You ask, “How was your day?” Your child responds, “I’m hungry. Do we have any chips?” Sound familiar? Well, kids are always going to be hungry, especially after a long day at school, but read on and they may start asking for—believe it or not—healthy snacks when they get home.
Sometimes the secret is just in presenting classics in a new way. Enter peanut butter, but not with jelly and not in a sandwich. Pair it, instead with a banana, soy milk and honey, and toss it in the blender for a delicious smoothie. Spread it on celery topped with raisins and you’ve got a crunchy, yummy treat that comes with a fun name: ants on a log. Kids also tend to like any food on a stick. Fruit and cheese kabobs, cut into fun shapes, for instance, will likely be gobbled up with glee. Whether you call them pinwheels, wraps or roll-ups, lean meat, a slice of cheese and a spinach leaf rolled up in a tortilla spread with a little hummus, is a crowd pleaser that takes the ham or turkey sandwich up a notch.
You can also get sneaky. As in the Sneaky Chef, Jessica Seinfeld, et al. What these women know: It’s easy to slip any number of veggies into cookies, brownies and more and no one under four feet tall will be the wiser. Our favorite pumpkin spice muffins passed the picky toddler test and didn’t taste “healthy” to mom and dad. Make them mini and they’re automatically in snack-size portions. Another clever place to slip in a veg or lean protein: mini quesadillas. And baked sweet potato chips are easy to make ahead, and pack a big nutritional punch, too.
Once you get into the habit, healthy snacks aren’t that much more time-consuming or difficult than their chemical, fat and sugar laden counterparts that you can always splurge on every once in a while.
