Laura Young - reporter3.riverbendnews@gmail.com
Whether kids are pulling their afternoon snack from a lunchbox, receiving it as part of an extra-curricular program or pouncing on it as soon as they get home, there are lots of ways to make snack time fun, easy and healthy. Whatever your role in providing kids with snacks, consider these possibilities:
1. Jazz the juice. Provide cuts of colorful fruit to add to less colorful drinks. Fruit can be perched on a glass rim, skewered for plunging in or smashed for blending in. Fresh fruit is great, but canned fruit chunks can work well also.
2. Go ahead – play with your food. Kid-safe plastic knives will cut most fruits and veggies, and the possibilities are endless for turning them into cute or creepy critter shapes. Turn a cut of celery into a boat for cream cheese or dip, and then stand other yummy bits up in the goo. You can pack the parts in sectioned containers and let the creative assembly happen wherever or whenever snacktime happens.
3. Squeeze it. Squeezing is just more fun. Period. Invest in a cheap, reusable squeezer tube or save a small squeeze bottle after you've emptied whatever condiment came in it, and then reuse it. Fill with yogurt, nut butter, cheese spread, dip, jam, salsa, guacamole or whatever. Get creative with the edible landing pad as well; it could be a slice of apple, a favorite cracker, a muffin, scoop-friendly chips, etc.
4. Grab some good old cheese and crackers. Nothing travels better perhaps than slices of cheese. And the foods they pair well with are aplenty. Explore different flavors of cheese and different types of crackers or fruits to stack them with. This is perhaps the least messy type of snack ever. Gobble it up, brush off your hands, and there's no cleanup needed.
5. Think beyond raisins. Raisins, the most common dried fruit in the American diet, definitely makes for an easy, healthy snack. Other easily available dried fruits include dried cranberries, apricots, prunes and dried apples. With some effort, you might be able to find some exotic possibilities as well, such as dried pineapple, papaya, banana or kiwi. Pair with your favorite nut, and perhaps even have a bit of nutty fun arranging the bits into edible mosaics before dropping them down the hatch.
The Nemours KidsHealth website says, “Healthy snacks help manage kids' hunger and boost nutrition. Snacks can keep them from getting so hungry that they get cranky. Snacks may help prevent overeating at meals. And for picky eaters of all ages, snacks are a chance to add more nutrients to their diets.”
When thinking about what to pull out for snack time, aim for fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy and protein foods. These are all low in sugar, fat and salt. It's also important to keep portions snack-sized and regulate times that snacks are offered.
When and how much you serve is just as important as what you serve, and making healthy snacks fun can help bring all that goodness home.