My go-to iron-rich smoothie

An energizing adaptable snack that kids love (and parents too for different reasons)

It’s hot and quite busy here at home with summer break in full swing. Between play dates, swimming trips and farm visits, it seems to be harder than ever to make three healthy meals a day. Not that it’s ever easy. In this sultry heat and humidity it feels near impossible. Enter—this iron-rich smoothie—a great refreshing snack that can also step in as a meal if the day is getting away. I’ve been sharing the ingredients of this smoothie out loud to curious friends for months now; so, I thought I’d share it here in case it’s helpful to you too.

I do have to mention up front that generally I’m not a smoothie person—I usually find them too sweet and they often leave me feeling heavy and cold if it’s not peak summer. Those of you who have been following along for a while will be hard pressed to find many smoothie recipes I’ve shared. Fun fact: even with hundreds of recipes using a blender there is not one smoothie in my second book. But that was then and this is now. These days I find myself challenged daily with how to get vegetables into Ezra. I have become that mother who is “hiding” them—something I never thought I would do. I used to believe that if you introduced kids to delicious vegetables young, they would naturally love them. Not true! Nevertheless, that wasn’t how I came upon this particular combination of ingredients. It came from needing to increase Theo’s (our youngest son’s) iron intake. This smoothie is one of many things we did to up his iron and keep his levels in the normal range.

After doing a deep dive on iron rich food, I ended up combining many of the ingredients I already kept in the pantry and was surprised by how much both children loved it. Although I vary it depending on what I have, the core iron rich ingredients: