By Lisa Rotondi, Organic Kids L.A.
Blueberries are a superfood chock full of disease fighting antioxidants. Small but boy do they pack a nutritional punch! More than any other fruit in fact. They have been called the “brain berry” of all fruits and veggies. The skin is what holds the good stuff, the antioxidants, and as in all fruits, the antioxidants are concentrated to the skin so that they can protect fruit from the sun and other harmful assaults.
So, we want to start putting more blueberries into our kid’s food, but how? Here are some ways we at Organic Kids LA do it:
Blueberry/Banana Mini Muffins
1 mashed banana
¾ cup low fat vanilla yogurt
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg
¼ cup canola oil
¾ cup quick cooking oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsb salt
¾ cup frozen blueberries
Simple Blueberry Smoothie
Organic blueberries (as much or as little as you want)
Organic frozen banana (when you purchase fresh bananas, peel them and throw them in a ziploc bag in the freezer for later use in smoothies)
Organic coconut milk (the more you add, the thinner your smoothie will be)
You can also try out a trail mix with dried blueberries, mixed nuts and seeds or Organic Greek yogurt with blueberries and granola.
One thing I know for sure is that if the blueberries are not yummy, the kids will not eat them so we always make sure and find fresh (except for our smoothies where we use wild frozen), plump and juicy berries. Kids love them!
