Healthy snacks for kids

thriftwizard

3 boys here, now 25, 24 & 21 (as well as two girls) and yes, they do all have hollow legs & will eat sugar in preference to anything else give half a chance. Two sporty types & one "picky" academic, some of the snacks they would all always eat included mini-pizzas made by toasting pitta breads, spreading with tomato puree & grated cheese, and toasting a little longer; they could all be trusted to make these themselves from about 12 and the pittas could be bought YS, kept in the freezer & used one at a time. Works with crumpets, too.

American muffins were always popular & made Tightwad-Gazette-style (linky) they don't contain very much sugar - in fact they can be made with cheese & bacon, or other savouries - and are very filling for not much money or effort.

Flapjacks: I've gone over to a simplified & cheaper version of Nigella's breakfast bars; IIRC it's 250gms rolled oats, one tin condensed milk, and handsful of peanuts, pumpkin, sesame & sunflower seeds, raisins/sultanas/dried mixed fruit (depending on what I've got in the store cupboard or picked up cheap) and anything else I fancy or needs using up. Mix & press into a 9" x 13" tin with wet hands, and bake for an hour at 130℃. I'll make these when the oven's cooling down from cooking something else, as they keep well - given half a chance.

One thing I did do when they were younger; they snacked when they got back from school, then NOTHING until tea time, on pain of having to do the washing up when it wasn't their turn. So they'd be hungry for their tea & I'd know they'd all had some "real" food. Only certain things were acceptable after tea, if really hungry; mild cheese, apples, oatcakes, milk, things that didn't seem to upset their sleep. Needless to say they make a point of buying their own snacks now & eating them all evening - I'll laugh when they have kids of their own!

WantToBeSE

Thanks thriftwizard.

The extra big dinner i made him last night seemed to help. He didnt munch on the rubbish until almost bed time.

i think i will make both the boys a proper snack as soon as they get home from school and make that last until dinner time.

shop-to-drop

I buy tins of sardines which they have on toast. Also value noodles/pot noodles which seem to fill a hole. I am trying to encourage them to do things for themselves as I imagine I will be the hated Mil in years to come if they are totally dependent on being fed. I have bought usbourne beginners cookbook for them for Xmas which I hoping will go down well.

gayleygoo

WantToBeSE wrote: »

As soon as i say "No" to snacks, my 14 year old son moans that i am starving him, his stomach hurts because he is so hungry and that am an awful mother etc.

Depends what he's wanting to eat, if he just wants crisps or sweets and refuses any more wholesome snack, then he's probably not hungry (I have this conversation daily with my 3 yr old, I thought it would get better as he got older?!) Then again even if he does eat sugary/salty snacks and still clears his plate at dinner time, he could probably be doing with the calories. Perhaps now is a good time to remind them that they are capable of making themselves food and you may be their mum but are not their personal chef!

Can you spare a shelf in the fridge for keeping "Boy Snacks", or even just a plastic tub, they'll go straight for it, although you could be filling it daily... ingredients for toasties (even pre-assembled ones that they just have to stick in a toasty-bag in the toaster?), cheese snacks, full-fat yoghurts, crackers, biscuit allowance, carrot sticks (a little sprinkling of salt on them makes them much tastier), mini pies, sausage rolls, cooked sausages they can make sandwiches with etc

I'm female and I still remember being starving in high school, even just going two hours between break and lunch was hard if I hadn't brought enough to eat at breaktime or hadn't had a good breakfast. We had one lovely teacher for our last class on a Friday and she passed round a tin of biscuits to help us concentrate!