How To Make Vegan Probiotic Gummies!

Hello friends! How are you!? Remember when I used to post more eco-friendly / natural living beauty and body recipes? It’s hard to keep that up while traveling! I was hoping to maybe at least create some recipes here in Mexico. But it just hasn’t been happening lately.  Sooooo…I’ve asked another natural living mama to create some blog posts for you guys!  Smart move, I know! Expect to see some new posts here and there with some home, body, food, and more natural living posts and recipes coming your way!

Please give a warm welcome to Katie from The Informed Mom. She’s another bad ass natural living striving mom in south florida. I think you’ll find her to be incredibly awesome… and informative! (Too cheesy? haha).

ps. this first post looks too fun. I’m definitely going to attempt these when we eventually get back home!

Hello! Let me introduce myself! My name is Katie (The Informed Mom) and I happy to get to work with Drea on a few contributor posts!

A little about my background first before we get into the wonderful world natural living; I am a fellow south Floridian and live in Miami with my husband and three kids. We have been homeschooling them for 4 years now and love the freedom of life and choice that it brings us.

Over the years, through research and health concerns that have technically always been there for myself but never realized (anxiety and gut issues), and my kids (learning disabilities), my family and I have become huge advocates for healthy living. I love creating recipes of all types; from healthy adaptogenic foods, packed with brain boosting and gut healing ingredients, to essential oils and herbalism. My website and Instagram has all of my recipes and more information about health and wellness! I have worked hard to create a completely chemical free home, other than maybe a magic eraser, because honestly, what mother can survive without it!?

I hope that what I bring to this space is healthy, simple recipes and tips that will show you wonderful readers just how easy and fun it is to live a nontoxic life. Thank you for having me, and now let’s get to it!

Passionfruit & Guava Probiotic Gummies

I haven’t met a kid that doesn’t like gummy snacks, heck, even I love them! But unfortunately so many of them are filled with added sugars, waxes, artificial flavorings, colorings, etc. that I never buy them anymore. There are brands out there that have decent ingredients, but are expensive, and really when it comes down to it, they are just pointless snacks. Nothing beneficial health wise in them whatsoever.

So it got me thinking; how can I create a gummy snack for my family that not only tastes good, but that is good for you? So I figured I would try to make probiotic gummy snacks! These gummies are super easy to make, tasty, and filled with gut healthy probiotics. My kids have gobbled them up! And whats even better about it is that they are easily customizable. Here I used passionfruit and guava juice. Living in Miami, we are accustomed to tropical fruits, with a plethora of options. But if you don’t have access to this tropical deliciousness, you can easily make them with any other juice. Green juice would be a great option!

So here is what you will need:

• 4 tablespoons of water
• 4 tablespoons of agar flakes ( or 1 tablespoon of agar powder; but I prefer the flakes as it doesn’t have so much of an aftertaste as the powder) I found mine at Whole Foods
• 1 tsp of lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
• 1/2 cup of Passionfruit Juice and/or 1/2 cup of Guava juice (or really any kind of juice you prefer!)
• 1 tablespoon of liquid probiotics ( I used Mary Ruth’s Liquid Probiotics, which you can buy on Amazon)
• Gummy molds ( I highly recommend getting a set of molds that comes with the dropper, I found mine on Amazon)
• Fine sieve or nut milk bag for straining

Here’s how you make them:

1. In a small saucepan set over medium heat, combine your agar flakes, your water, lemon juice, and passionfruit juice. Bring to a simmer, whisking to ensure no clumping.
2. Once your mixture has simmered for about 1-2 minutes, add your maple syrup.
3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve or nut milk bag set over another bowl. Careful not burn yourself as the mixture is hot!
4. Once strained, continuously whisk your mixture while blowing on it. We want to cool it down to a warm to the touch but no longer hot temperature before we add our probiotics. This happens quickly, just keep whisking and blowing. The mixture will set if you let it sit unstirred for too long.
5. Once it’s cooled down to a warm temperature, add your probiotics and whisk until combined. Then using your dropper simply fill up your gummy molds! If you don’t have a dropper, use a little spoon to fill them up, scraping off the excess back into the bowl and repeating.
6. This should firm up at room temperature in about 10-20 minutes, but feel free to pop them into the fridge to speed up the process.
This recipe should make about 100 little gummy bears. I store mine in the refrigerator just to make sure that they stay fresh. But they don’t last too long in this house!
I repeated this process to make the guava flavor.

That’s all there is to it. Healthy little bites that I don’t feel guilty eating or sharing with my kids!

-Katie
The Informed Mom
@theinformedmom