JUICING WITH KIDS

1. Get them involved in the process. Bring them with you to a Saturday or Sunday market, let them help choose the fruits and vegetable with you together.
2. Start with washing all of your produce together in a colander, help them feed the the produce into the juicer. Cut into pieces if necessary (some juicers are allow you to put whole pieces of fruit in, some require you to chop it up). They will be interested to see whole foods going in and coming out as fresh juice.
3.Begin with more fruit than veg juice. It will take their taste buds a little while to adjust to vegetable juice so introduce that slowly.
4. Add water to the juices as necessary for their age.
4. Some juicers make quite smooth juices but you can always strain the juice to remove any left over pulp that your picky eater may or may not like.
5. Fresh juice tastes best cold so be sure to refrigerate all of your fruits and vegetables before you begin.
A few of our kid friendly favorite juice recipe are here but please feel free to experiment and share your favorites with us.
Green Lemonade: 2 Granny smith apples, 1/4 of a lemon (rind removed) a hand full of fresh spinach.
Apple Piazza: 1 small red beet top remove, 2 red apples, 1 large carrot
Sunny Bunny: 4 large carrots, 1/2 bunch of kale, 1/4 of a pineapple core intact
Green Berry: 2 stalks of celery, 2 red apples, 1 large cucumber, 10 strawberries
JUICING GUIDE BY AGE:
Below is a guide on how much juice we think you should give a child in a day, but always check with your pediatrician and trust your own judgment and intuition as well.
- 1 to 3 years old: When your toddlers begins to take in solid food, do introduce fruits and vegetables in their diet. Starting early on is the best single thing you can do for them nutritionally. Put a small piece of fruit to your child mouth, they may reject it, but that is okay. Keep it up try again each day until they finally give it a try, it’s more about your patience and giving them the opportunity to learn to like new foods. Give a wide variety of foods a try. Start with soft fruits like banana, pears, apples, mangoes, tomatoes, avocados, cooked spinach, boiled potatoes, and so on.
- 4 to 8 years old: Begin introducing juices to your young child with a ¼ cup of fresh juice, then dilute with one part water (1:1). Once you can see they are enjoying the juice and are well able to tolerate, slowly increase by an additional 1/4 cup at a time continuing to still dilute with one part water.
- 9 to 12 years old: If they are just starting to take juice, start with ½ cup of juice dilute in one part water. When they are seasoned, they can safely take ½ cup neat , without any problem. Do not give them more than ½ cup as it may cause diarrhea.
- 12 years and above: At this age, they will be able to safely take one cup juice neat. However, if they are not used to taking juice, test with smaller amounts first.