by Judy Klavens-Giunta
In my previous post about reducing stress and eating healthy while staying home, I mentioned keeping healthy snacks available to make it easy to have something to grab when hunger hits between meals. Below are some resources to guide you in making homemade, healthy snacks for and with your family. For those of you with children at home, try to make this a fun family/group activity,
The most important thing about making any recipe is engaging your kids in the preparation. One benefit of including kids in cooking food is that they are more likely to try new things (and maybe eat more vegetables and fruit) that they helped prep/cook. This can also be a group activity where everyone spends time together doing something fun. Have kids prep alongside you or assist in prep (if they are too young to use equipment like knives by themselves). Below are links to kid-friendly healthy snack recipes, some with short videos showing you each step in making a featured recipe.
Kid-friendly snacks
One of my favorite resources for kid friendly recipes in general is the Chop Chop Family of magazines including Chop Chop and Sprout. Chop Chop’s vision is “[t]o enrich the lives of families by inspiring and teaching them to cook and eat real food together, while having fun and learning essential skills for a full life.” Sprout is a magazine “published in English and Spanish, [and] is a nutrition education resource for low-income families with children up to five years old.” The Chop Chop family of magazines is child focused and its healthy, fun and tasty recipes include information on all the equipment needed and recipe preparation instructions that are easy for everyone to follow.
Here is a link to a Chop Chop page with “7 Healthy On-The-Go Snacks Kids Can Help Make.” You can also check out their online recipe page with loads of other recipe ideas for snacks, soups and dishes that are all healthy and kid preparation friendly. Some of my favorites on this page are: “Apple Mint Granita,” “You-Made Fruit Leather,” and “Green Egg Bake.” Here’s one for zucchini pancakes (but you can use other shredded vegetables as well.)
Another favorite resources for healthy, kid friendly snacks is dietitian/mom Holley Grainger who has some great snack ideas accompanied by short videos showing you all the steps at: Virtual Snack Dates-The Answer to What’s for Snack. There, you can find videos for preparation of “Mini Carrot Pancakes with Vanilla Greek Yogurt,” “No cook Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Balls” (you can substitute almond butter or sunflower seed butter if someone has a peanut allergy – still very tasty), “Pantry Popcorn Snack Mix,” and the old standby “Fruit and Veggie Bugs” using a lot of healthy fruits and vegetables to make snacks that look like bugs. Holly also has a link on this page to additional snack idea videos and a daily 2PM video on Facebook at Cleverful Living with Holley Grainger. You can find also go to NJFamily for “Snacks to Make with the Kids While You Are Stuck Inside.” This page includes “Nachos” made from cauliflower.
If you can, use snacks to increase daily fruit and vegetable servings. Homemade snacks are also most often healthier, lower in added sugar, saturated fat and salt than processed/packaged snacks. Make things as colorful as possible – a rainbow of colors – including yellow and white (cauliflower). The more different colors of fruits and vegetables, the more different healthy nutrients: vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals, your child will have a chance to eat.
Most importantly make this a fun activity!! Cooking with kids can be messy, but so what, messes can always be cleaned up and you can make clean-up a fun activity as well. Clean-up is a lot easier, and can be more fun and less stressful, if everyone takes part. These kinds of family/group activities can be a good distraction from the crazy out there and encourage positive family interaction. Good luck, stay safe and HAVE FUN!