Do Your Children Love Nutritious Food?
Most parents have discovered that if a particular food item is very healthy and great for us, our children quickly learn to dislike it. The challenge then becomes, “How can I get my kids to eat more healthy stuff?”
Smoothies can be the answer. Most children love these drinks. And for the real die-hard kids, we can add just a bit of “bad” food that they will surely come over to the good side! If you have never made a smoothie, it is easy. Just prepare the food as if you were going to eat it raw, put in a blender, and blend away.
One big advantage to smoothies is that it is easy to pick ingredients that give the result an appropriate colour. Young boys are often fascinated by gross looking objects, and some of the smoothies that I make myself sure do look the part. Girls, on the other hand, might like pastel shades, and you can do that as well.
Here are several simple examples.
- 1-1/2 cups frozen strawberries
- 1 cup frozen unsweetened pineapple chunks
- 1 cup low-fat vanilla soy milk
- 2 tsp. honey
- 1/2 cup non-fat vanilla yogurt or vanilla soy yogurt
You could also use regular pineapple and skip the honey.
Here is another.
- 1 cup frozen blueberries
- 1/2 cup frozen pineapple chunks
- 1 cup low-fat vanilla soy milk
- 1 Tbsp. frozen lemonade concentrate
- 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
Note: Although these recipes use milk, you can (and should) experiment with adding water instead of milk. The presence of a protein source (the milk) slows digestion and can lead to more gas, and we don’t want that!
You can also add spinach leaves into a fruit smoothie and still get an amazing taste! Experiment by using leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, chard, and celery. These green smoothies are the ones the boys should like, as the colours are not appealing looking to adults. Get creative and come up with interesting names like “Alien Juice.”
Enjoy.
