Blog from Cheshire Franchise
If parents hadn’t used up all their healthy snack ideas over the summer holidays, they are extremely likely to have now, a couple of weeks into the new school term.
Children need to eat regularly to keep their energy levels up, particularly when they are at school all day and at clubs all the evening. However, most shop-bought snacks do not contain the nutrition they need, and are often full of sugar or salt.
As a result, giving your kids a packet of crisps when they are famished after school won’t give them the energy they need for gymnastics or football, and the cereal bar at breaktime is more than likely to give them a sugar crash half way through their next lesson.
So, what are parents meant to do, particularly if they are time-strapped and can’t spend all day in the kitchen?
Here are some snack ideas I’ve come up with for Snacktember, a campaign by the British Nutrition Foundation, that are really quick to make and contain important vitamins and minerals that will help your children thrive.
- Apple slices and peanut butter
While this isn’t one you could put in their school bags due to the nut content, it is something you could give them when they get home to tide them over until dinnertime.
The reason why this combination is better than just giving them an apple is that the peanut butter contains protein and healthy fats, which complement the carbs, fibre and vitamins in the apple. This means they will get valuable nutrients, be fuelled with energy, and stay feeling fuller for longer.
What’s more, the fat and protein in the peanut butter helps to prevent blood sugar spikes from the apple, as it slows down digestion. This means children will stay feeling energised.
- Frozen banana ‘ice-cream’
For those warmer afternoons, why not try this simple ice-cream recipe that doesn’t require an ice-cream maker and contains just one ingredient?
All you need to do to make banana ‘ice-cream’ is chop up some bananas, freeze the slices and blend until smooth. This can either be frozen again or eaten straightaway.
For extra nutritional value, you could add some crushed almonds, cinnamon, chia seeds, ginger, or pumpkin seeds on the top.
- Popcorn
Popcorn from the shop or cinema is often covered with salt or smothered in toffee, but if you eat popcorn without the extra toppings, it is actually a really healthy snack.
Simply buy some popcorn kernels and heat them on the stove until they have all ‘popped’, then put them in small tubs for the kids to take for their school snack.
Not only are there no processed ingredients involved, but popcorn is low in fat, salt and sugar, and high in fibre.
If your kids want some extra flavour, sprinkle some cinnamon on the top.
- Fruit leather
If your children love fruity roll-ups, tails or such like, then why not make your own with this great recipe for fruit leather?
It is a bit more effort than grabbing something from the kitchen drawer, but you can be confident everything in their snack is pure fruit and there are no colourings or other additives in the ingredients.
All you need to do is cook down your chosen fruits, such as berries and apples, until it is a pulp. Then mix it with some sugar and spread a thin layer on an oven tray and leave to cook on a low heat for a few hours.
Once it is ready, it should peel off, so you can roll it up and put in a plastic container for their snack.
- No-bake bites
Most parents are short on time, but if you can make a batch of no-bake bites, this could really help with those incessant requests for snacks.
These balls tend to be made out of oats, a nut butter, and a sticky sweetener, such as honey or maple syrup, and then mixed with a variety of nuts, seeds or dried fruits. This combination means children get carbs, protein, fat and minerals in something sweet and moreish that they love.
There are tons of recipes for these energy balls, including dates and peanut butter; white chocolate and cranberry; coconut and almonds; and lemon and cashew.
Just mix the ingredients together until you get a sticky mixture and then make them into bite-sized balls. These can be kept in the fridge for a few days or put in the freezer, so you can make a big batch that’ll last a long time.
These are just a few healthy snack ideas that’ll hopefully get you out of a rut, but there are so many others you could try, from whole fruits to houmous and crudities, and boiled eggs to crumpets with cream cheese.
All these recipes don’t require you to be a chef, and if the children enroll in kids’ cooking classes in Greater Manchester, they could even make them themselves!