Flu Fighting Smoothie
I am not saying this will keep the flu out of your home completely. What I am saying is that so far (knock on wood) we have made it through several flu exposures without actually getting the flu.
Seriously.
On top of that, we have hardly even had colds. One moderate cold is all we’ve had around here this year. Awesome right?!
Now I am sure there are other factors going into this, for example, we really don’t eat that much sugar any more. Sugar suppresses the immune system and I would say, about 90% of the time we use natural sweeteners (honey, maple syrup, apple sauce, etc.)
Also we just generally eat healthy. My kids are constantly snacking on fruits and veggies, yogurt is their favorite snack of all time, I buy it plain and we put raw, local honey on it. They do eat crackers sometimes and given the chance to dive into some chips, they literally dive. Poor things…I typically will keep some tortilla chips on hand for salsa snacking but that’s it, I didn’t think they were all that deprived till a couple weeks ago my 6-year-old spent the weekend at a friend’s house and she snuck a bag of Cheetos out of the pantry and ate them all….Oh my….I didn’t even ask how big the bag was. ;b
But generally, they are pretty good and we eat a very healthy, balanced diet.
We also eat a LOT of soup made with homemade bone broth, homegrown root veggies and meat we raised and butchered ourselves. Bone broth, when made at home, is rich in nutrients that can help keep you from getting sick – chicken noodle soup right??! We’ve all heard that, but really it doesn’t do much if it’s from a can.
So, personally, I think our just plain ol’ healthy eating and trying to get back to eating the way our great grandparents ate just really makes a difference. Obviously, we have our treats now and then. I mean I just posted a cake recipe yesterday, right? But on an everyday basis, we are healthy.
Now I just came up with this smoothie because I knew my kids were going to spend a weekend at a friend’s house who had just been throwing up….lovely. But I didn’t have much choice in the matter, as we were leaving for a once-in-a-lifetime, non-refundable trip to Old Faithful in the winter (which was UH-maz-ING by the way – I guess I should blog about that). So I knew I just had to do the best I could to prepare my kid’s immune systems to go into battle.
I just threw in anything I could think of that would help them out, so things got a little crazy. But hey, it seems to have worked! Plus it tastes amazing, the bit of orange really takes over flavor-wise and pretty much tastes like an orange with a hint of blueberry smoothie. You might not have all these things on hand and if not, that’s ok, just put in what you have and do the best you can.
- 1½ cup frozen blueberries
- ½ an orange
- 2 teaspoons local bee pollen
- ½ pint kombucha with the scoby
- ¼ cup kefir (preferably homemade but store will work too!)
- 1 cup plain whole milk yogurt
- 1 banana
- 2 cups packed spinach
- Throw it all in your blender and turn it on for about a minute (unless you are cooler than I am and have a vitamix...then I am sure you wont need to blend it as long).
- Serve immediately!
- Huckleberry Plum Pie - January 1, 2017
- Fresh Mango Sorbet - July 17, 2016
- Steak Caesar Salad - June 8, 2016
