Drink Your Vegies!

You know the drill. It's the age-old woe of parents high and low: vegetables and kids are traditionally un-mixy things.

I've heard the solemn tales of kids who will only eat plain pasta, experienced first hand the expert negotiations of a pre-schooler who for at least six months refused all "wet" food, and now find myself observing the strange phenomenon that is my son's blueberry addiction. And yet I still sort of relish in the challenge/torture that is showing kids how amazing food really is.

We used to squeeze fresh orange juice in the mornings at our place. Yummy, perfect with your boiled eggies and toast soldiers. Perhaps seeking to "mix things up" I slowly found myself adding different fruits to our morning juice. A pear, or berries, a slice of fresh pineapple.
Then a carrot.
Then a beetroot, or two.
Then a handful of spinach, or broccoli stems, or cabbage.

This increasingly healthy ritual evolved before the very eyes of my vegetable-shunning three-nager, Cullyn, who miraculously continues to drink a HUGE glass of our technicolour concoctions each morning. Miraculous because, offer him a pile of grated carrot and he will promptly fling it at the cat.

So I thought I'd show you our favourite morning juice.

Ingredients:
3 oranges
1 pear
2 stems of celery (with leaves)
3 carrots
1 huge beetroot or several small
1/2 a telegraph cucumber
1cm cubed ginger

Peel the oranges, and chop everything up just small enough that it will fit into the juicer, and then juice away! Push down slowly and steadily (kids love helping with this part) to get the maximum juice out of your produce. For the same reason, if you want to add leafy greens or herbs (like mint), be sure to juice them at the same time as some of the bulkier stuff.

Once it's all well and truly liquified, give it a good stir, admire the amazing colours mother nature is treating you to, and pour into a nice, big glass.

Then, drink up!

TIPS FOR PROS
- If you have a juicer like ours, where the fiber and chaff gets separated into a container, it's a good idea to line the container with a plastic bag before you start. This will make cleaning up ten times easier.

- We have a worm farm, so we usually juice the oranges first, empty the citrus chaff, and then collect all the vegetable chaff separately for our worms. You can also use this stuff for compost, or for making yummy soups and vegie stocks.

- On a hot day, blend up the fresh juice with ice cubes.

- A straw could be fun, but pink moustaches are even better!