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...

I have a homemade smoothie every other day. I use ground almonds for the creaminess (no milk at all) and put in any fruit that's in season. with ground linseed and pumpkin seeds for health and water and some organic fruit juice I drink it with a glass of water. (BTW my teeth for my age are soo good my dentist doesn't believe it ).

Ref. The fibre; surely chewing your fruit breaks down the fibre anyway? My digestion is fab. too.!

BTW I lost nearly 3 stone in weight doing the above!

I've no idea if you're BU or not but I really want one of your smoothies. It sounds lovely.

Wow - that's amazing ppeat - and you sound very positive about food too which I always like to see. Agree with a PP that food should be for enjoyment as well as nutrition. Luckily IMO healthy food usually tastes the best too apart from the odd slice of cake

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

What does this even mean?"

it means that i'm not very good at explaining things

it means that the benefit from food is mainly gained by your body breaking it down when you eat it/chew it/digest it.
most of the work done is by your own mastication, not by the machine.
so you get the benefit of feeling "full" or fed. which if you make everything a liquid, it's not so.

oh, curlew - my friend is lactose intolerant but can eat cheese (when she's in the best of health) - something to do with the way it's bound up and passes straight through her.

Juggling Thanks I believe in being as healthy as I can be so I make my own very tasty food (with olive oil garlic lemons etc. you should try my salad smoothie!).

Sadly a lot of people think that health and taste don't go together! I make my own gorgeous almond and dark chocolate cake too!! With maple syrup it's healthy!!!

BTW sorry stopgap as you can tell YANBU!

Mmmm. that sounds good ppeat - especially the cake - not so sure about a salad smoothie - but am sure you could convert me !

Almonds and nuts in general always good in a cake I think - and fruit as well - and chocolate !

If the smoothie works for you carry on- it gets the milk and hemp butter into him which would be harder as separate components.

Mrs Mook, I tried the hemp milk alone, but he wasn't so keen. If it's any consolation, I buy the unsweetened hemp milk

ppeatfruit, that cake sounds amazing. I'm currently pregnant with DC2 and have been devouring a chocolate mousse made by a local vegan place. It's cacao powder, avocado, maple sugar, salt, vanilla and water, and by god I could eat my body weight in the damn things.

Well done on such a massive weight loss, btw.

Dunno if you are u or not but now you've got me reminiscing about Pooles Pies of Wigan as insisted upon by The Verve at their Haigh Hall gig about 14 years ago. Ah... Proper meat and potato pies. Heaven.

Pooles are my dad's favourite. I was a huge fan of the 1904 Bakehouse in Orrell (and sometimes had a pie from there for breakfast before school ).

You just cannot get a proper pie dahn sarf. They do stupid things like make them with puff pastry. It has to be shortcrust! (Sorry totally derailing thread with pie talk).

I can't se the harm in one smoothie a day. But if you're worried you could ask your dentist. And I did read it's not so much the quantity for sugar but how many times it's consumed. Like taking sips of fruit juice all day from a cup is a lot worse than a cup of fruit juice. And brushing teeth after eating acidic fruit isn't good. So many rules for us to worry about.

Recipe for salad soup\smoothie- I don't weigh i go by eye and what I like.

Washed org. lettuce or what you've got to hand
washed lemon
olive oil, half a cup
half cucumber
Tofu for creaminess or goats's cheese
clove of garlic or more if you like it
2 small spring onions or one large or whatever
handful of parsley\coriander\basil etc.
Cold filtered or mineral water
sea salt to taste or pepper if you like it

Wash all ingredients and chop up (I put all the juice of the lemon in and half skin after de pipping) obviously you do what you like. Then you liquidise the lot adding more water if it needs it.

yes. Smoothies are an expensive waste of good fruit. Most commercial ones have tons of added sugar.

he's not a baby any more and should not be eating baby food.

Blimey, he's only 2 though SS - it all sounds healthy enough to me !

We're not talking commercial ones though are we? A lot of adults drink them too better than a vodka shot IMO!

Still not quite understanding how there is more nutrient in a whole fruit than in a pulverised fruit. Seems to contravene the 3rd(I think) law of thermodynamics.........

Addition to the SALAD SOUP\SMOOTHIE recipe; Half an avocado or more if you don't want to put in tofu or goats cheese for creaminess! with it's skin removed.

sheep milk has lactose in, too, stop gap. More than Cow milk, in fact
www.food-info.net/uk/intol/lact.htm

The only way to drink milk without lactose in is to drink milk that has had lactase enzyme added to it.

Interesting thread. And I finally understand WHY the smoothie is nutritionally different than the same ingredients separately. I actually get it now. So thanks to those who've explained it in a jargon free way.

I do love smoothies though - but they are an occasional treat.

Do you, fuzzpig? I don't. Seems like non scientific mumbo jumbo to me.

And yes, if you are lactose intolerant, you can't drink sheep's milk. But you can often eat cheese,

I get that the sugars would be released from the cells in the fruit at an earlier stage (during blending) so could do more damage to teeth ?
I think !
But I'm guessing less effect on nutrition once all ends up in stomach ?
Possibly more roughage with non-blending though.

Place strawberry in mouth. Chew. Swallow. Repeat 6 times

Place 6 strawberries in blender. Blend. Drink.

Contact of strawberries with teeth probably slightly less with second option.

Fibre and nutrient content identical.