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Post Tummy Bug Recovery Smoothie

March 25, 2016

You’ve made it through a tummy bug, and are ready to eat – but what do you eat on a sensitive empty tummy? This smoothie is not only gentle, but is loaded with minerals and nutrients to nourish your family back to eating again!

Post Tummy Bug Recovery Smoothie :: You've made it through a tummy bug, and are ready to eat - but what do you eat on a sensitive empty tummy? This smoothie is not only gentle, but is loaded with minerals and nutrients to nourish your family back to eating again!

We made it through the whole winter with no more than a little cold bug…until last week.

The weekend spring began to be exact! How ironic!

I went on a field trip with my preschooler on a Friday morning and listened to the teacher’s warnings to the mothers there that 6 or 7 kids plus 1 teacher were out with the flu that week…

Post Tummy Bug Recovery Smoothie :: You've made it through a tummy bug, and are ready to eat - but what do you eat on a sensitive empty tummy? This smoothie is not only gentle, but is loaded with minerals and nutrients to nourish your family back to eating again!

And my 6 and 4 year olds ended up with buckets at the bedside by Saturday morning.

What a drag!

It’s bound to happen – our kids don’t live in bubbles right?!

We do what we can to keep their immune systems boosted during the winter with quality cod liver oil, whole food sourced quality vitamin C, eating nourishing food and getting quality sleep, and here and there do rounds of daily elderberry syrup or elderberry tincture when there are viruses going around in herds in the classroom.

But sooner or later the body does a little house cleaning and a bug takes over.

We spent the greater part of the next 24 hours nursing the 2 girls’ high fevers with yarrow baths and cool washcloths, hourly elderberry syrup doses, sips of homemade electrolyte drinks and nettle tea, and lots and lots of sleep and rest.

By Sunday morning the girls perked up a bit, fevers had been broken, and {most importantly!} there had been no throwing up since late Saturday morning.

We were in the clear to try a little bland food at the girls’ request, and I typically start with sea salted bone broth. They both had a tea cup full that morning which stayed down well, and they were ready to try more.

Post Tummy Bug Recovery Smoothie :: You've made it through a tummy bug, and are ready to eat - but what do you eat on a sensitive empty tummy? This smoothie is not only gentle, but is loaded with minerals and nutrients to nourish your family back to eating again!

I decided to try a gentle smoothie to start while I worked on getting more bone broth made to make some soup for later that afternoon.

Here are the components and purposes of the ingredients:


Mineral Boosting Liquid Base

The purpose here is getting the liquid part of the smoothie to do some work for you in replenishing the little ones electrolytes without being too heavy. While raw milk and coconut milk are great in smoothies, when you are just coming off a tummy bug you want to ease into those heavier fluids. Coconut water or nettle tea work well. Or even just water with a big pinch of mineral rich sea salt, Celtic salt, or pink salt works great.


Gentle Mineral Rich Veggie

While we love green smoothies, the focus here is getting the digestion up and running again. Gentle veggies like sweet potatoes or any of the squashes (yes even zucchini) are loaded with minerals and (in their cooked form) are very easy to digest as well as provide a slow burning carbohydrate to the mix. Just use whatever you have on hand. I had mashed sweet potatoes leftover from dinner earlier in the week so I used that. You can steam up a little sweet potato or squash in just 20 minutes time.


Easy To Digest Fruit

Fruit makes the smoothie palatable for little ones without adding any extra sugar. Because we are talking gentle ingredients while recovering from a tummy bug, I chose to use mango and banana. Both are low in pectin which can irritate sensitive tummies. Banana also contains amylase which is helpful in carbohydrate digestion. All in all it is just a great choice to not only make the smoothie taste good after coming off a nauseating tummy bug, it is nice and easy to digest. Papaya is another low pectin fruit if that is more readily available to you. Most of the time I purchase frozen mango in bulk at Costco, though sometimes I catch a sale in the fresh produce department.


Grassfed Collagen

Not only does a quality grassfed collagen add an easy to digest, natural protein source, it is also fantastic for repairing stomach lining and just over all digestive support. I have been using Perfect Supplements grassfed collagen since early fall last year and I couldn’t be more pleased. Zero taste, blends in perfectly, and great price point.


Gentle Fat Source

This boosts the satiating part of the smoothie balancing out the fruit sugars and protein to make it well rounded. Just a small splash to start digestion running is all you need and really you could choose whatever you wish. I typically add egg yolks to the girls’ smoothies but I ended up using avocado oil this time just to keep it simple and smaller in portion size. Melted coconut oil works well too and is extremely nourishing.


Optional Add-Ins

If you have kids that are tough to get probiotics or vitamin C into, this is where you can get a dose of those in easy. My 4 and 6 year olds swallow probiotics and C’s without issue but I know there are some that don’t! You can add a quality probiotic and vitamin C to the smoothie and they’ll never know 😉

Another star player that I like to add-in is slippery elm. This herb helps soothe and repair the entire digestive tract from the stomach to the rectum – so if things have been happening at both ends, this is a great remedy to have on hand. It does have a bit of a taste that my kids don’t mind. Add a bit of raw honey to the smoothie if you need to cover it up, but really just a teaspoon or so is all you need! (If you would like to try slippery elm outside of the smoothie, simply mix the powder with some raw honey and have them take it off the spoon. Sometimes my kids prefer to take it in tincture form, which is fine too!)


