Super Smoothie For A Super Fussy Eater

Today my son who is an incredibly fussy eater and hasn’t eaten a vegetable except for potato in potato chips in years had all of these vegetables. And not only did he enjoy them he promised to have them every single day.

For some further context my son isn’t just normal scale of fussy. He doesn’t just protest, but if we don’t offer him anything else will eventually concede and eat when he’s hungry enough. I won’t go into too much detail, but trust me when I say getting vegetables in him without him literally vomiting them back up is a huge achievement.

And the solution was so simple I regret not doing it soon enough. Actually the worst thing is I have actually tried this before. When he was little i used to toss frozen cubes of “baby food” I’d made up for his sister into fruit smoothies for him. I just didn’t think he’d fall for it anymore.

And I know that it’s not entirely ideal. In a perfect world I’d be able to encourage my child to eat vegetables in vegetable form. But after all this time trying I think it’s time to go for super sneaky veggies.

The Super Smoothie “Recipe”

It isn’t so much a recipe as it is a concept.

I chose carrots for their sweet but fairly bland flavour.

Zucchini because they don’t taste like much and don’t think he’s ever eaten anything green.

And beetroot mostly for the colour. Because he couldn’t suspect what was in it before he’d given it a good try.

Basically I just chopped, up the vegetables and loaded them into a three tier steamer. Zucchini at the top, carrots in the middle, and beetroot in the boiling water at the bottom.

Once they were all super soft (about 10-15 minutes) I pureed them all together in a blender. Gradually the deeply coloured water from the beetroot to get the right consistency.

Then I poured the mixture into ice cube tray and popped them into the freeze.

So now they’re ready on hand to just toss them into fruit smoothies. We usually have banana and berry smoothies so the colour didn’t give me away.

How Did It Go?

Well the proof is in the fact that he’d drank it all down before I thought to take a picture of the actual smoothie! But I think we all know what a berry smoothie looks like!

I told him I was making him a special smoothie and when he asked I said I wasn’t going to tell him what was in it until after he’d finished it.

When he had drank it all I fessed up about the “secret ingredients. He wasn’t exactly impressed, but he couldn’t exactly claim he didn’t like it AFTER he’d drank it all!

I made him a deal that if he has one of these smoothies every day we’ll give him a break about trying to get him to eat vegetables at dinner time.

Once we’re done with this batch I’m going to think about what else I can sneak in undetected.

But for now I cannot even describe how pleased I am with the outcome. It’s such a relief! And I’m more than a little smug about it.