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Niche Topics (Pregnancy and Kids) is all about practical parenting advice and parenting skills to help you deal with common parenting challenges from toddlerhood to teen years. You’ll find tons of healthy food ideas and easy-to-make kids meals, fun activity ideas and creative crafts projects that kids love to do and play!

Healthy Kids Snack Ideas

By Kate Miller

I've to be very honest here, I bribe my kids with snacks. But when I bribe, I make sure it's real food that they're getting and not something they grab from the candy store. Most store bought snacks offers very little nutrition, they're usually high in sugar, sodium, and fats. Anything that is high in fructose corn syrup will send your kid's blood sugar on a roller coaster ride and they are very unhealthy for growing kids.

Quick and Easy Healthy Snack Ideas for Kids

For a new twist to boring air-popped popcorn, heat 2 tablespoons butter in a pan on low heated until melted, add ¼ teaspoon cinnamon (ground), 1 tablespoon brown sugar and ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract. Give it a stir for for about a minute or until well blended. Then drizzle over popcorn, and toss well.

Here's one for all little pizza-lovers. Slice an English muffin into half, spread some pizza sauce on the bottom, sprinkle shredded low-fat mozzarella cheese over it and cover with the top half. Pop it in the toaster oven for a few minutes until the cheese melts. Voila, pizza in minutes! And, cheese is a good source of protein and helps to keep little tummies full until dinnertime.

Kids love dips. Give them raw carrot sticks, celery sticks,cucumbers slices, or cherry tomatoes and they'll be munching happily without even realizing that they're eating vegetables! Make your own ranch dip with low-fat plain Greek-style yogurt and ranch seasonings. Low-fat yogurt is an excellent source of calcium, and essential for building strong healthy bones. For variation, you can offer kids graham cracker sticks.

Fruit kabobs are super easy to create, and are great quick treats for summer. Simply cut up your kid's favorite fruit (such as apples, strawberries, pears) and thread them on a skewer. Fruits contain vitamins and minerals necessary for good health.

Make banana popsicles! Cut a peeled banana into half, width-wise, and push a popsicle stick through the cut end of each half. Spread some peanut butter on, and then roll the bananas in the granola, nuts, or seeds. When you're done with that, wrap them individually in waxed paper and freeze for about 2 to 3 hours. Or, make your own with real fruit juice. Those you buy from the supermarket are nothing more than water, sugar and colorings.

Kids can't resist sweet and crunchy stuff. You can get them to make their own after school snack mix with whole-wheat pretzels, wheat Chex, raisins, banana chips, chocolate chips, popcorn, and walnuts.

Tell me which kid can resist peanut butter? Cut up an apple (granny smith is great) into bite-size slices, dip in peanut butter and then granola – fiber with a crunch, yum...

And, there're more easy to make quick snacks – dried fruits, hard-boiled egg, baked beans, rice cakes, pancakes, pumpkin or tomato soup, baked potato, peanut butter sandwich, cheese sandwich, homemade granola bars, oatmeal, waffle cones – gosh, the list is endless!

Remember, it's wise always to select snacks from a variety of food groups, and kids these days love novelty. If you give them the same kids snacks over and over again, they're likely to get bored and beg for unhealthy snacks. Teaching and getting your kids to eat healthy now will influence their food choices in future so you gotta start them young!

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