Healthy Kids Expo

Archive for the ‘Snacks Kids’ Category

What would you do if your kids asked for “More veggies, please?” Well, prepare yourself, because they just might when you serve vegetables like this. These snacks are great for after school treats.

Celery and Pretzel Butterfly

2 stalks of celery
12 large pretzels (not the straight kind)
6 tablespoons natural peanut butter
Around 18 raisins
12 slivered almonds

Wash the celery with cold water. Cut the celery stalks crosswise into thirds. Fill each celery stalk with one tablespoon of the peanut butter. Gently push 1 pretzel into the peanut butter, so the pretzel is parallel to the length of the celery stick and looks like a wing. Do the same on the other side of the celery, with another pretzel. Your celery stick now has butterfly wings!

Use the raisins for the eyes, nose and mouth of the butterfly. Create the antennae by pushing the slivered almonds into the filling, on top of the butterfly’s head.

Celery and Carrot Wagons

2 stalks of celery
12 toothpicks
16 carrot slices
1/2 cup of peanut butter; cheese spread or ranch dressing
20 Raisins

Wash the celery with cold water. Cut celery stalks crosswise into pieces that are about 3 inches long. Push two toothpicks through the sides of each celery stick to create the axles for four wheels. Fill each celery wagon with the peanut butter, or another spread. Stick a round carrot slice onto the end of each toothpick to form a wheel. After the wheel is attached, cover each toothpick tip with a raisin.

You can stick a toothpick into the end of the celery for a wagon handle, and cover the tip with another raisin. You can also leave the handle off to create a celery car instead.

Tomato Army Ants

3 small cherry tomatoes for each ant
9 toothpicks or grape stems for each ant.

Rinse the cherry tomatoes in cold water. Attach the three tomatoes with two of the toothpicks or grape stems. Use six more to create the ants legs, and two for the antennae. Make as many as you can to create a whole army of ants.

Zucchini or Cucumber Centipede

Small zucchinis or cucumbers
Shredded carrots

Rinse the zucchinis or cucumbers. Cut off the ends of each, and attach strips of zucchini or cucumber for the legs. You can use shredded carrots for the antennae.

Here are some other tips to make vegetables more child-friendly

Choose Colorful Veggies – Kids loves colors. When you serve vegetables to your children, try to serve an assortment of colors

Make them Little Finger Friendly – Slice vegetables into small pieces so they will be easier to pick up with small fingers.

Do the Dip – If your child is a reluctant vegetable eater, let them experiment with different dips. Most kids like ranch dip for their vegetables. Some kids will eat anything if it has cheese or peanut butter on it.

Vegetable Art – Instead of arranging vegetables for your kids, let them design their own vegetable creations. Give them an assortment of vegetables, spreads, and toothpicks, and let them create their own work of vegetable art.

Kids love to have snacks and that is a part of life, but as a parent we want to offer them choices that are really good for them. Replacing some common foods in your home with organic ones that will be good for them means that you will feel better when they ask to have such items. Many parents worry that their children won’t like the taste of these organic snacks. Yet you can put your mind at ease with many of them as they offer a great taste that is very satisfying.

Potato chips are high in fat as well as calories. Replacing them with an organic snack called Chaos is a great alternative. This product contains a mixture of tortilla chips, pretzels, and carmel corn. Kids eat it up due to the mix of sweet with salty and they don’t see to care that they aren’t getting regular potato chips anymore. Newman’s Own also offers a similar type of mix that is new and that seems to be getting wonderful reviews.

Energy bars are very popular for adults, but many worry that they contain items that children shouldn’t have. Zbars by Clif though are made specifically for kids. They taste very good and they have a variety of vitamins and nutrients in them. Many children are active in sports these days and so such a snack can help them to have the additional boost of energy they need for practice or for a game.

Do you struggle to get your children to consume fresh fruit on a regular basis? Then they may be more open to fruit snacks. Now, you have seen lots of them offered but with plenty of sugar and other additives. X-Treme Fruit Bites offer you the chance to provide them with a great tasting fruit snack that is actually good for them. This way you won’t have to continue fighting with them to consume what you want them to.

Chocolate is a common snack that many kids want and that they even can crave. Healthy Valley brand offers some great options so that you don’t have to tell them no or give in to unhealthy eating. They have what is very similar to the very popular Pop Tart but in an organic form and with chocolate on the inside. This will definitely satisfy the desire that your child has for chocolate.

You should be able to find many of these organic snack foods at your local grocery store. If not, you can buy them online and have them delivered to your home. You need to be a very careful label reader too because many of the so called organic snacks out there really aren’t. Sure, they do contain some organic ingredients but they aren’t completely organic in nature. Understanding that difference is very important.

There are some other types of organic food snacks too that you can order from online companies including small pizzas. If your children are very picky about their snacks or just ready to try something new then this could be a great way for you to offer them. You don’t even have to tell your kids that what you offer them is very good for them. They will just be happy to be getting a snack and to find it to be a very delicious treat for them at the same time.

With the availability of delicious tasting organic snacks for kids, parents don’t have to be torn between offering their child something or not. They can feel good about the choices that are being made. It is also going to cut down on conflicts when your children do want snacks between meals or later in the evening after dinner.