Healthy Snack Ideas

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Carolyn O'Neil, MS, RD
A great way to make snack time even healthier is to take it outside—maybe to a nearby park or even your own backyard. Anything to encourage the kids to run around and have some fun and not watch TV. All of these snack ideas take about a minute to prepare. Let me show you how I did it.

Carolyn O'Neil, MS (cont.)
So what does a healthy snack look like? Well, I think it looks like a tasty trio. Kids aren't getting enough fruits and vegetables, so one part of the trio are fruits and vegetables, the next part would be something whole grain to get more fiber into their diets and then something with protein—something with staying power so they're not coming back 20 minutes later.

Carolyn O'Neil, MS (cont.)
For instance, this is a tasty trio: we got some whole grain crackers. We've got some sliced apple and some string cheese. One piece of string cheese actually has seven grams of protein and provides 20 percent of the calcium for the day. So you can see that this is a pretty powerful snack and yet it's not too much.

Carolyn O'Neil, MS (cont.)
Another example of a tasty trio would be this: this is just a half-sandwich—whole grain bread. And I have some pimento cheese, cheddar cheese spread on here, again with the protein in the cheese, and some applesauce-just easy to go containers. And then for a little bit more from the vegetable department, adding these beautiful little grape tomatoes that just taste delicious-they're sweet and kids will eat them like candy. And they're of course great sources of beta carotene and vitamin C. So there's your tasty trio.

Carolyn O'Neil, MS (cont.)
These are spinach-parmesan corn muffins. And you can see they're little mini-muffins. It takes maybe about 14 minutes or so to make these, but you make them ahead of time. you can pop them into a plastic bag and put them in the freezer. These mini-corn-muffins really are one of my favorite ways to get a few more vegetables into a kid's snack time, or meal time. I use chopped spinach, but you could use let's say a package of frozen corn. Or, you could use shredded carrots or even some dried cranberries. A delicious way to make the corn muffins taste even better and of course get more nutrition into this snack.

Carolyn O'Neil, MS (cont.)
What about drinks for snack time? Well what I like to recommend is 100 percent fruit juice--so you get all the nutrients in this fruit serving, plus antioxidants--but what I like to do when you're out and about and everybody needs to be really hydrated because they're running around, is to mix it with sparkling water. Now you know the secrets to making delicious and nutritious, healthy one-minute snacks. I'm Carolyn O'Neil for WebMD.