Super Hero Spinach Smoothie

Are you’re wondering why I call this spinach smoothie, a super hero spinach smoothie? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s all about deceiving my kids into eating drinking their vegetables. My son, Josh, like most pre-school aged boys is obsessed with super heroes. I know little to nothing about super heroes. During one of my attempts to add vegetables into his smoothies, when he was about 3, I blurted out “You know, we should put spinach in here because that is what gave all the super heroes their powers. The green one (insert whatever super hero is green, I’m clueless) ate so much spinach that he turned green from all his extra powers from spinach”. Stupid right? Wrong. I don’t care how asinine it sounds, it worked. Not only did it work then, but he is 5 and not only will tolerate spinach in his smoothies, he insists it be added!

My kids are super picky with food, especially vegetables. Josh has taken to picking 1 vegetable per week that he loves. Until I make it the following week and he declares “I DON’T LIKE THAT” and I say “since when” and he says “always”! I’ve talked to the pediatrician about his lack of vegetable consumption and he assures me that it is fine and even normal and eventually he’ll come around. And of course, monkey see, monkey do, Nora (2 years old) wants to be just like her big brother, so if he isn’t eating it, neither is she. If I can get a spinach smoothie in them, I don’t stress about what else they eat throughout the day. I feel less like a mom failure and more like a mom superhero!

The other, very important part of getting them to drink a spinach smoothie, is to have them involved. My kids love to toss everything in, in fact they usually are fighting over who gets to put what in first. So even though it would take you literally 2 minutes to make without their “help”, spend the extra time and make it a nice family bonding ritual. I promise you, the more often they do it, the less mess they will make.

There are so many fruit combinations you can use, I can’t even begin to list them all. I will tell you this though, if you use dark colored berries (strawberry, blueberry), you won’t get the bright vibrant green color. For my kids that is a deal breaker, so keep that in mind if you are making this for finicky kids.

If you want to know why spinach is so good for you, here is a helpful article by Medical News Today.

Tip: Instead of tossing your unused bananas in the trash, peel them and place in a plastic storage bag in your freezer to use for smoothies.

I’m curious, are your kids as picky as mine? And if so, do you resort to trickery to get them to eat certain foods?

Print Super Hero Spinach Smoothie

Ingredients

• 1/2 C Coconut Water
• 2 C frozen, chopped mixed fruit (mango, pineapple, peach is a good combo)
• 1 banana, chopped
• 2 C fresh spinach leaves
• 1/4 C Greek yogurt, plain or vanilla
• (Optional) 1/4 C orange juice or apple juice instead of coconut water

Instructions

1. Add coconut water, frozen fruit, banana and yogurt to blender. Mix until smooth. While blender is running, drop spinach in through hole in cover and blend until smooth. Serves 2.
2. If using fresh fruit, not frozen, add 1 C ice to blender.

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