tricks needed to get 6 year old to like smoothies.

[BDraw]

I've tried everything! She takes a small sip, says she likes it and then refuses to eat the rest! I've made carob, coconut, all fruit; nothing works.

And this was how I was sneaking seseame seed down them. (for calcium)

suggestions appreciated!

[Helen Of Tennessee]

Are you putting the seseame seeds in all the smoothies? Maybe that's the part she doesn't like. If that's the case, maybe you could make the smoothies without it until you find she is drinking them then slowly add the seeds in.

<>< Helen of Tennessee

[truthseeker]

One thing that I did when we first started raw was to make sure it was as sweet as the things I was getting us away from. So a lot of agava or dates or bananas for that. Of course as the months went by we were more about flavor than sugar. That's something else that I tried my best to do, was to mock our chocolate milk (nestles) as much as I could or some of the other things like del's lemonade or the flavored syrups from the carnival snow cones (I picked up a snowcone maker for 25$ from Target). Now we make our own "snowcones"! I have to say though when we started I did use organic cacao powder in our smoothies. Just to get that chocolate flavor. But now (how ever many months later? not sure) I just use the raw cacao nibs (yes I know the debate on that). But we gravitated over a period of time. All the while keeping my ear out for new ideas on what I could mock....the ice cream truck came by and bingo, I asked what they wanted to have from the truck. Fudge Pops! they said, well guess what! we made our own.

My latest is my peach flavored iced tea. On the rare occasion that we go to a restaurant, my hubby will order those flavored iced teas. UGH! :mad: so I told the kids that when we got home we would make our own. This doen't always fly in the heat of the moment, but, I encourage them with things like, "we could add that to our menu for our lemonade stand this summer, so we need to practice the recipe" Anyway this is it:

Base tea (I use horestail and nettles)

I make my tea by filling an empty tea bag with herbs and letting soak in finger warm water, meaning as long as I can stand my finger to be in it then it's not going to harm the herbs.

fill container only about 1/3 of the way with the base tea.
Juice the peaches (I've used mango before when I ran out of peaches,yum)
pour juice into container with tea.
add sweetener, I use agava.

The kids love it! I love it, my hubby loves it........

Our morning smoothie:

purified water
cacao nibs - lends to choc. flavor
carob - lends to choc. flavor
misqute - lends to mocha flavor
hemp seeds - lends a bitter (to kids anyway) nutty flavor
seseame seeds - lends a bitter nuttery flavor (to kids)
Zink oil - Just a splash can't taste
vanilla - Just for flavor
banana - lends to a creamer smoothie acts as a sweetener

Sometimes these vary, like my little boy broke his arm last week so I've been putting nettles and horsetail in, which are bitter so just a palm full of each and maybe a few dates, 2 or 3, to mask that more.

Also one that my kids LOVE, well it's a juice but...it's wheat grass and pinapple juice. This is REALLY...REALLY good.

For their green juice at night I make 1/3 of their cup green juice (kale, broccoli, cucumber,celery, parsley, wheatgrass, whatever I have that's green) and 2/3 's of it apple juice. Sometimes I get complaints if I use collard greens in that mix because even if the green part = 1/3 the collard greens make it VERY, VERY bitter, so I've learn that when I do that to just use less green part.

Strawberry sorbet:
frozen strawberries
a bit of water
blend in vita mix or other blender
enjoy!

if you water it down to much you may get a look from your daughter that lets you know it's not sweet enough. Just add agava or your choice of sweetener. But I usually wait to see if they'll accept it anyway before I make assumptions and needlessly add more sugar.

Then after a while you can make small changes like adding blueberries for a purple drink. Something about funny colored drinks that kids love. If it's thick enough sometimes I'll pour the sorbet and leave a bit in the vita mix then add frozen blueberries, then pour the "purple" in a swirl fashion into the pink strawberry and give'em a straw to make designs in their glass with.

