You can learn the tricks of making iron rich smoothie and easily make this delicious healthy recipe! It is hard to feel the spinach, the orange flavor is strong. This simple recipe is great for kids!
Yay! Finally, I can share my green smoothie which is rich in iron. I made this smoothie with my niece during her holiday but I couldn’t share any posts due to a problem on my computer.
Before we made this smoothie, my niece asked me what gave it the green color. When I told her it was spinach, she grimaced. I explained to her that she wouldn’t taste the spinach at all. I said we would also use banana and orange which would leave the spinach taste behind.
When I was a child, I used to think that spinach was very rich in iron thanks to Popeye. Many years later, it is told that it doesn’t contain as much iron as we think. It still does but we should be careful about getting all the iron we can get from it.
Very recently I learned that when you eat spinach alone, it is hard to absorb iron because spinach is a non-heme food(the iron found in plant foods). You should better take it with food vitamin C to increase the iron absorption. (If you want, you can read more about non-heme food and vitamin C at Livestrong.)
Because of this reason, we use orange and banana in this green smoothie. We use a frozen banana for a thick consistency.
Another important point about spinach is if you eat it with calcium, it slows down the iron absorption. So, we don’t use milk or yogurt in our smoothie. Instead, we use little water as a liquid. You can read more about iron and calcium again at Livestrong. We also use raisins to increase iron content.
Shortly, my niece and I got the iron from our smoothie. If you want to make a green smoothie rich in iron, you should be careful about these issues.
Let’s see the steps of our healthy smoothie.
After my niece arranged the ingredients and took the picture above, she put frozen banana slices, spinach, raisins and orange slices into the blender with little water.
Then, we pressed the pulse button with 5 second intervals for almost 1 minute. Finally, we added ice cubes and blended until they were all crushed.
That’s all we did. My niece loved it. When I asked her if she tasted the spinach, her answer was a big NO!
The orange flavor is strong in this smoothie.
Enjoy!
Green Smoothie-Rich in Iron
Ingredients
- 60 g (1 cup) raw spinach, washed
- 1 medium orange, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 medium banana, peeled, sliced and frozen
- 3 tablespoons raisins
- 60 g/ml (¼ cup) water
- 3-5 large (½ to 1 cup) ice cubes
Instructions
- Place the banana slices, spinach, raisins and orange slices and water into the blender and press the pulse button with 5 second intervals for almost 1 minute until they are all blended.
- Add the ice cubes, just blend until all the ice cubes are crushed.
Notes
Nutrition
Julie @ Running in a Skirt
This looks so good! Love how you added some unique ingredients for vitamins!
Meymi
Thank you, Julie!
Jacqueline Debono
This looks great. I always start my day with fruit smoothies but I think I should be adding spinach, and orange of course!
Meymi
Thank you, Jacqueline! Yes, you should definitely add the orange(vitamin C) to increase the iron absorbtion.
Renu
This looks so good….I do have smoothies as a mid meal snack…will try your version soon…
Meymi
Thank you, Renu! I hope you try soon and enjoy:)
Jasmin Davis
Is there anything that I could use to substitute for raisins?
Meymi
Hi Jasmin, You can use Medjool dates.