Healthy, happy kids drink smoothies

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Getting children to eat fruit and veggies can, for some parents, present some challenges. In this post I will share how I got my son to eat carrots, spinach, celery as well as other veggies and fruits, everyday.

A couple of years ago I bought a blender, but like many kitchen appliances, this one also ended up getting in the way and quickly got demoted to a fancy paper-weight, and remained one for a couple of years. It wasn’t until I started experiencing some trouble getting jr. to eat his greens that I quickly realised there might be hope. I was getting tired of watching the boss-man turn his vegetables into to projectiles, even tiny pieces of vegetables that I carefully hid were quickly spotted and terminated: arghhh, squirrel food!! And then things got airborne. Determined, I wiped my face, looked at my wife and said: I have an idea.

If something loses its form, it becomes difficult to identify, as it merely becomes a colour. Green isn’t a bad colour if you ask my son, it’s in fact dad’s favourite colour, but when green looks like a leaf of spinach, it can so obviously only be a leaf of spinach, and thus squirrel food. I grabbed a couple of carrots, an apple, a stick of celery, and a handful of spinach leaves and chucked them into our paper-weight. I added some rice-milk and turned on the blender. After a few minutes, I emptied the contents of the blender into two glasses and handed one to Mars. Your favourite colour! was all he said, no squirrel-food profanities, no problem. I started making smoothies every morning for the two of us, each morning a new variation, until we identified some top combinations. Eating so healthy had never been easier or tasted better.

You can also create some amazing coloured smoothies!

After a week of experimenting, I managed to create some combinations that really tasted good. I normally add rice- or soya-milk to our smoothies but not too much, as we like em thick. I have discovered that if a smoothie is slightly thick whilst in the blender, it results in a very fine blend with no clumps. To make your smoothie thinner, which makes it easier to drink, do so by adding more liquid (e.g. water, dairy-/soya-/rice-milk, juice) after the mixture has been completely blended. To add more nutrition to your smoothies, consider adding some seeds (e.g. Chia). Soak them in water first, as this will soften them and make them more blender-friendly.

Here are some of of our favourites:

• Caplimeapple
  3 x Carrots
  2 x plums
  1 x squeezed Lime
  1 x squeezed Orange
  1 x Apple

• 20 Smurfs
  1 x large handful of fresh Spinach
  20 x Blueberries
  3 x Carrots
  3 x Basil leaves
  1 x Apple

• Mango Monkey
  1 x Teaspoon grated Ginger
  3 x Carrots
  1 x Celery stick
  1 x Mango
  1 x Apple

• Shrek’s Swamp
  1 x Teaspoon grated Ginger
  1/2 Squeezed Lime
  1 x Celery stick
  1/3 Cucumber
  1 x Avocado
  1 x Banana

After a week or two of green smoothies, Jr. began asking questions: Dad, why are some of the smoothies your favourite colour? So I told him – this created a bit of a stir. He’s not pleased about the fact that squirrel nosh is getting in his smoothies, but he acknowledges the fact that they do taste rather good. He still doesn’t eat that many vegetables, besides the occasional carrot or cucumber, but he is completely OK with drinking a weeks worth of fruits and vegetables in one cup, a good compromise. Win-win.

Shrek’s swamp ready to blend:

I have included the following nutrition charts for fruits, vegetables, and seafood (included for the sake of completion, not recommended in a smoothie). For a more comprehensive list, please visit the link at the bottom of the list:

• Raw Fruits (97)
• Raw Vegetables (87)
• Cooked Seafood (76)
• Health Garden

If you don’t already have a blender and need to buy one, consider purchasing one of quality, as cheap makes and models will fall to pieces. Cheap blenders also have cheap components (e.g. blades), which will result in lumpy smoothies and lumps are not something you want (remember my comment concerning projectiles).

If you manage to create some smoothies that work well, please send in your recipes, and perhaps a picture of it in action.

Until next week, keep it smooth.

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