At what stage in the day do your kids start eating vegetables?
If they have cereal and toast for breakfast, then a lunchbox of sandwiches and fruit, it’s quite possible that no vegies pass their lips until late afternoon.
The current Australian government guidelines suggest that a five year old child should be eating 3-4 serves of vegetables a day. Which is quite a lot. (BTW – If you don’t know what a serving size looks like, there’s a really handy visual guide in the beginning of a fabulous book called Vegie Smugglers 2.)
To have a chance of hitting that quota, it’s a great idea to start sneaking the healthy stuff in in as early in the day as possible before tiredness turns your little angels into grouchy and disagreeable monsters (or perhaps that’s just my kids).
Sneaking in some vegies at breakfast isn’t as hard as it sounds. You can make the breakfast burrito recipe from Vegie Smugglers 1. Or you can do a little baked egg dish with capsicums and eggplant. Pop a bit of corn in scrambled eggs. For a quickie, just put some avocado & tomato on toast. Or maybe you want to whip up a green smoothie.
They are my latest addiction. I used to come home from school drop offs needing tea and toast, but I’ve replaced that habit with one of these smoothies and find they fill me up and give me an energy boost in the middle of the day.
There are stacks of recipes for them, but this is my current favourite. I find for my kids to enjoy them, I need to load it up with frozen banana. Like the ice cream I made recently, using the frozen bananas gives them a real ‘thick shake’ texture that the kids can’t resist. And I find serving them up in a pretty cup never goes astray.
Oh la la! This is the fancy cocktail version (avec trashie).
Green smoothies
1/2 cup firmly packed spinach leaves
1/2 cup pineapple pieces
1 frozen banana, peeled, sliced
1/2-3/4 cup rice milk (you need a watery milk, so skim would work, but full fat isn’t so nice)
1 tsp white chia seeds
For an added kick, I also pop in 1 tbsp Nutra Organics super greens & reds food powder (click my affiliate link below to check out all their products).
I put everything in a glass jug and use my stick blender to whizzy it all up into fab green goodness.
This will make enough to divide nicely between 2 adults and 2 kids.
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So they’re my suggestions. What about you? Have you got a smoothie recipe or some breakfast vegie-smuggling wisdom to share?
Vegie Smugglers 
Jess Taylor said,
March 14, 2013 @ 10:27 am
Yummo! Ive been doing the Young and Raw 30 Day Green Smoothie Challenge and it is sooo good. My little man looks forward to having some of my smoothie every morning. Best one so far has been frozen grapes, fresh mint, handful of spinch, stick of celery, chia seeds and coconut water. Great way to start the day for both of us!
wendyblume said,
March 14, 2013 @ 10:31 am
yum! that sounds fantastic. And mint is one of the few things I manage to grow. I’ve just planted a heap of spinach too, so hopefully I’ll be able to whip is straight from the garden the blender and get all those lovely nutrients out of it.
Will chuck some grapes in the freezer today!
Peta said,
March 14, 2013 @ 2:22 pm
Omelettes are a great way to smuggle veggies. I use any combo of Mushroom capsicum corn spinach spring onion herbs zucchini peas. Also savory breakfast muffins. You can use any of the above and carrot too. I am a Fan of the green smoothie too but my daughter will not go near them.
Kathie said,
March 14, 2013 @ 2:23 pm
Cherry Ripe Smoothee: 2 cups of milk, 2 tbsp coconut oil, big handful of spinach, 2 heaped tbsps of raw cacao powder, a cup of frozen cherries, a banana/1/2 an avo, some ice & a drizzle of maple syrup or rice syrup, if u need a little more sweetener. Delicious!
wendyblume said,
March 14, 2013 @ 2:32 pm
oh! Sounds delicious.
Pam @TheMindfulMum said,
March 14, 2013 @ 9:13 pm
Hi Wendy, my toddler is well into the green smoothies and juices, it is great cos she’s not getting much vegie goodness elsewhere so at least this is something! Must say tho we have been making some progress with your books, which I bought recently, am veer pleased. Veg rissotto and sausage hotpot with canellini beans have at least been sampled – which is a step forward!!! Love those lamb sausage rolls too 🙂
wendyblume said,
March 15, 2013 @ 7:32 am
Yes, sometimes progress can be very slow at first. But keep going! You will get there. Xx
Ash said,
March 15, 2013 @ 12:18 am
Can’t wait to try!!! Sounds great 🙂
Mel said,
March 22, 2013 @ 9:46 am
Hi Wendy, don’t know if you’ve checked it out, but Alison on mamasweeds.com is doing a greener March healthier eating challenge to eat more green veggies everyday and has some great green smoothie/juice recipes. I’m just drumming up to courage to try some!