Green Smoothies: for kids

This is the smoothie my 11-year-old happily drank this morning for breakfast.

In fact, this is pretty much what her breakfast looks like on a daily basis.

If she wants some beans on toast, then she knows that she has to drink this first. Often, of course, she'll not want the 'second' breakfast. Which is a good thing, as the smoothie is the perfect breakfast and anything more I feel would be too much.

But she believes the choice is hers. Which I believe is a crucial factor in how she began to drink the smoothies in the first place, without complaint.

12 days into her sugar-free life and what she does complain about is if the smoothie is not a sufficiently bright enough green. I once put blueberries and raspberries in it, which of course turned it a dark purple . Her reaction was a disappointed: "What's happened to the green?"

The green of course is just green vegetables (a mixture of spinach, chard, celery or kale), with an added slice or two of pear or apple. I make sure there's a 9-1 ratio of vegetables to fruit. It has to be sweet enough to be palatable to someone with a sweet tooth, but not too sweet as to defeat its purpose.

It's all organically grown (as much as possible in our veg garden) and picked just before it's blended. This, naturally, is ideal, but when I can't grow it, I just source good organic spinach, chard and kale from the grocers.

I am generally a pretty easy-going parent. But when it comes to nutrition my kids know I play hard ball.

My daughter understands the smoothie is non-negotiable. She knows that this is just what we do in our house. I never plead with her, cajole or threaten her. Drinking the smoothie is just what happens. And if she doesn't want to finish it then it goes in the fridge and she has to finish it by the end of the day - and definitely before she has any snacks.

I know that this daily green smoothie would not have stood a chance whilst my daughter was eating sugary foods. When we kick sugar out of our system, our taste buds wake up and suddenly the whole foods that we think our kids wouldn't touch start tasting delicious. The same of course applies to us.

Eliminating sugar brings a whole world of new flavours to life, that we'd previously written off as unpleasant or disgusting.

I speak from experience. I am yet to meet someone who was as addicted to sugar as I was: I quit sugar at age 27. And I do believe that if I hadn't, I doubt I would be here now.

My digestive system had begun to seriously rebel to the point where I couldn't ignore the 8-9 hour agony in my gut after eating pretty much anything. (I had also suffered from depression intermittently since I was fourteen -which, once I quit sugar, never bothered me again). I, surprisingly you might think, wasn't over-weight. In fact I was a seriously committed and very fit martial arts lover. I didn't 'look' like someone with a sugar problem. But it's amazing what we can hide inside us.

But that's not necessarily what I tell my daughter. She knows all this, but instead I concentrate on educating her about why drinking a daily smoothie is essential for her health.

Because I couldn't force her to drink it. She has to buy in to the idea.

So I explain in simple terms that the fibre in the smoothie acts like a broom, sweeping out all the crap from our approximately 30-foot long intestines. Without the broom, the rubbish builds up until our arteries get clogged and blood can't get through. Pain and illness and weight gain will follow and organs like our kidneys and liver can't do their jobs.

I explain to my kids that if they have tummy pain, constipation or bloating, their broom isn't working properly, and drinking their daily green smoothie will sort it all out.

They understand this.

I know that my 11-year-old will eat cake and sweets again. Just not in our house. (As I mentioned in my previous post, sugar has never been invited into our house in her lifetime). She knows this is a 4-week period of total sugar abstinence. And after that life, from her point of view, will resume 'normally'.

What I'm hoping is that once the sugar has left her blood and her cells, she will see that all her frustrating and unpleasant symptoms have disappeared and she will be left feeling so vibrant that the seed will have been sown for life.

She will have learnt a significant lesson that she will hopefully always carry with her: that what she eats makes all the difference to how she feels, and how she looks.

After just 12 days of no sugar I asked her this morning whether she was feeling better in any way. And she said: "Yes! I feel awake!"

Now that's a result.