This week, my children and I put together an intense orange smoothie. When shopping we looked specifically for orange foods to add, and we decided not to be obvious and add oranges. We ended up with:
- 1 medium carrot
- 1 golden beet
- 1 cup of golden raspberries
- 4″ of golden chard (small at their request)
- 1 large nectarine
- 1 banana
- 1/4 cup of soy milk
- a couple of Tablespoons of yoghurt
The color of our smoothie was quite golden. The children said it tasted strongly of beets, but the husband said that raspberries were the dominant taste. We definitely tasted the earthy golden beet, but there was a lot of sweet fruit to lighten up the intensity. We usually use a banana to add that smooth sweetness. The soy milk and yoghurt just make the mixture liquid enough to drink. In the end, it was an earthy orange.
Carrots in particular are an incredible source of Vitamin A—or, rather, provitamin A carotenoids that can form Vitamin A. Alpha carotene is a cancer fighter, and beta carotene promotes repair of damaged DNA. You probably know that beta carotene will help your eyesight, which is related to this repair function.
The nectarines are also a good source of Vitamin A. Raspberries add quite a bit of Vitamin C. The banana adds a blast of Potassium, though most of these fruits and vegetables, including the beets and chard in particular, are high in Potassium.
My children rejected the idea of adding too much chard, but we added a bit of beautiful golden chard. (I’ll drench the rest in apple cider vinegar, and they’ll love it.)
We’ve learned that one wrong move can really ruin a smoothie. When we added too much rhubarb this week, none of us had an easy time choking it down. For that smoothie-gone-wrong, I added a few more blueberries for some sweetness, and we froze it in popsicle molds. They’ve finished the popsicles, so it must not be so bad when it looks like a treat.
Lately, we use smoothies for our mid-morning pick-me-up. After we’ve done a couple of hours of school, I see them start to droop. The three of us pick through our kitchen to find what we have, and we experiment. The change of activity is a big help. They know I’m trying to stuff them full of vegetables, too, and they don’t resist. They enjoy seeing how far we can take ground up vegetables.
