Pep-up

Here's a great idea for getting healthy stuff into little bodies.

We make a fruit smoothie packed with protein most mornings. We do it pretty inexpensively, too, which is always important with a large family. :-)

We take:

2 bananas
milk
about a cup of powdered milk (for extra protein)
magnesium powder (1/2 tsp -- too much tastes bad)
1/4 cup orange juice concentrate
a few thousand mg of vitamin E (we squeeze the oil from the capsules)
a few capsules of vitamin A & D
tsp of vanilla
a tablespoon of lecithin granules
wheat germ
vitamin c powder

sometimes we'll add protein powder, raw (pasteurized) egg, strawberries or other fruit, or other supplements, such as kelp.

We blend it all up, without too much milk, or it won't fit in the blender.

Then I pour about 1/3 a cup for each child, and add more milk.

It's really tasty! You'll need to play around with it to find the combinations you like best. But the vanilla and banana and orange juice make the whole thing really palatable, even for very finicky kids.

Whenever we start our day like this, we all feel really good. This is generally a "mini-breakfast" which we follow with a 10 am mid-morning snack of oatmeal or eggs. It gives the kids a really good start on the day.

We discovered the Pep-up recipe in the book, "Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit", by Adelle Davis.