Truly Healthy Snacks

Trader Joes has mini whole wheat pitas. I fill them with cheese, nut butters, hummus, even mashed sweet potato, and my two year old gobbles them up! Sometimes we toast them too. Delicious!

Hi D., Sounds like you have a great family. I do not have much to add as far as snacks although my personal favorites are soy chips and banana chips. My children are grown and I do spend as much time as I can with my grandchildren. I did raise 5 and as far as their getting along, sibling rivalry is a big thing. Very rarely do children really get along. Some have milder personalities than others but there is always that pull for attention. I can tell you that my sons #4 and 5 had big issues as youngsters but as adults they get along well. They respect each other and they are both musicians. In fact all 4 of my sons are musicians(hobby) Anyway you are doing a great job, keep it up. The little stuff will iron out. Enjoy them because they DO grow so fast! My best, Grandma Mary

D.,
You can make your own pita chips, guacamole and/or salsa. The salsa takes the longest because of all the veggies you have to chop, but you could keep it simple and just do tomatoes, a little onion, cilantro and lime juice.

Someone suggested turkey bacon and kosher hot dogs, I would advise staying away from these things as they are loaded with chemicals. You can get uncured turkey bacon and additive free hot dogs at Trader Joe's. The hot dogs are still pretty high in fat, but for an occassional treat they are very good with organic whole wheat buns.

Also, look for a cookbook called Real Food for Healthy Kids. I got some great ideas from it.

Good luck,
R.

If the crackers have whole grain in them, they will have some extra nutrients. I get a lot of snacks from Trader Joe's. They have corn chips and crackers that have flax seeds or black sesame seeds. Look for things low in saturated fats and no trans fats. They have fruit cereal bars that I think are pretty good too. I think Kashi products are pretty good as well. They have cereal, cereal bars, and crackers.
I make a lot of things myself and try to use at least part whole grain. I add things like wheat germ, flax seeds, chia seeds, nuts, fruit etc. I reduce fat and sugar as much as possible. I have found that you can adapt most recipes to me much healthier than they typically are.
I make a walnut pumpkin bread and blueberry muffins that my family loves and they are very low in fat and sugar and high in nutrients.
Not a snack, but whenever I make mashed potatoes, I add cooked spinach and puree it all together. My family loves it and my daughter has grown up thinking that mashed potatoes should be green.
Best of luck,
B.

Hi D.
Snacks are difficult for grazers.
I have one too even at 19, she grazes.
Anyway, getting her to eat veggies was my biggest problem til I accidentally put the bowl of peas on the table before I microwaved them. She had the bowl empty before dinner. That was the day I found out my children love frozen veggies for snacks. It was what I wanted them to eat, I was going to be serving them, easy, and cheap.
Mine loved any frozen veggie: peas, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots. Potatoes, squash, and turnip they all liked fresh, raw sliced.
Just a thought
God bless you
K.

The absolute easiest healthy snacks I can think of are raw vegetable platters with a variety of dips are great for grazing on and they are crunchy as well. Favorites in our house are carrot sticks, cucumbers, celery sticks, daikon radish sticks, broccoli florets (steamed or raw), steamed cauliflower florets, lettuce wraps (filled with shredded veggies), raw green beans and raw peas. Dips are great for packing in calories and hidden nutrients--focus on guacamole, nut dips, hummus, pesto, eggplant dip, roasted red pepper dip etc.

I've noticed that even picky eaters are more likely to eat things that are already prepared and visible over things they have to prepare or make an effort to get out, so food placement is another important factor when planning out "snack food" ;-)

I am certainly not an expert on the subject, but I did find a little while ago in the grocery store, that goldfish come in a flavor called garden cheddar. They taste the same as the regular cheddar, but supposedly have a serving of vegetables in them!

try good old fashioned Utz pretzels, but find the whole grain one. It has all kinds of grains, flax, etc and vitamins! I eat those when I crave crunchy wheaty snacks.

