Keep your home filled with Health Snacks for Kids

Kids  love to snack and they usually turn up their noses when it comes to healthy snacks. After they have filled their stomachs with cookies , chips  or chocolate, you will be lucky if they will eat a nutritious meal. Grazing on unhealthy snacks throughout the day  is a habit that can be broken, but the kids actually need some help with that. They need to be presented with healthy kids snacks as an alternative to munching on foods that have no nutritional value or are harmful to their health.

Some kids  are mature enough to be educated on eating healthy and they will adapt quickly if they actually desire to take their health into their own hands. Most kids, however, do not really care about health, especially when it comes to snacks. Here are some ideas to present nutritional snacks to your kids:

Keep fresh fruit easily available 

Most kids cannot resist a bowl full of fresh fruit. Provide a variety of fruits, some of which they have never tried. A variety of fruit is bound to appeal to even the picky eaters.I often throw  grapes in the freezer  and slice up apples and put peanut butter on them.    For special treats, you could help the kids to make chocolate dipped fruits or banana popsicles.

Easy Smoothies   for kids

Smoothies are a great alternative to milkshakes and are actually healthy snacks that kids love. You can use yogurt, fresh fruit and low fat milk and whip up a smoothie in the blender in seconds. Many children will enjoy making their own smoothies so it might be a good idea to get them involved.  One thing is very popular in our house is that I take a bag of frozen strawberries and put in the blender with some milk . It makes a creamy  strawberry ice cream. 

Kids and Gardening

We have a huge garden in our backyard  and my boys are responsible for weeding it.  Believe it or not, children are more likely to eat vegetables if they grow them themselves. Gardening is an excellent adventure and a great way to spend quality time with your kids.  Prepare a snack tray with veggies and  dip or hummus .  You might even try preparing celery with peanut butter as a snack.

 Healthy snack mix.

Grain based and granola cereals  and whole wheat crackers like Triscuits  are a lot healthier than other snacks that are a choice of children. Mixing these cereals with nuts, raisins or other dried fruit can make a healthy kids snack that they can munch on.

Juice it.

If your children refuse to eat fruits and vegetables for snacks, you can always pass it off as juice to ensure that your kids get the nutrition that they desperately need. You can run fresh fruit and veggies through a juicer and come up with a homemade juice that is sure to get attention. You can  even try making a slushie  out of the juice by running it through a blender full of ice. You can also make popsicles out of freshly made fruit and vegetable juice.

Tempting a kid with healthy snacks can be a challenge if they are attuned to snacking on junk food. You are better off if you start from the beginning and develop good eating habits when they are babies and toddlers  but it is never too late to teach kids to eat healthy.