Inspired by Cassie Green from Green Grocer Chicago, I decided to try to get my kids to eat some greens via a smoothie. It was much easier than I expected it to be. There are a few factors I think played to my favor:
- My son’s favorite color is green so I got him excited about trying a GREEN smoothie
- Nothing has ever come out of our blender that didn’t taste good
- They saw many of their favorite things go INTO the blender
I love making smoothies because you don’t have to have a recipe — you just go with whatever you want that you think will taste good. I used:
- About 2 Cups peaches
- 3/4 Cup or so of vanilla yogurt
- About a cup of fresh baby spinach
- 1/2 cup milk
- 3 Tbsp Vanilla Shaklee Soy protein powder
- 1 Tbsp Whole grain SalbaSmart
All three of my kids drank it and asked for more. Of course, I had some too and couldn’t taste the spinach at all. The HealthMaster LivingWell blender tends to get put away during the winter because it’s pretty large and takes up a lot of counter space that I don’t have much of to begin with. I don’t usually dig it out until summer but I think I’m going to have to find some permanent counter space for it now. My kids aren’t big veggie eaters so this is a great way to get in some nutrients either as a snack, or a breakfast drink. Tomorrow we are going to try chocolate peanut butter banana smoothies with spinach (!) for breakfast. Sounds pretty gross but I have a feeling it’ll be a hit. (update: these were even better than the peach smoothies— 1 banana, 1 cup spinach, 3 Tbsp Shaklee Chocolate Soy Protein, 2 Tbsp peanut butter, milk, ice)
Sometimes half the battle is getting your kids to try something new. I’m lucky that my kids didn’t even question the odd color of the smoothie. This isn’t normally the case. They aren’t very adventurous when it comes to eating. Most of the time it takes begging, pleading, bribing or worse. Its really frustrating because I wouldn’t even try to get my kids to eat something that I know they wouldn’t like (like something spicy). I might ask them to try something but I wouldn’t push the issue if it wasn’t something I thought they’d actually like if they gave it a chance.
How do you get your kids to eat healthy? I think this is an issue a lot of moms struggle with, some more than others. I’m not a particularly healthy eater myself which makes it more of a challenge to set a good example. I’m going to have to get more creative as I don’t want my children to live solely off chicken nuggets. The smoothie trick is a step in the right direction!