Healthy Juices for Healthy Kids. Wendy Sweetser

to give kids a juice or smoothie at breakfast time since they contain so many valuable nutrients, most weekday mornings in family homes are rushed affairs with everyone late for school or work. If preparing a fresh juice is one job too many, it’s fine to make it the night before and keep the juice in a covered container in the fridge. If a juice left to stand has separated, give it a good stir up before pouring into glasses.

       Some juices have an awful lot of froth. How can I get rid of this as my kids don’t like it?

      Some fruits, such as apples and pears, are notorious for producing juices with thick, frothy heads and the simplest way to remove or reduce this is by skimming it off with a spoon or by spraying the froth with a fine mist of cold water to help it settle.

      If you have a juice extractor, this will probably have been supplied with a juice-collecting jug complete with a built-in froth separator that acts as a lid and will do the job for you. This specially designed lid traps the froth in the jug as the juice is poured out. Alternatively, you can simply serve a frothy drink with a straw so the juice is sucked from the bottom of the glass, leaving the froth behind.

       Are there any other special juicing tips I should know?

      With fruits that contain lots of juice, such as oranges or grapefruit, it’s a good idea to prepare them on a plate – or straight over the bowl of a food processor or liquidizer goblet – so any juice that drips out isn’t lost.

      When liquidizing whole fruit with juice, milk or yoghurt, a smooth mixture is easier to obtain if you add the liquid in several batches to the liquidizer or food processor. Pulse the mixture in small bursts after each addition, stopping to push any pulp down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

       My kids love ice lollies, crushes and slushies. Are there any special tips for making these?

      When making ice lollies from fruit juice, it’s worth remembering that as the juice freezes it will expand so don’t fill the moulds quite to the top. The lollies then need to be left in the freezer until they are still just soft enough for the sticks to be pushed in but sufficiently solid to prevent the sticks floating to the surface.

      As the flavour and sweetness of fruit diminishes when it’s frozen, ice lollies made with subtly flavoured fruits benefit from being sweetened with a little honey. Full-flavoured fruits such as mangoes, oranges or summer berries are fine on their own but add honey if they are blended with unsweetened natural yoghurt or fromage frais to counteract any tartness.

      To remove frozen lollies that are sticking stubbornly to their moulds, dip each mould in a bowl of hot water for a few seconds to loosen the lollies sufficiently for them to be lifted out. Avoid tugging on the lolly stick as you could pull this out and leave the lolly behind!

      If you have an ice cream or sorbet machine, this can be used to make crushes. It also means you don’t have to keep an eye on the half-frozen mixture and remove it from the freezer to break up ice crystals.

      Whilst slushies can be made using either a food processor or liquidizer, those made in a food processor will have a stronger flavour as the fruit needs little or no liquid added to it to reduce it to pulp, whereas liquid is needed to crush fruit in a liquidizer. The recipes for slushies in this book include the quantities of liquid required to do that but if using a food processor the liquid can be reduced to a couple of tablespoonfuls or omitted altogether.

       Our family diet doesn’t include dairy products, what can I use instead of milk and yoghurt?

      Soya milk and yoghurt can replace cow’s milk and yoghurt in the recipes. As soya is enriched with calcium and is high in isoflavones, the antioxidants believed to protect the walls of arteries from potential damage caused by harmful chemicals called free radicals, it makes a healthy alternative to dairy products.

       Can children have juices before bedtime?

      It’s best to give children milky drinks directly before bedtime and to avoid any juice with a high acid content as this can soften their tooth enamel. As the acid in a fruit juice remains on the teeth for about half an hour to an hour before it disperses, any brushing during this time could cause permanent damage to a child’s teeth.

      Most of the recipes in the Bedtime Soothers (pages 142–59) chapter of this book are milk based or contain only a small amount of fruit juice. The Blackberry, apple and plum cordial (page 151) and Lemon kiss (page 150) recipes, which contain a higher proportion of fruit, are designed to be drunk slightly earlier in the evening – ideally an hour or so before bedtime when you’re settling the kids down for some quiet time – so any acid can disperse before they brush their teeth.

      ABOUT THE RECIPES

      Juices and smoothies aren’t just good for your kids, they’re fun to make as well, so get them involved in helping you try out the recipes in this book and then encourage them to start creating their own.

      The quantities given for each recipe are approximate and will vary according to the size of fruit and vegetables used and how much juice or pulp they contain.

      The thickness of drinks will depend on how large fruit and vegetables are and how much pulp they make, and if you are adding yoghurt, the type used. How thick your kids like their drinks is also down to personal preference so dilute them with extra juice, water or milk as required.