Grow Up Well Nourished -- Foster Healthy Snacking
Healthy snacks supply your children with the energy they need to stay active and alert throughout their busy days. In addition, snacks help kids meet all their daily nutritional requirements. The trick is to serve the right snack at the right time and discourage overindulging.
Pack your family's snacks with as much nutritional punch as possible without adding a lot of saturated fat and empty calories. For instance, snacks that pair a fiber-rich item with a protein-rich item, or those that include a bit of healthy unsaturated fat, will help sustain your child's energy. These kinds of foods digest more slowly and raise blood sugar levels more steadily than carbohydrates alone. And remember to practice portion control by having your child measure out a serving in a bowl and limit the snack to that amount.
Help your children make smart snack choices such as:
- Grain products -- Pair whole-grain (wheat, rye, oatmeal, mixed grains, and bran) bread or crackers with cheese, peanut butter, or a glass of milk for protein and fat. Serve cereals that contain less than 5 grams of sugar per serving and add dried fruits, nuts, and seeds for variety and added nutrients. Top popcorn with grated Parmesan cheese instead of salt and butter.
- Vegetable snacks -- Cut up fresh, raw vegetables and serve with cheese, cottage cheese, hummus, or milk.
- Fresh fruit snacks -- Slice the fruit or serve it whole; serve with peanut butter, cottage cheese, yogurt, ricotta cheese, or milk.
- Dried fruit snacks, nuts, and seeds -- Serve dried fruit with nuts (almonds, cashews, peanuts) or seeds (pumpkin, sunflower).
Establishing healthy snacking habits also may help reduce your child's risk of adulthood diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer.
RealAge Projection: Kids who get into the habit of eating fiber-rich foods are likely to stick with this healthy habit as adults. And if they do -- getting 25 grams of fiber a day as an adult -- by age 32, their RealAge could actually be only 29.
