our morning cocktail

Are your mornings too stressful?  Trying to get kids up, dressed, fed, washed, not killing each other?  Trying to get your teeth brushed, coffee drunk, make sure you have your shirt on right side out and remembered to comb your hair?  Or is that just me?

I decided mornings were getting to be too much.  We all needed a cocktail.  You know, a little relaxation.

Wait, what?  Not that kind of cocktail.  My kids aren't stressing me out to the point of early morning drinking (yet).  No, I mean a nourishing, nutrient-packed cocktail.  One that gets our bellies and our brains in the right place for the day.  

After years of pondering how to get my kids to ingest the very few supplements that I want us to take, I came up with this sort of brilliant idea.  Mix them all together with a shot of something sweet, and get them to gulp it down first thing.  Here are the building blocks:

Fermented Cod Liver Oil (FCLO).  Cod liver oil was your great-grandparents secret to great health.  It was a nearly-universal morning dose for my grandparents.  They tell me how their moms used to line them up and give each kid a spoonful.  In fact, I just read an interesting article about breakfasts around the world, and cod liver oil is still very mainstream in the Nordic countries, where sunshine (and thus vitamin D) is limited.  FCLO is rich in vitamins A and D and is a real superfood.  

Probiotic.  I don't need to say much about this, since it has become so popular in mainstream health news.  Probiotics do more than just aid digestion, though.  Our guts generate much of our immunity to diseases, so keeping them healthy and balanced helps your health overall.  I like to use one that requires refrigeration, so the little bugs stay alive. This particular brand is for infants (I got it when Baby Todd was still Baby Todd), and we are just all using it until it runs out.  

Vitamin D.  Unless we are spending a ton of time in the sun, I supplement a little straight vitamin D3 for each of us.  The kids get about 1000 IU per day (which is one drop of this liquid).  I take 3-4 drops.  Really, it's hard to go overboard on vitamin D - although it can happen, and if you get several hundreds of thousands of IU, it can be toxic.

Something sweet to mix it all in.  Once winter really rolls in and we get our first box of fresh oranges, I will juice a couple and we will get the additional benefits of vitamin C and enzymes from the fresh juice.  For right now, I'm using the syrup left from canned peaches or pears.  It is so delicious.  

I measure all the supplements into the bottom of a 4-oz canning jar.  

Add the mixer, put the lid on, and shake shake shake until everything is well-mixed.  

And that's it!  We each get a little jar and slurp it down.  Todd actually really enjoys his.  Vicki and I take it more like medicine.  Sometimes I add a little Swedish bitters into mine to help avoid the fishy burps that FCLO can give me.  

I have really been proud of myself for finally figuring out a way that we can take these superfoods that are adding to our health.  How do you get your kids to take their supplements?

[This post submitted to Real Food Wednesday and Pennywise Platter 10/23/14, and the Homestead Barn Hop 10/27/14.]