 

Post Tummy Bug Recovery Smoothie :: You've made it through a tummy bug, and are ready to eat - but what do you eat on a sensitive empty tummy? This smoothie is not only gentle, but is loaded with minerals and nutrients to nourish your family back to eating again!

Print Recipe
5 from 9 votes

Post Flu Recovery Smoothie

You’ve made it through a tummy bug, and are ready to eat – but what do you eat on a sensitive empty tummy? This smoothie is not only gentle, but is loaded with minerals and nutrients to nourish your family back to eating again!
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: American
Keyword: tummy bug recovery smoothie, tummy friendly smoothie
Servings: 3 servings
Author: Renee - www.raisinggenerationnourished.com

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups coconut water Other options for mineral boosting fluid would be plain water with a big pinch of sea salt, or brewed nettle tea. The fruit will mask any flavor.
  • 3-4 TB sweet potato mash or about 1/4 cup cubed and cooked sweet potato - I just used leftover mashed sweet potato from dinner earlier in the week. Squash is gentle and would work too
  • 1 banana fresh or frozen
  • 1 cup mango or papaya fresh or frozen
  • 2-3 TB grassfed cold soluble collagen
  • 2 tsp avocado oil or melted coconut oil
  • 1-2 tsp slippery elm powder optional - see notes above

Instructions

  • Everything into the blender and blend until smooth. Serves 3 small child sized servings. Can also be poured into ice pop molds for popsicles.

More real food recipes you might like:
Electrolyte Popsicles

Rehydrating Eletrolyte Popsicles
DIY Electrolyte Drink

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Elderberry Popsicles

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Immune Booster Smoothie

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25 Comments

  • Reply alison March 29, 2016 at 10:53 am

    5 stars
    What a great idea to feed your child smoothies after the flu has hit! I always am searching for something and have given them bananas and mangos but never in smoothie form with all of those extra good vitamins. I love that you can make it into popsicles, too!

  • Reply linda spiker March 29, 2016 at 10:59 am

    5 stars
    This smoothie looks delicious even if you aren’t post bug!

  • Reply Lindsey Dietz March 29, 2016 at 11:51 am

    Love all the easily digested ingredients in this! Perfect for a recovering tummy. Sharing on FB this week!

  • Reply Anya March 29, 2016 at 11:52 am

    5 stars
    Those are all great ingredients for a recovery smoothie!

  • Reply Andrea Fabry March 29, 2016 at 11:52 am

    5 stars
    This makes so much sense and probably looks great when you’re in that recovery phase. Definitely keeping this!

  • Reply Megan Stevens March 29, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    I love the idea of using nettle tea as the base! What a loving, thoughtful recipe!

  • Reply Melissa @ My Darla Clementine March 29, 2016 at 4:46 pm

    There is some really great information in here! Both of my toddlers got tummy bugs the last week of winter too! Sometimes a mama feels at loss on what to feed their sickies! I’ve pinned this for our next time around (though I hope I won’t have to use it tooooo soon!)

  • Reply Marjorie March 29, 2016 at 7:34 pm

    Sounds really good! I love all of the ingredients in this 🙂

  • Reply Emily @ Recipes to Nourish March 30, 2016 at 12:36 am

    I’m so sorry you got so sick, and so glad you’re recovering/recovered. This smoothie looks delicious though, for any time really. It sounds delicious.

  • Reply Carol March 31, 2016 at 10:03 am

    Agree with all above. Good recipe. Well thought out. Very nourishing. I often use herb teas as a base, and in this case, nettle tea is a great choice. Chamomile could also work here, but more for the calming of tummy than for high mineral content. Thanks for sharing Renee!

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  • Reply Kelsey December 7, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    5 stars
    This is a fantastic and timely post as we just had our oldest down with a tummy bug last night. She’s been saying she’s hungry, but not sure she should eat yet, so this will be a perfect starter for her! Thanks! <3

    • Reply Renee Kohley December 8, 2016 at 6:32 pm

      I hope your daughter feels better soon Kelsey!

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  • Reply Danyelle Jones November 11, 2018 at 12:48 pm

    5 stars
    My husband and I were taken out with a stomach something this weekend. This is what we put in our bodies as dinner after nearly 30 hours of only tea and water. I used frozen squash as it was on-hand and, while very sweet, the smoothie was just what our bodies needed to gear up for real food the next day. The background information is helpful and makes it easy to substitute wisely. Glad to be on the mend and have something to keep us headed in that direction!

    • Reply Renee Kohley November 14, 2018 at 1:37 pm

      I’m so glad you are feeling better Danyelle!

  • Reply Tessa Simpson January 7, 2019 at 11:26 pm

    5 stars
    What a great little tool to have in my back pocket!!Love the slippery elem addition!

  • Reply Jean January 8, 2019 at 8:19 pm

    5 stars
    What a great soothing smoothie! I’ve taken slippery elm as capsules before but I never thought add it to smoothies. I have to try that next time.

  • Reply Raia January 8, 2019 at 8:58 pm

    5 stars
    Oh my goodness, it sounds delicious. Even if I’m not recovering from a tummy bug!

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