Snack Food for Kids

I have a 4 year old and a 15 month old. We do a lot of crackers with jelly or peanut butter (you can get generic ritz and it's cheaper). Also for baking I make zuchini bread, pumpkin bread & banana bread. You can toast the bread and they can eithe eat it plain or with a little butter or peanut butter or cream cheese. For fruits we mostly do bananas and strawberries. Canned fruit I get Dole pineapple packed in 100% juice and other fruit that says packed in 100% juice.

Yougart is quick, easy, and cheap though the non-sugary stuff needs to be refridgerated....How about raw veggies? Peanut butter and celery--mmmmmm! I agree with the person who mentioned crackers and cheese....Want something sweet? Try googling recipies for banana cookies or pumpkin cookies (make them even more healthy by substituting apple sauce for the sugar!). I like to make my own fruit snacks with my dehydrator (100% fruit, nothing added!).

With many left overs in the pantry I do trail mixes. My kids love it when I put the left over cereals in with the crackers, raisins, peanuts even a few m&m's for a treat.
Another thing I do is make my own dried fruit. The kids say they have much more flavor than the old standard fruit snacks.
I did have to buy a food dehydrator but I found a brand new one at a garage sale that the lady said she tried to use but was not paitent enough. Ask the kids what they want and then try and be creative upon that.

Tosca Reno has a great healthy eating cookbook with granola and bars, free of all the preservatives found in all the packaged foods. I also think Deceptively Delicious has great recipes in it, even if you're not out to hide veggies. I have also found Snikiddys at Sams Club and Byerlys. They are snacks without hydrogenated oils, and very low sugar, AND they taste good! They have 3 different flavored chips, as well as chocolate chip cookies that come in handy snack pack sizes.

My boys love rice cakes- mainly the apple cinnamon kind. They also love graham cracker sticks with flavored cream cheese, yogurt, or peanut butter. We also love to make sugar free jello- except to make them travel friendly we put them into small (the VERY small ones) ziploc bowls with the lids.

K.,

AH Snacks! I struggle with this myself. I am so sick of giving the kids goldfish I have just stopped buying them. It forces me to be more creative.

I second the Sneaky Chef suggestion. It is probably available at your local library if you don't want to buy it. I make her "breakfast cookies" and they are pretty tasty and very portable. The recipe has some sugar, but less than your average breakfast cereal, has ricotta cheese, egg and wheaties. A little cinnamon makes them pretty popular in our house. You could easily add raisins or dried cranberries or something else as well. They taste a lot like a muffin, but look like a cookie.

I've tried making my own crackers, but that didn't go over so well. So, I pack store bought crackers, but not the ones for kids. I just pack the ones I buy for myself and my kids will eat them fine. I like Pepperidge Farm, there stuff doesn't have any hydrogenated oils, and tend to be whole grain. They aren't cheap, but I usually bring cheese too, so if the kids are hungry they can eat that.

My kids also really like pickles, so sometimes I throw some in a container or plastic bag... not so healthy, but natural at least.

It kills me to see my friends feeding their toddlers and babies "Fruity" cheerios or "Yogurt" cheerios. Those things are so full of sugar and flavorings... regular old cheerios are still popular with my 3 year old.

Good luck to you, and I'll be watching other posts for more ideas.

J.
SAHM to Charlie (3) Joey (18 months) and #3 due Nov. 16

Check out the following website. The link is to their "kid snack shop". Everything they carry is additive free, including fructose/corn syrup, dyes, and preservatives. All of their products are natural or organic.

Be sure to go to the home page from the link. It lists some very useful healthy eating guidelines and other healthy resources for families in general.

http://www.yumyumsnacks.com/Healthy_Toddler_Kids_Snacks.html

I myself really like to make my own cinnamon sugar tortilla chips. I take a package of wheat tortillas and cut them into wedges, spray a little cooking spray on them and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and bake then at 375 until they are crispy but not to hard and then just keep them in an airtight container or zip top bag. This way you can regulate how much sugar you put on things. I also like to make a fruit salsa to go with them. You just take what ever type of fruit you like cut it into very small pieces and then melt some apricot preserves and mix in to the fruit. It is really good, and tortillas are very inexpensive.