Home made Smoothies

Liquid breakfasts such as Up and Go are popular, they are convenient but there is also a lot of packaging wastage and a lot of flavours, sugars and additives that go into making it.

Below is such a simple recipe, it uses ingredients that you would be happy for your kids to consume, and it is more of an assembly than an actual recipe. The sugars are natural and mostly come from the banana.

Just for a comparison, I have put the nutritional information comparing the home made version and a shop bought one at the bottom.

Ingredients:

1 medium banana, ideally frozen

1 portion cup (1/3 cup) of Te Atatu Toasted Healthy Blend Muesli (or any of our other blends, the Gluten Free Blend was great too)

2 portion cups (2/3 cup) milk of your choice - nut, soy or dairy

2 heaped spoons unsweetened Greek yoghurt

1/2 tsp natural vanilla essence

1 tbsp cocoa powder

15 g honey (optional, more or less to the sweetness to suit)

100 g ice

Method:

Blend all the ingredients up in your smoothie blender, pour into your smoothie cup - we love the Montii Original Smoothie cup from Little Giants Kids Store, and enjoy!

The comparison: 

*Please note this is a fairly accurate nutritional comparison but it may vary due to things like the size and ripeness of the banana and what you consider a heaped spoon of yoghurt!

A few interesting points.

1. Look at the ingredients lists, totally different! I know which one I would rather have!
2. The homemade version is cheaper than even the cheapest supermarket price.
3. The sugars are about the same but with the home made one, the sugars mostly come from the banana, secondly the milk/yoghurt and thirdly the muesli. The sugars in the shop bought one come from the cane sugar, the maltodextrin, fructose and the milk powders.
4. The homemade one has a higher amount to carbohydrates, because a lot of this comes from the muesli, it will be slow release, so that is great for learning brains!
5. The shop bought one has over 5 times more sodium. Kiwis already consume 50% more salt than we need, it is a good idea try and avoid salt in things it should not be in ……..like breakfast drinks!