One sweltering summer in Southern California, Jessica Gavin was looking for a healthy, cooling treat for her then 2-year-old son. Gavin, a food science expert who wrote knew that even brands of healthy-looking popsicles often come filled with artificial colors and flavors, stabilizers and preservatives. So she made her own.
Seven years and one daughter later, it’s become a family tradition. “It’s fun because you can make it with your kids,” said Gavin. “It’s something that you could kind of just throw together and enjoy within a few hours.
” Her popsicle flavors sound as if they could have come out of a gourmet grocery store: minty watermelon, peach-strawberry yogurt, blackberry lemon and orange-mango coconut. The difference is that each has five or fewer ingredients — and no high-fructose corn syrup. Most of mix pureed fruit with either Greek yogurt or coconut milk, plus a little honey depending on the sweetness of the fruit.
Gavin suggested tasting the mixture for sweetness before adding honey. For her homemade popsicles, Kacie Barnes, a dietitian nutritionist in Dallas, rarely adds sweetener. That’s in part because most fruit is already sweet, but also because kids rarely eat only one, she said.
Her simplest pops combine 100% juice with a little unflavored collagen protein powder for a nutritional boost. Some juice blends that include vegetables — look at the label to make sure there is no added sugar— also help expose kids to flavors they might not ea.
