I had this crazy idea – after feeling how difficult it is as a parent to fight what I call the “sugar beast” in our culture today known walking the kids through the grocery – to come up with a recipe that makes use of healthy sprinkles (more on that in a second).
Sometimes it seems any product my littles reach for or ask about, I find myself trying to non-chalantly turn over the box and peek at the ingredients list (without my kids knowing), only to become disheartened when I see HFCS (or another processed sugar) listed….and I try not to show it on my face! Sometimes I feel like I’m always saying no. Do you ever feel like that? For those of you that would say “it’s no big deal! Give in sometimes!”….I do give in, but if I gave in every time, WOW, we would be in trouble – I would be setting them up for a lifetime of a struggle with metabolic disease, childhood high cholesterol, insulin resistance, and maybe even some food addictions. I feel like it’s my responsibility to teach them the discipline of nourishment. ….and that cannot be controlled by their own desires right now. (Sometimes I wish I had more power to say NO to myself!)
So, it’s not because I don’t let them have any sugar – they have plenty. It’s just that, in our current society, “moderation” for kids to me should mean more about eating broccoli than letting kids have sugar.
I’ve learned that sometimes overexposure to choices isn’t necessarily a good thing – with it comes a heightened responsibility to be a good steward of what He’s given…in this case, a precious little body that houses an important soul, in my opinion.
So, when it’s just us in my kitchen I’m often testing ideas out on my kids, seeing if I can get them as captivated by a food that’s filled with healthful ingredients that will nourish their little bodies and train their tastebuds right now.
Enter in…sprinkles.
I was wanting to create a smoothie bowl that would be thick and mimic vanilla frosting.
But, what makes vanilla frosting so good to so many? Sprinkles. They’re colorful. Attractive. Captivating to children.
My silly nutrition mind thought, ‘what if I could make sprinkles from superfoods???’ Would they like it? Of course, they would have a bit of a different texture, but the color and attractiveness an purpose would be the same!
So I took pistachios, goji berries, cacao beans, unsweetened coconut, any of the Karen’s Naturals dried fruit, and even some other dried fruits – like kiwi or mango, and cut them up quickly into bits.
My original sprinkles looked like this:
So that doesn’t resemble sprinkles too much yet (I was excited & in a hurry), but still my kids LOVED THEM! Score! (that doesn’t always happen, by the way;)
My vanilla frosting smoothie bowl has the energizing power of a banana, unsweetened cashew butter, and vanilla protein powder. For this smoothie bowl I choose to use this protein powder, because it’s my favorite to use for my kids. Here’s why.
And what really gives it that frosting taste? a teeny itsy bitsy drop of almond extract. If you don’t have that around, vanilla works too!
The final bowl looked amazing and is TOTALLY delicious. It’s super-charged, so a little goes a long way. Feed those kiddos the best you know how and do it with tons of TLC….and everything will work out the way it should be;)
