To give my 2-year-old a smoothie every day?

[stopgap]

I've read a lot of threads recently about the downsides of fruit intake, rotting teeth, and drinking through straws. Now I wonder if giving my son a smoothie every dayin his straw cupis such a good idea. Typically the smoothie involves:

Hemp milk
Strawberries or blueberries
Cashew butter
Banana

My son has never had cow's milk, and the hemp milk is a great source of calcium, so I'm disinclined to stop, but then I wonder about the teeth issue...

[UniqueAndAmazing]

yes, actually.

mainly because the act of making it a smoothie gets rid of all the fibre and other solid nutrients, so you're basically just giving him fruit sugar.

better to give him whole fruit, or those items in a muesli.

[stopgap]

I should add that he has one more serving of fruit in the day, which is either an orange, an apple, melon, raspberries, goji berries or dried apricots.

[UniqueAndAmazing]

cashew butter is yummy - on toast would be good.

hemp milk is good on muesli ( sainsbury's does one that's 50% fruit with no nuts)

strawberries and blueberries and banana all good as fruit on their own

[stopgap]

UniqueandAmazing, I knew that about juicing, but not sticking fruit in a blender.

[UniqueAndAmazing]

DD will eat 6 or 7 olives, banana, strawberries, whatever else i give her that she takes a fancy to, etc, as whole fruit.
just offer as a snack and it'll be fine.

try not to mush up food at all, because the nutrients are in the solidity.

[HeySoulSister]

smoothies aren't as healthy as everyone thinks!

can he get calcium from elsewhere in his diet as milk isn't the best source

[UniqueAndAmazing]

it's all the same process :)

[HeySoulSister]

tho tbh i'm not sure what hempmilk actually is!!

[GobblersKnob]

All fab things, that would be far better served as they are, agree, you are just giving him loads of sugar that will make him crash soon after.

[UniqueAndAmazing]

yy Soul - calcium can be found in leafy green veg and herbs, too.
here from the vegan society

[WMittens]

mainly because the act of making it a smoothie gets rid of all the fibre and other solid nutrients,

Erm, what? Care to explain?

[Pigsmummy]

Why bother? Just give your child the food whole? Feeding himself will give good eating pratice, hand/eye coordination etc

[MumToOneMogwai]

how can there be more sugar in fruit blended and served than fruit whole - surely nothings been added or removed?

[UniqueAndAmazing]

(it's an american site, so the bit about the calcium added to flour is not the case in the UK)

[Thumbwitch]

Stopgap - blending the fruit obviously breaks down the natural structure of the fruit, more than chewing does. This means all the fruit sugars etc. are released from the natural cellular structures within the fruit, so your DD will get the sugar hit as soon as it goes into her mouth. Downsides = more sugar on her teeth, higher sugar spike in her blood sugars and actually an overall increase in sugar absorbed because it's more freely available.

[stopgap]

Now I'm confused. This says smoothies aren't quite as good as the real thing, but by avoiding fruit juice as a base, the difference between whole fruit and a smoothie is negligible.

www.oprah.com/health/Does-Blending-Fruit-Reduce-Its-Fiber-Content

DS is actually a great eater, so I don't think he'll mind too much if his smoothie disappears from the menu.

As far as dairy, he eats cheese daily, melted on pasta or in a sandwich, and occasionally plain yoghurt, but he far prefers vegetables, meat and carbs to dairy.

[Thumbwitch]

Gah, sorry, D S, not DD, and therefore his, not her.

[DialsMavis]

I thought that using a juicer removed fibre, but blending whole fruit for a smoothie did not remove fibre? I read that the issue with smoothies is the effect on blood sugar.

[UniqueAndAmazing]

Mittens - trying to find a research based source, but I've found this

and this quotes research

[UniqueAndAmazing]

I would recommend him to eat the solid fruit wherever possible, and to give him water to drink.

[Thumbwitch]

[UniqueAndAmazing]

you say he's never had cow's milk then you say "As far as dairy, he eats cheese daily, melted on pasta or in a sandwich, and occasionally plain yoghurt"


they're all made out of cow's milk.

[UniqueAndAmazing]

Thumby - i saw and agreed

[BCBG]

Thumbwitch is right. The sugar hit is faster. I listened to a specialist explain it by saying you can drink blended fruit in greater quantities and faster than if you ate the individual ingredients - you probably wouldnt get half way without feeling full, because of the fibre etc in the fruit before it has been blended. Even though blending doesn't remove parts of the fruit, it starts the breakdown of structures that otherwise takes place inside you - the whole reason for eating fibre and the reason why whole fruit doesn't provide such a sugar rush.