It is always surprising what kids like to eat. How simply blending, drying, or freezing fruit can make all the difference in whether they eat the produce or not.
Smoothies are a great way to offer fruits and vegetables into the day. Throw a lot of different fruits, nuts, milk, protein powder, whatever you like into the blender. I make a blender full of smoothie and pour it into some popsicle molds, kids think they are delicious and they have zero sugar in it. Here's a couple of our favorite recipes.
Chocolate Smoothie
- 2 bananas (fresh or frozen)
- 1-2 scoops of protein powder (vanilla)
- 2 tbsp of pure cocoa powder
- 1-2 cups of milk (cow, coconut, almond)
- 1 cup of ice
- place all ingredients in order and blend
Berry Smoothie
- 2 bananas (fresh or frozen)
- 1 cup of frozen strawberries
- 1 cup of frozen pineapple chunks
- 1 cup of milk or unsweetened juice
- 1 cup of ice
- place all ingredients in the order they are listed and blend
Another super surprising way to store in-season fruit to enjoy in the off-seasons is freezing them whole. I think it's quite common to freeze fruit, but try offering it to your children frozen! Mine really love frozen bananas, blueberries, and strawberries.
We usually freeze bananas whole for our smoothies so I pull out a full frozen banana, slice it frozen, and put it on a plate. One of my boys will eat 2 full bananas this way. Be cautious with the size you cut your pieces depending on the age and stage of eating your kids are at.
Another way to preserve your fruit is to dehydrate it. Not all kids like fresh fruit. Sometimes it the texture, sometimes it's just a mental block they have... "I don't like mango!" Try dehydrating it. You can dehydrate using an actual dehydrator, there are many inexpensive ones on the market for home use or you can dehydrate it using your oven at the lowest temperature.
Dehydrating in your Oven
- 1/4 inch slices
- place on a lined cookie sheet
- lowest setting for 6-8 hours
The other day, I spread a couple of Loco Bebe Organics Mucho Mango pouches on some parchment paper and put it in our dehydrator for a couple of hours. The result was a delicious, zero added sugar fruit roll-up. Super healthy. You can do the same process in the oven, just watch it carefully as it will be much quicker than sliced fruit drying in the oven.
Enjoy and remember to keep it HEALTHY!