My son is much worse. He will eat chicken, hamburger, and fries. He also has a severe dairy intolerance. He cannot have cheese, yogurt, or cow's milk. It will literally tear his stomach up, I'll spare you the details. I switched both kids to rice milk about a year ago. I myself have not had dairy in over a year either. Best decision I ever made. I feel bad for my son though, he loves ice cream. So if I know the rest of the fam is going to indulge in this dairy treat I have to truck to the store to buy a $9 half gallon of rice milk ice cream! Needless to say he doesn't eat ice cream that much.
They both eat fruit very well, as a matter of fact i can't think of a fruit that they won't eat. i always swore that when I was a mom I would have adventurous non-picky eaters. I think I jinxed myself. Crap. I would ask my pediatrician what to do every time I took Bear for his well-check. He suggested hiding the veggies in things and offering him V8splash. My mother never cooked separate things for us, and I wasn't about to start doing this for my kids. And I'm sorry V8splash?! Can you say sugar?
And then one February morning I saw it. The demo was being done at my local Costco. It was beautiful. The way it took leafy greens, juicy fruit and other nutrients and pulverized hem into a Delicious smoothie, that in my opinion, rivaled the major Smoothie franchises. Thus began my love affair with the Vitamix. the demo guy swore he could get Bear to eat spinach. I said good luck, if it's green he will NOT, I repeat NOT eat it! Well to my surprise if you tell Bear it's ice cream I don't care what color it is he'll eat it. As a matter of fact he ate 3 Dixie cups worth! That was it I was sold! Now all I had to do was convince my husband that the Vitamix was worth the money. I mean they're pretty pricey. I assure you folks this is not just a blender. My husband is very budget minded, so his answer, of course, was no.
Fast forward to May. The hubs and I decided to watch a documentary on Netflix. We chose "Hungry for Change". It essentially tells you how much crap is on our shelves in the grocery store and how the FDA allows us to put this crap into our bodies. The hubs finally decided to invest in a Vitamix! I went to Costso the very next day and purchased it! And so begins our smoothie making journey!
I'm not a total clean eating, paelo, granola mom. I'm far from it. I like convenience. Raising 2 kids 21 months a part is tough work. I say work smarter not harder. I'm not writing this to be super judgey. I'm just writing in the hopes that there are other mommies out there like me who want to help their famlies eat better, but not reinvent the wheel doing it. Do I still feed my kids Chick-fil-a? Um yes. Will I cave and make them Mac-n-cheese from a box? Probably. My goal is to add fruits and veggies to our daily intake via smoothie. I hope by adding these things to our diet, it will help our bodies purge some of the crap that we put in it. Life is too short not to eat a chocolate molten lava cake from Trader Joe's (If you haven't had one, find your local Trader Joe's and go get one! Now!).
Do you have to have a Vitamix? No, but it will be harder to get the smooth consistency, and you won't be able to process some of the harder fruits and veggies, but I encourage you to start saving for one, or hey check out ebay!
I'll be posting smoothie recipes here periodically. Both the good and the bad. You need to know what not to do too!
Sunrise/Sunset Smoothie
1 Mango pitted (leave the peel on!)
1 orange peeled
1 handful of grape tomatoes
1 banana
2-3 small carrots or 1-2 large carrots
1-1 1/2 cup of ice
*If you are not using a Vitamix I would suggested adding a cup of the liquid of your choice, water, rice milk, almond milk or juice.
