Smoothies and purees for camouflage

These are the two that I don't personally do, but it's because I don't necessarily need them, and other people might.

The purees came from a cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld, Deceptively Delicious. Two of the Seinfeld children were very picky eaters, and there was an enormous amount of frustration in getting vegetables into their growing bodies. Noticing once that the pureed squash that she was making for the baby was the same color as the macaroni and cheese she was making for the rest of the family led to a new strategy.

I feel some sympathy because I had some strong food prejudices as a child. Actually, I still have a few left. Since there are several vegetables that I will gladly eat, though, and since there is some initial prep work involved, I have not gone ahead and tried any of the recipes.

However, if you have vegetable averse children, this could be a great option, and the initial work of pureeing the various vegetables so you can add them while cooking is probably a good time investment. I have to say that the book is well-written, and gives you clear steps. Vegetables you will use include avocados, beets, broccoli, butternut squash, carrots, cauliflowers, peas, red bell peppers, spinach, sweet potatoes, and zucchini and summer squash. (There are also some fruit purees, which I do not consider as significant, and I will get to that in a moment.)

There are recipes I would like to use, for my own specific needs. Truly, I have no problem eating carrots and sweet potatoes. We do that all the time. I also do not want to eat cauliflower under any circumstances; I don't care if it has a disguise. Spinach and squash are things that I eat, but I don't really like to. If disguises would make them more palatable, there could be something to that.

Also, there are foods where extra nutrition might be valuable, so brownies with carrots and spinach, or cupcakes with pumpkin and squash, might have some merit, both by adding vitamins and ending up with less calories. So, that's something to think about.

The reason I don't worry about fruits so much is because people tend to like eating them. They have higher amounts of natural sugars, making them sweeter, and usually the way they get prepared, whether for baking or preserving, is to add significantly more sugar. It seems best to just eat them fresh, or to add them into salads.

So, while I enjoy the occasional fruit smoothie, it's not something that I need in my life to increase my fruit intake, and it's not a way that I want to take in vegetables. Nonetheless, smoothies were quite popular in the group I was working with, especially green smoothies.

Part of the deal with this is that kale thickens up really nicely, making it easy to work with in terms of getting the right smoothie texture, as well as being high in calcium, beta carotene, vitamins C and K, and other nutrients. It sounds great, it's just not a direction I want to go.

I still see it's value, especially after a friend had a child with an overly sensitive gag reflex. Various food textures would trip him up, and she needed to find ways to make it easier for him to eat, and that involved a lot of pureeing and blending.

So, even though I am not using these two methods, I appreciate them. If they will work for you, I want you to know about them. I do not believe in only one true way to eat vegetables. I think that's rather mature of me.