Healthy Snacks for Kids

I have a fairly liberal view of the word healthy. I actually think it is a good (if not the best!) way to look at food. Eating food is healthy. If you don't eat food, you die. Dying is unhealthy (unless you've lived a long life and you're ready for something new of course!).

That being said, there are bad and good choices you can make when it comes to healthy snacks for your kids.

For example:

Bad: Giving your child potato chips every day for a snack

Good: Giving your child pretzels or plain popcorn, and every once in a while the kid can have a bag of chips

Snack Tips
If you give your child a snack or two during the day, here are some things to keep in mind
- Give them at least an hour or so before main meals
- Make your child sit down at the table during snacks rather then roam around the house playing or watching TV
- Give your child a couple different snack options and then let them choose what they want from those options
- Let your child help prepare snacks as much as possible
- have cut-up, washed veggies on hand
- keep fresh fruit on the counter where kids can see it
- keep higher calorie "sometimes" snack foods in cabinets, and nutrient rich foods in easier to reach places
- If you're often on-the-go for snack time, buy (or prepare ahead of time) single serve portioned foods like milk, raisins, fruit juice, fruit cups, baby carrots, pudding, gogurt, string cheese etc

Snack Ideas
- Snack kebabs: raw veggies, fruit, and or cheese skewered on thin pretzel sticks
- Veggies and dip--ranch, salsa, hummus, etc
- Banana pops: dip a peeled banana in yogurt, roll in crushed cereal, then freeze
- Fruit slices and PB or cheese
- Fruit shake-ups: put 1/2 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup cold fruit juice in a container with a good lid.
Shake it up and pour in a cup.
- Sandwich cut-outs--use a cookie cutter to make fun shapes
- Peanut Butter Balls: mix PB and bran or cornflakes in a bowl. Shape mixture in balls and roll in
crushed graham crackers.
- Salsa quesadillas
- Ice cream-wiches: place a scoop of ice cream or frozen yogurt between 2 oatmeal cookies or frozen whole wheat waffles. make a batch of these cookies and freeze.
- Ants on a log: fill celery with PB and arrange raisins along the top
- tortilla chips and re-fried bean/cheese dip

Snacks by Food Group
- Grains: animal crackers, dry cereal, mini bagel, English muffin, graham crackers, pita bread, rice cakes, toast, tortilla, plain popcorn, pretzels. Use whole grains when possible
-Milk: cheese, cottage cheese, pudding, milk (including flavored), yogurt, frozen yogurt
-Veggie: any raw veggies prepared as finger food, veggie soup
- Fruit: any fresh fruit, canned/frozen fruit, fruit leather, dried fruit
- Meat and Beans: bean soup, PB, hard-cooked egg, turkey or meat cubes, tuna salad


Try out some of these ideas and let me know what you think? What are some healthy snack ideas that you use? Are there snacks that you give to your kids that you can modify to make them healthier?

By the way, these ideas come straight from my nutrition bible: Complete Food and Nutrition Guide, pages 407-424