Healthy Snacks for Kids

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Snacks can, and should, be a part of every child’s balanced diet. It’s easy to equate snacking with junk food, but it doesn’t have to be the case. The important thing is to provide kids with choices when it comes to snacking. If all the choices you give them are reasonably nutritious ones, then everybody’s happy: your kids get to choose their snacks, and you get to ensure that they’re eating healthfully.

Is it possible to make fruits, vegetables, lean protein, low fat dairy products and whole grains appealing to your kids? Take a Dip

Kids love anything they can dip! Baked tortilla chips and whole wheat crackers or pita triangles are perfect, nutritious and kid-pleasing accompaniments for dips, too. Sliced fruit takes on a whole new appeal as well when it’s accompanied by a sweet, creamy dip. Good fruit dips include flavored yogurt, applesauce, low fat sour cream sweetened with honey or brown sugar, and caramel ice cream topping.

Kids love to turn any eating occasion into an interactive experience. You may have a “don’t play with your food” rule at mealtimes, but try relaxing the rule at snack time, and you’ll become every kid’s hero. The kids will have a ball at snack time if you equip them with a few slices of bread, lunch meat and cheese, and a couple of miniature cookie cutters to make tiny, whimsically shaped sandwiches.
No kid can resist pizza! Pizza doesn’t have to be loaded with fat–it can be a perfectly healthy snack. Freeze!

We usually equate frozen snacks with special treats, like ice cream and snow cones. Take advantage of that association and freeze some healthy treats for the kids to snack on. The kids will really go bananas for frozen bananas when you roll them in chocolate syrup and chopped nuts. Top it with fresh fruit to add some vitamins and fiber, or cut it into cubes for dipping in fruit-flavored yogurt for an extra dose of calcium.

Establish a Snacking Zone

Fruit, vegetable sticks, crackers, cheese, granola bars, healthy cookies and muffins, and peanut butter sandwiches are all high-energy foods that will hold up well in a locker until your hungry kid is ready for a homemade pick-me-up.

It’s important to grab the right delicious and nutritious snack for your child, since snacks make up a significant part of kids’ diet. Trail mix. Help kids make their own custom trail mix, advises Mary Friesz, a registered dietitian in Boca Raton, Fla., and author of Food, Fun ‘n Fitness: Designing Healthy Lifestyles for Our Children. Fruit, veggies and dip. Mix a bit of cinnamon into French vanilla yogurt and dip fruit into it, or try Velvety vanilla yogurt dip with fruit. Another dip idea: mix low-fat plain yogurt with a bit of regular ranch dressing for lots of flavor without a lot of fat.

Smoothies. Whirl low-fat yogurt, fruit and ice in the blender to create one-of-a-kind – and yummy! Roll-ups.“Store-bought picks. Even if you’re pushed for time, you can still make healthy choices. Smith suggests small yogurt cups or lower-fat round cheeses like Baby Bel.

Smart Snacking Tips

Kids begging for the prepackaged cheese, crackers and lunch meat? Add a frozen container of milk, water or 100 per cent fruit juice to keep things cool until snack time. “Make healthy snacks visible,” advises Friesz. Want kid-approved snack recipes?