I was watching my son playing outside with the neighborhood kids, and one kid caught my eye. He was clutching a sandwich bag full of something colorful that he was snacking on. A closer look revealed it was slices of bell pepper! What elementary aged kid carries around sliced bell peppers when playing with their friends?  

I asked his mom how she got her son to eat them (let alone carry them around) and she was no help. "He just likes them," she said.
I can't be the only mom trying to get their family to eat more vegetables. It's not just my son and my husband, it's me! The appeal isn't there, but I know we need to eat more of them.  How do I do it?  Smoothies.  

It started off innocent enough. I tossed one baby carrot into the blender when I was making our chocolate breakfast smoothie. Then a couple of leaves of lettuce, after that, it became a challenge to see what I could get away with. I picked veggies that naturally went well with chocolate like zucchini. Then I experimented with other vegetables that had subtle flavors. 

My husband was the first to notice. It was bad timing. He came into the kitchen earlier than usual, right after I tossed a handful of lettuce in the blender. "What's that green stuff?" It helped that he had been drinking lettuce for at least a year at that point.  These are not the droids you're looking for" I said . 

There are specific guidelines you must follow: First, they cannot know. Are you kidding me? If certain family members were to see the things that go into the blender, they wouldn’t drink it. If you carefully balance the stronger flavors with the not so great ones, you can pull it off.

You must take into account color, not the color of the vegetables; the color of the smoothie.   You’ve seen those beautiful pictures of amazing fruit smoothies on Pinterest. My smoothies cannot be photographed. It’s not an attractive color. There's no convincing someone to drink it if they see what color it is.   

Your efforts will be for nothing if discovered before you have fine-tuned your flavor base. May I suggest opaque cups, lids, and straws? I use those 20oz white coffee style "to-go" cups with lids. You are also safe with stainless steel.  Ignorance is bliss.  

My secret weapon is chocolate. There are two reasons for this (outside of the wonderful antioxidant qualities). First is the color; it hides a multitude of green stuff.  Second: it's chocolate! I have one friend that doesn't like chocolate. Anomalies occur, but you should have pretty good odds of pulling it off with chocolate on your side. 

Aside from vegetables, I slip in a few supplements. The specialized supplements are hit-and-miss, especially minerals. Make sure they aren’t a concentrated “time release” style supplement, and for goodness sake, sniff the bottle first. I learned this after the iodine tablet debacle. Unfortunately, I didn’t taste it before my husband grabbed his smoothie and headed out the door. I wish I could have seen his face because I know how I reacted after that first sip! I don’t know of anything that will mask that flavor. 

Your smoothie adventures may be different.  Pop over to my Facebook group and share some of your most memorable smoothie stories.  I'd love to hear them!  

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