Strawberry Kiwi Popsicles

It’s the ultimate mom dilemma, right? Your kids are crazy about a fruit one week, so you buy more of it the next week only to learn that, “Mooooommm. I don’t LIKE [name of fruit] anymore!”

That was the birth of these strawberry kiwi popsicles.

It’s tempting to launch into the, “But you loved it last week!” argument, but I’ll let you in on a secret…your kids don’t care. And pushing too hard on how they used to love the fruit, or really any other food, can come off as pressure which often backfires when it comes to feeding kids.

The food waste and “don’t you know how much money I spend on fruit!” arguments will backfire too, unfortunately.

So here’s what you CAN do: Reinvent.

If the food they’ve jagged out on (yes, that’s the technical term!) is shelf-stable, you can easily stick it back in the pantry until a time when they’ve likely forgotten that they “don’t like” this food and give it another go.

But if the food needs to get used up, you can reinvent it into a different form. Popsicles, smoothies, fruit leather (if you happen to own a dehydrator…I don’t!) etc. And by adding something they currently love, which in this case was strawberries, you’re creating a bridge between a currently accepted food and a “new” one.

Most kids, if they are not facing extreme picky eating, are more bored with whatever they’re saying they don’t “like” anymore rather than repulsed by it. But either way, they’re the ones who decide what sounds good to eat, so it’s important to respect their decisions.

Fortunately, if your kids happen to refuse these, they’re a great snack for you, too!

I lucked out, since they were a total hit with my kids. And anyway, you don’t need to save this recipe for whenever your kids randomly decide that kiwi is the worst ever. If they’re kiwi lovers, you can make it right now!

How to make kiwi popsicles:

I wasn’t sure how kiwi would hold up in my high-speed blender…would the seeds get obliterated? Sink to the bottom of the mixture. Nope and nope! To my surprise, they stayed intact and remained suspended in the pureed kiwi.

I was also surprised that I didn’t need to add any sweetener to the mixture. Now mind you, my kiwis were really ripe from having been sitting on the counter uneaten for so long. So in the recipe below, I’ve included an optional teaspoon of honey depending on how sweet you like your popsicles.

A note on kiwi seeds:

Neither you, nor I, nor an infant in diapers, nor your older child, is very likely to fully digest kiwi seeds. It’s just that we spend more time looking at our kids’ poop than our own. So if you spot some seeds in there, rest assured that it’s perfectly normal.