Smoothies!

There is so much to love about smoothies.  You can hide wonderful things in them and make them so good for you.  But, the boy is skeptical.  I have been making spinach smoothies for my breakfast.  They have a little peanut butter in them and that is what they taste like.  But, they are green.  And just like the man in Dr. Suess’ story, the boy isn’t going to try it.  “It’s green.”

I started thinking about baby steps and how I could get the boy to try it.  AHA!  I will combine frozen fruit with fruit juice.  It will make it more like a slushy instead of something that might be good for you.  So, here is what I did.  I took a ½ cup of fruit juice.  His favorite is a tropical fruit mixture.  I am sure that the more fruit in the fruit juice, the better this will be for you, but I am just trying to get the boy to taste it.  I added a ½ cup of frozen mango and a cup of frozen pineapple.  I blended it all together and poured it into dark glasses with lids and straws.  It worked.  He seemed interested.  He took that first drink and I thought that I had a winner.  Then it happened.  He walked over to me (knowing that I was trying hard to find him something that he might like) and said that it “wasn’t his favorite.”   How does that translate from the boy’s language into the real world?  It means that he didn’t like it….at all.  I asked him what he didn’t like and he couldn’t tell me, but I think it had something to do with the pineapple.  It didn’t blend perfectly smooth and therefore there were bits that went across his tongue.  The boy doesn’t like “bits” in anything.  Even though this didn’t work out quite the way I wanted it to, I am going to try again.  Instead of mixing in the pineapple, I am going to just use the mango.  Several smoothie recipes call for adding sugar or honey.  This is pretty sweet as it is and there are a LOT of natural sugars in fruit.  No need to add any more sugar.  I will not give up on the smoothie.  Cause, when I get him to like it, I can start sneaking in other things that will give it much more of a powerful nutrient punch! 

And who knows, maybe I can get him to try my spinach smoothie on St. Patrick’s Day.  It IS green!