Smoothie Move

One of the few disadvantages to being a mom, at least in my case, is that I have a tendency not to take adequate care of myself. Other than necessarily being quick on my feet to prevent kids from taking spills off of kitchen stools or knocking over the Christmas tree, I haven't been getting as much regular exercise as I'd like, especially now that I've let go my employee gym membership. At lunch, by the time I've got food in front of the kids I'm usually too tired and hungry to really cook myself something, so I do a lot of sandwiches and carrot sticks on the fly, and then have to try to find creative ways at dinner to get the whole family to get a balanced meal using the very short list of vegetables that everyone will eat.

But I'm pleased to report that I've found a new ally in the quest to get the requisite number of fruit and veggie servings into everybody, including me, on a daily basis: I'm becoming a smoothie junkie. I've always been a fan, but I've also been hobbled for the last 10 years by a low-end blender that whines better than it grinds, and then is a pain to clean. So this past week I upgraded to a fabulous machine that actually blends. Without becoming an infomercial for my new blender, my interest was caught by a demo suggestion of putting things like spinach in smoothies to help kids get the veggie servings they need. While I certainly want them to learn to like vegetables for their own sake, on a practical level I'm tired of having to fight every day to make sure an apple or some carrot sticks goes down with the sandwich or mac n' cheese. I let them try the demo smoothie and they loved it. So I got one, and now both they and I are having smoothies daily. Sometimes we have them at breakfast alongside the Cheerios; for lunch today I put together a concoction of strawberries, banana, orange, and a little yogurt, then threw in carrots, baby spinach and a roma tomato. A little apple juice for liquid and sweetness, and my kids sucked it down and begged for more. And this machine pulverizes the stuff so well I don't even get strawberry seeds stuck in my teeth. It's not going to solve all my nutrition issues, but it's a start.

Now, if I could just figure out a better way to work out at home...