Quick and Healthy Snack Ideas for Busy Parents

Quick and Healthy Snack Ideas for Busy Parents In collaboration with our school nurse, Renee Brouillard, we have written a guide to snacks.  We hope you find it helpful! In collaboration with our school nurse, Renee Brouillard, we have written a guide to preparing snacks to bring to school.  We hope you find it helpful!

 

Snack time can be an opportunity!

You can use snack time to introduce more fruits and vegetables into your child’s diet and to add in some foods that they may not otherwise be getting.

 

Think about the food groups

You can pair fruits and vegetables up with dairy and/or dairy substitutes and whole grains, such as cheese with grapes or apples or a banana sandwich on whole grain bread. Yogurt and any kind of fruit is always a great combination.  Read to the bottom to see our list of snacks within their food groups. Picking from two or three of these food groups will ensure balance.

 

Prepare ahead

With our busy lives and the lack of time, it’s important to keep healthy foods handy at home. Try to keep snack size portions at hand.  Buying Tupperware tubs and filling them with dried fruits and snacks ahead of time, say at the weekend, will also save on prep during the week.

 

Healthy habits formed early will build a strong foundation for a healthy life

Try to avoid packaged processed foods with a long list of ingredients that you don’t recognize. These snacks tend to have a lot of empty calories with very little nutritional value and will leave your child feeling hungry more quickly.

 

 

Our go-to list of healthy snacks

 

Fresh Fruit

Cubed melon, sliced grapes, sliced apple (TIP: soak in slightly salted water to stop the apple browning!), strawberries, raspberries, blueberries are great too.

 

Dried and Prepared Fruit

Raisins, dried cranberries, dried banana, dates, fruit bars and fruit leather, unsweetened applesauce (these all come in single portion servings from stores)

 

Vegetables

Mini carrots, cucumber slices, sliced peppers (these all come ready sliced from many stores). 

 

Carbohydrates and Grains (preferably low salt/sugar)

Sandwiches, wraps, bagels, banana bread, mini muffins, pretzels, flatbread, tortilla chips, muesli bars, pitta chips, whole-wheat crackers and whole meal crackers

 

Protein/Dairy

Beef jerky, yoghurt tubes, hummus, cheese (mini gouda or cheese strings, cheese cubes - buy cubes from the store to save time)

 

Further reading

For more details, as well as up to date accurate information, please visit the Healthy Children website .  Our school nurse, Renee, highly recommends this website to anyone with questions relating to pediatric medicine, nutrition and wellbeing.

Healthy Children.org is sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics