.

"We grew our food," Nakia says. "Our dad was really big on urban gardening, before it was a thing."

"We had a grapevine in the backyard with tomatoes, the whole thing," Taahirah says, "and lots of wild stuff."

Now, they source all of their herbs and plants from organic farms. They also showed us how to use their tonics and tinctures to make a mocktail.

In this one, they use one of their more popular concoctions, "Love Bomb."

"It just feels so good, like euphoria in a bottle," Nakia says. "It's great for your mood and really great for anxiety."

You can drink it straight or mix it with some brewed tea, fresh squeezed orange juice and seltzer. They also add a droplet of their "Cool Aid" to ease stress and tension.

"Cool Aid is our herbal extract that has ashwagandha, skullcap and hawthorne," Taahirah says. "It's great for your heart."

The Stiths are health coaches, but also cheerleaders.

"We love the healing that happens," Nakia says. "When you come in with an issue and you don't quite know what to do, maybe your digestion is off, or you can't sleep or you just don't feel your best, we talk to you."

"I love it when people sleep again," Taahirah says.

"Those success stories are everything to us," Nakia adds.