Homemade Pirate Booty, a healthy after school snack

Over the past year I have been working with my business partner to try and open a kid friendly healthy, fun restaurant. In that time I have been contacted by many people but one in particular has been the most passionate. Recently she started her website Well Kiddos Improving Kids Menus “One Restaurant at a Time.” With Manuela Seitz-Hipkins. Her passion to improve children's menus is infectious. She advocates providing children with healthy food choices when dining in or out. She will be reviewing restaurants, giving recipes and lots of other great information. I wanted to share her mission and this fun recipe!

I just love this recipe for Spirulina (“green popcorn”) Popcorn. This is a fun way to get kids to eat green stuff, (one of my major pass times!) I love the idea of green fingers instead of orange ones like you get from those cheese covered snacks (yes, you know what I am talking about)

If your kids avoid green foods then start small, just use a tiny bit of the spirulina at first. Make it again and add more and so on, you get the idea.

Green Popcorn

Recipe: These ingredients can be easily found in health food stores

You will need:

Spirulina powder

Nutritional Yeast (not brewer’s yeast)

Sea salt or mineral salt

Popcorn (we prefer organic popcorn)

Olive Oil

Coconut Oil (optional)

1 clean paper bag (shopping bag)

Air popper (we like using an air popper because it’s easy to use)

Prepare:

Mix equal amounts of Spirulina Powder, Salt (to taste) and Nutritional Yeast (we like 1 tablespoon per batch of popcorn from the air popper)

Melt coconut oil over low heat and mix with olive oil (1 teaspoon each or 2 teaspoons of olive oil if you omit the coconut oil)

Pop the popcorn, pour it warm into the paper shopping bag and pour oil over it; now pour the Spirulina/Yeast Mix over it, close the shopping bag by rolling it down a bit and shake it. Dance and jump, that’s part of the fun!