Iron Boosting Strawberry Milk – vegan

When kids are going through a fussy stage, it can be really hard to make sure they’re getting essential nutrients, like iron. This iron boosting strawberry milk delivers over half the daily requirements for iron for a toddler, and is far more appealing than a bowl of beans!

All kids go through fussy stages, be it teething, food aversion, or they’re just too busy playing to eat. It can be very stressful as parents when these happen, because unfortunately the foods that they tend to avoid are the healthy ones that you’re trying to get them to eat!

When my kids aren’t eating much, I tend to look at the foods that they are eating, and try to boost the nutrients of those. This strawberry milk is one such recipe that I came up with as a great recipe to increase iron intake for my kids. I especially like using milks and smoothies to boost nutrition, as they’re easy for little ones to eat. They’re especially handy during teething, when solid foods might not be so nice on sore gums.

This recipe uses iron rich cashews and pumpkin seeds, and then dates for sweetness, and strawberries for vitamin C. Cashews and pumpkin seeds are especially good to increase vegan kids’ iron intake, as they are low in calcium, which can restrict iron absorption. The vitamin C from the strawberries is also really important because it helps the body absorb more iron from foods.

Substitutions

You can also make this recipe into a chocolate milk, by replacing the strawberries with a tablespoon of cacao or cocoa powder, but I recommend serving the milk with a side of berries to keep the benefits of the vitamin C.

If your little one can’t have nuts, then you could replace the cashews with more pumpkin seeds. I recommend adding an extra two tablespoon of oats to make the milk extra creamy. Different nuts and seeds have different amounts of iron, so the nutritional levels of the milk will change if you substitute others.

This recipe makes a single serve of iron boosting strawberry milk, with over 4.2mg of iron per serve.

Please let me know below what your little ones think of this iron boosting strawberry milk! Let me know if you have any other recipes that your kids love that you’d like me to give a nutrition boost!

If you live in Australia, and you’re making this recipe while we’re having all the issues with strawberries contaminated with needles, please make sure you cut your strawberries up first, before you make this milk!

Nutrient	Per Serve	Per 100g
Energy	1254kJ (300cal)	1124kJ (269cal)
Protein	9.21g	8.26g
Carbohydrates	17.4g	15.59g
Fat	20.66g	18.52g
Iron	3.25mg	2.91mg
Zinc	2.68mg	2.4mg
Calcium	33.44mg	29.96mg
Fibre	4.9g	4.39g