Snacking Healthy for Kids

Providing snacks that are satisfying and nutritious can be a challenge. As with everything, setting an example is the best way to teach children any concept. When we need a quick snack, if grabbing a bag of chips or a stack of cookies is what we do, then that will be the natural course for our children as well. You should rid the house of high fat, high sugar snacks and have other snacks readily available, making properly satisfying those snack attacks easier and healthier. It is important to make sure that you have snacks that are not only good for you, but that your children also think taste good. If you have raisins there for your children to snack on, but they do not like raisins, they will go looking for something else.

Snacks that contain fruit are a great way to get that important food group into kid’s diets. This can merely be a whole piece of fresh fruit or a bowl of berries, applesauce or a fruit smoothie, or try freezing grapes, bite size pieces of oranges or strawberries for a quick, cool treat. Dried fruit can also be a great grab and go snack.

Snacks that have protein in them can also give kids the energy that they may need to get through to the next meal. Cheese sticks, nuts and peanut butter, a hard boiled egg, or yogurt are all excellent sources of protein.

Bread products are also an easy snack item. Be careful of prepackaged crackers and granola bars as they are sometimes packaged to look healthy, but in fact are full of fat and sugar. Whole wheat crackers, toasted bread or English muffins, granola, pretzels, and popcorn can all be great snacks to have on hand.

Once you have decided what is in your snack pantry mix and match, try whole wheat crackers with cheese, apples with peanut butter, maybe a toasted English muffin with peanut butter and sliced banana. Have yogurt or applesauce with granola, or even mix several things together for a yummy trail mix. Let your creativity and taste buds run wild.