Now what I do if I'm not sure is I will call one of them over (I have 3) and ask them, "Do you think this is chocolaty enough?" and let them taste test it. They give me their opinion, I ask what they think I should add more of, even if I know what I think it needs more of I ask anyway just to give them that valued feeling. Then I add whatever I think, ha, ha. or maybe if they're looking I'll add a bit of their recommendation and whatever I feel it needs, blend it and ask them to taste it again. 9 out of 10 times by the 2nd or 3rd taste test it's good to go.

It's not easy and probably one of the hardest struggles I've had as far as my kids go. But don't give up. Soon you'll be having a blast mocking and creating together, the "conventional" treats that the cooked world could NEVER offer her! ;)

[Veganmama]

it's always hard to get kids to eat new stuff, a few of the things i do are for green smoothies and juices we call them Shriek juice.

For other smoothies you could try using all frozen berries and banana's and make it really thick and we call that icecream in our home.

ALso if you are trying to get seseame seeds into your kids i make Halva Balls, from Tahini, raisans and dates and they are sweet and yummy.

[Rawkinlocs]

Two things came to mind:

1. It's summertime and kids LOVE icy slushies. So, while all the ice "might" make it less nutritional, they'll still get SOME-thing out of it...make them smoothies and then put a LOT of ice in it and pulse chop until it's the consistency of those icee drinks. Do simple combinations like pineapple-orange or strawberry-blueberry for now. Then later, maybe try adding a banana or even (GASP) some greens - maybe something mild at first like celery or lettuce.

2. Make it super thick like a pudding (I also like Veganmama's idea of making it like ice cream - YEAH, make them some ice cream instead of smoothies (just a matter of consistency and coldness!)

3. One other thing that just occured to me...if you make smoothies and they end up wasting it...if you have a dehydrator, spread it on the sheets and make fruit leather out of it.

[lodestar]

it's impossible for a smoothie to go junk around here...I slurp them all down if the family has had enough....oh, don't you just love all of the glorious fruit this time of year?

[BDraw]

Thanks for all the good ideas -- it also occured to us that maybe something in her past (she's adopted) was served to her that the smoothie reminds her of and it brings back unpleasent memories. Who knows??

But thanks so much for the advice -- I'll try and try and try again.

[truthseeker]

YES "Shriek Juice", ha, ha we did that all last year.... and it worked! But now he's 4 and much more of a BIG BOY and is now into other super heros so we now use a blanket term and call it muscle juice.


Gotta Love it! :D

[coffeesquirrel]

awesome idea's ... love your name for the green smoothie. so far i can get my 4 year old to eat a fruit smoothie but not the green. but this gives me lots of idea's thx everyone Jen

[Bretta]

In Serene Allison's book "Rejuvenate Your Life" (www.aboverubies.org), she makes up fun names for things like "Incredible Hulk Cheese" "Smashed Frog Spread" "Soldier Drink" (to make you big and strong like a soldier). For a girl, she might say "Princess Spread" because it will make for beautiful silky skin and hair...so you might entice her by telling her how beautiful she is and drinking it will help her stay beautiful. Of course, if she's a tomboy, she might like some of the "boy-type" names (boys love the grossest stuff possible!).

My son (10) loves to drink his green drinks in front of other people just to gross them out...(and I make them REALLY green with extra spirulina powder in them). He also ate chocolate chip cricket cookies at VBS this summer for the same reason...no, I didn't make them and yes, they had real crickets in them.
Eeeewwww!

Bretta

[BDraw]

Update: For unknown reasons, my 6 year old -- opps, 7 today! is now drinking and requesting smoothies.

It started out when I followed a receipe by Storm and ?? using sunflower, seseame, and flax seed, banana, water, honey, and ice. I thought it tasted rather uniquely strange, but my kids loved it. They even request it when company is here. Company isn't too crazy about it. They are even requesting the green smoothies, but then what isn't there to love: spinach, banana, mango.

Never underestimate a kid!!!

Thanks for all the strange advice :) And yes, the day I added to many flax seed and it was slimey, I called it Slime Juice.