I’m thrilled to feature guest blogger Anjali Shah, food writer, board certified health coach, and owner of The Picky Eater, a healthy food and lifestyle blog. I asked Anjali to share one of her favorite ways to get kids in the kitchen and trying new veggies, and she wowed me with this Easy Being Green Smoothie:
One of my favorite ways to get the whole family in the kitchen is to cook together! I have found that introducing kids to whole foods when they’re really young and getting them curious and excited about fruits and veggies makes it so much easier to feed them those veggies later on. Food for kids (and the family) should be like the rainbow: vibrant and full of color. And once kids realize that veggies can taste good, they will no longer recoil at anything green.
An easy way to introduce kids and picky family members to green veggies and whole foods is by making smoothies together. This healthy green smoothie recipe tastes absolutely amazing but has a ton of fruits and veggies in it making it a whole food extravagnaza!
You can get the whole family involved by giving each family member one fruit or veggie to prep (either cutting, peeling, etc.) and then everyone dumps their special ingredient into the blender at the same time. It’s easy, fast, fun and delicious!
- 1 cup red grapes
- 1 medium orange, peeled and halved
- 1/4 cup fresh pineapple chunks
- 1 medium banana, peeled
- 1 carrot, halved
- 3-4 cups fresh spinach, washed
- 1 fuji apple, quartered and seeded
- 1 cup of ice
- Put all ingredients into your blender (or Vitamix if you have one) in the order listed and secure the lid.
- Turn your blender on to it's lowest speed setting, and slowly increase the speed to high. Blend for 1 minute or until all of the ingredients have been pureed and the smoothie is the consistency you want it to be (our ideal consistency: no clumps, no grainy texture, totally smooth).
Anjali Shah is a food writer, board certified health coach, and owner of The Picky Eater, a healthy food and lifestyle blog. Her work has been featured on Oprah.com, Women’ s Health, Cooking Light, Reader’s Digest, CNN, Food Network, Glamour, Ladies’ Home Journal, Whole Foods, SHAPE, and at Kaiser Permanente. Anjali grew up a “whole wheat” girl, but married a “white bread” kind of guy. Hoping to prove that nutritious food could in fact be delicious and desirable, she taught herself how to cook and successfully transformed her husband’s eating habits from a diet of frozen pizzas and Taco Bell to her healthy, yet flavorful recipes made with simple, wholesome ingredients. Through her blog, The Picky Eater, Anjali shares her passion for tasty, healthy cooking.