Green Monster

I'm not proud of this, but in the last year this girl's total vegetable intake has consisted of about 3 pieces of lettuce and 1 potato. French fries are not included in this total. Her fruit intake is somewhat better, in that she eats some most days but it's still pretty abysmal. I have let it slide because 1) I can't make her eat and 2) we've had so many other battles going on that I don't want EVERYTHING to be a fight. So she has continued on with her diet of carbs, cheese, peanut butter and the occasional apple, grapes or pears. To be fair, while she is not eating an abundance of healthy food, she is also not eating junk food. Very very small amounts of candy, chips and no soda pop. She and I both like to drink carbonated water with fresh squeezed orange in it and to her that is "soda". We of course have home-cooked cookies and treats but not alot. And so it has continued on for about a year, this diet of unhealthiness. But it nags at the back (and front) of my mind that she's not eating vegetables, that she's growing rapidly, that a multi-vitamin just isn't enough. So, as of late, I have renewed energy on getting the kid to eat some vegetables. Since I have given up on her doing it outright, I am going the hiding route which philosophically I don't agree with but at this point we're down to whatever works.

Enter the green monster smoothie! I pulled out this recipe and made it for an after-school snack today. We were out of bananas so I skipped those but I did put everything else in and I have to say, the end flavor was orange juice. If your eyes were closed, you would think you were drinking an orange citrus smoothie. It was a bit tart without the banana but she drank 2 glasses! Mr. T drank 1! I put it out there as a "treat" that I made for them after school and it went over so well. For the first time ever, that girl has a full serving of spinach in her! And there was no fighting or bargaining over dessert or whining!

Yes, that's a lot of exclamation points but even if I put 40 of them in a row, it wouldn't adequately express how awesome this is. (Just please don't tell her...shh..)