Hey D... I would recommend a book that i got from Southern Living.. a cookbook especially for kids.
it works for me.. Also, look on LIparentsource.com
Barbara G.. Hope all works out.. Happy New Year

Kashi cereal - the kind that's bundled up into nuggets (not the flake kind). You may need to try a few to find one everyone (& the dog) likes. Loaded with great grains, none of that sugar/high fructose corn syrup stuff.

These Back to School snack ideas might help you.

http://nosickvisits.blogspot.com/2009/08/back-to-school-s...

L.
www.nosickvisits.com

My mom got this recipe for a breakfast sundae, but I'm sure you could eat it any time of day for a snack. You use vanilla yogart and you can add anything. Cereal, fruit, granola, anything. Each kid could make their own.

I try to do healthy as much as possible too. Toddlers and kids are so finicky! I give my 3-yr-old the Morning Star "Chicken" Nuggets. And let me tell you, they taste (in the oven) WAYYYYY better than the 100% chicken stuff I've tried and I think I've tried them all. They are kind of pricey, but Target sells them the cheapest. Also, Stop and Shop has a Chocolate Soy Nut Butter by Nature's Promise that my daughter LOVES! She loves her "chocolate" sandwiches! They also have a Cinnamon Sugar flavor. I also recently started using Quinoa instead of white rice and only buy turkey bacon and the Hebrew National kosher beef hotdogs. She loves all of it. Overall, I can't say that I know of any foods that really pack nutrients in there. There are just substitutes that are, like you said, better but not great. I've started sneaking stuff into food, like pureed vegetables in the mac and cheese - stuff like that. There are several cookbooks out there with some fantastic ideas. Hope I helped some!

Hi D.,
Have you tried nuts? My 6yo daughter loves walnuts (straight up, not any of the sweetened or other fancy varaieties). Nuts, popcorn, raisins and/or other dried fruits. Carrot/celery/cukes/grape tomatoes with a dip - ranch dressing or "russian dressing" (ketchup and mayo mixed together). With nuts, don't give up if they don't like one type, try another.

All of these things can be grabbed by the handfull for your grazer, or included in a ziplock in his lunch. We pop the popcorn at home, you can make a big bowl and have it sit out. Carrot and celery sticks can be cut up and stored in water in the fridge so they're always ready for a quick snack, or you can buy the baby carrots or pre-cut stuff.

You could also do some kind of whole grain cracker with either nut butter or sliced cheese, or cheese sticks.

Granted you don't get any nutrients from popcorn, but you don't get any bad stuff either, and if you pop your own you've got a cheap snack that fills that salty snack craving - and you get to control the amount of salt.

my kids love kale chips and they are so healthy! I chop up a few bunches of fresh kale, toss a bit of olive oil, nutritional yeast and pinch of salt together and mix it until it is coated on the kale then dehydrate it (you could also bake it for awhile on a low oven setting if you don't have a dehydrator) My kids eat them up, they taste like cheesy chips and they are green which adds to it!

ok so after becoming a mom i started quoting stuff from oprah. to the poster who only buys turkey bacon, there was a show on oprah where nutritional experts said turkey bacon was far more worse than regular bacon (i can't remember the reasons, but it was good enough for me not to buy turkey bacon anymore)
to the poster: i try to get fruit going all the time, apple slices with peanut butter. strawberries with a dab of brown sugar. creppes (really not difficult to make) with fruit filling or just honey. i give creppes as 'dessert' but in reality i was raised with creppes for breakfast almost every day (thanks mom). even though i try giving my kids creppes with fruit they like the honey on them better. honey is great in my opinion.
my kids see other kids in school eating chips and cheez-its and such. i avoid buying all that, including goldfish. when i do give in, i give them popcorn. of course my kids then think popcorn is the best thing ever.
veggies: again, per experience, i like only steamed veggies with nothing on them. my kids will eat them but not too happy about it. sometimes i make cheese sauce which i put under and on top of steamed veggies then roast them a bit more on the oven (for you, another way of giving cheese)
:)
there were the first few years i was doing organic most of the time but looking at the stuff in them they were not much different from regular stuff, so now i only give my kids organic eggs, milk, and fruit.
i hope you get better ideas from others
good luck