Gelatin Juice Blocks

We don't do juice in our home. Our pediatrician was adamantly against introducing juice, which was further backed up by the counseling I took for the gestational diabetes I had throughout my second pregnancy. I finally asked my counselor: "Hey, what's the big deal if it's just fruit?" She explained that juicing fruit takes all the fiber out of the equation and leaves your body processing it the same way it would regular sugar. Furthermore, when you drink a glass of OJ, you're probably drinking more like 4-5 oranges instead of sitting down to just 1, which would cause your blood sugar to spike anyway. Basically, you're better off eating a cookie. Fruit's great, but in moderation, because it does have sugar. All I needed to hear. If my kids are going to have a sugar-rush, I just assume they enjoy a cookie or cake or something really worth it on the rare occasions that's okay, ya know?

Juice blocks are my only exception. And since I make an exception, I make sure I'm making it worth my time. I get this juice at Trader Joe's, because it has things like spinach, broccoli, and spirulina listed on the ingredients. Sure, it's listed far below the apple and pineapple juice, but I'll take it. And, ugly as it is, my kids enjoy every last bit of it!

This is really, REALLY easy. So if you've never made gelatin blocks from scratch before, let me show you. There's simply no reason to go for the boxed Jell-O after you see how easy it is.

As far as gelatin goes, I bought this stuff here on Amazon. It was a great price for gelatin, cheaper than Knox packets from the grocery store, and I know it comes from beef. Knox doesn't disclose on the package where their gelatin comes from, so I've got no clue. Gelatin is great because it helps your body be more efficient at processing protein. Since grass-fed beef is expensive, we don't eat it too often. My kids aren't huge meat-eaters anyway. So gelatin is an important part of our diet, allowing us to get the most we can out of the meat we do eat.

It's just 1 Tablespoon of gelatin for every 1 cup of juice. If you're using Knox packets, there's 1 Tablespoon in each packet. (If you want to make regular gelatin you'd eat with a spoon, it's half that.) I use 4 cups of juice in my 9x13 baking dish.

Measure out 1 cup of juice and pour into your 9x13 dish. Then measure out 3 more cups into a pot. Turn the heat on. Once the juice is well on it's way to boiling, sprinkle your gelatin over the cold juice in your dish and let it sit for 1 minute. Here it is, just gelin':

After a minute, add the boiling juice to the dish and stir for about 5 minutes until the gelatin is dissolved.Cover and put in the fridge for about 3 hours. You can speed up the process by putting it in the freezer for the first 1/2 hour.

Cut 'em and scoop 'em, and that's it!