One of things we love about travelling Australia on our mission to Transform Children’s Health, One Lunchbox At A Time, is all the incredible people we meet – both at the workshops we run and at the camp grounds we stay at. These people always provide me with inspiration for posts like this one – Snacks Are My Failing.
A couple of weeks ago, we met a fantastic family with 3 daughters who are also travelling Australian in a bus. Our kids instantly hit it off with their kids and I feel like I met a soul sister in their mum, Corrie. We even had tears when we said goodbye – that’s how much we love them. The reason I am telling you about this is my soul sister said to me “Snacks are my failing”.
Us mum’s, we really beat up on ourselves. So I am dedicating this post to Corrie because she’s doing a great job showing up every day for her girls, feeding them mostly real foods. She’s already a stand for their health. If you’re feeling the same way that Snacks are your failing, then I want to say this to you.
You’re already doing a great job, let’s just work on improving those snacks by adding in some extra nutrition, then crowding out the those not so good snacks.
5 Reasons Why We Fail At Snacks
1. I’m starving!
Have you experienced this? School pick up time. Out they come, no “Hi Mum” – just “I’m starving”. Or school holidays, “Mum what’s there to eat? I’m starving.” Or generally anytime, “I’m starving.”
Be prepared in advance. Have some real food snacks pre-made and readily accessible.
2. We’re on the run
Many children have after school activities, so we’re on the run. It’s easy to grab some packets because they are convenient. But they are also concocted in a food laboratory and made in a factory, designed to get us to want to eat them, even though they really are not doing anything for our health or to keep us full.
A piece of fruit and a handful of nuts is equally as convenient.
3. I don’t have time
I totally get it. As a working mum, juggling the kids with work and running a household, it seems like we always don’t have time. But I am going to not lie, I sometimes get lost in Facebook. Then I realise I do have time, I just lost it. Can you think of things like this where you lose time?
An interesting discovery for me was how I actually found more time and reduced my stress, simply by making the time to plan and prepare. This can be as simple as making a list of snacks you want to have available – both real food and packets you are happy with.
4. My kids just want packaged snacks
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I am going to play devil’s advocate here. Do they really or is this all they know or all that’s available to them? It’s an interesting question isn’t it. It’s a bit like what came first, the chicken or the egg. From first hand experience, I can tell you that kids when they develop the taste for real food and healthy snacks, they start to lose the taste for these packaged snacks. Then when they have these packaged foods, they pretty soon realise they don’t particularly taste nice or fill them up.
Start making real food snacks available and reducing the availability of other packaged snacks. You will notice a difference in their hunger levels and their desire for packaged snacks.
5. I don’t have any ideas for healthy snack
Our heads are full with our juggling act of life. It’s easy to not have any ideas for snacks. Then of course, marketing of packaged food blurs our ability to have ideas for snacks because it tells us what snacks are, even though they aren’t necessarily good for us or do anything to keep that hungry feeling at bay for long.
Don’t believe this marketing BS. There’s loads of easy and convenient snacks. All you need to do is be prepared in advance. Arm yourself, your pantry and your fridge with real food snacks that are easy for your kids to grab.
You may have picked this up, but being prepared is pretty key to winning with snacks.
Snacks Are Important
Snacks are actually really important for our kids. They are growing and developing. They need something healthy and nutritious to tide them over between their lunch and dinner, particularly if they are active.
For a snack to actually fulfil on it’s purpose of nourishing their bodies and keeping them full until dinner time, it really needs to have a combination of carbohydrates for energy, and protein and good fats to help keep them full.
The failing in most packaged snacks is they fail to fulfil on being able to tide our kids over until dinner. They are usually carbohydrate high with minimal protein and probably no good fats at all. This is a very strategic recipe designed for us to need more food, and to usually crave the same salt, sugar, fat combination as just eaten.
Healthy Simple Snack Ideas
The key to remember is to make sure the snacks are easy to grab or simple to make on the fly. The list below is a mix of items which can be made in advance or take about 5 minutes to prepare. The other key is to make sure the snacks you want to crowd out are either not available or are available only after one of these more nutritious snacks has been eaten.
Crunchy Snacks
- Seed and trail mix
- Popcorn – popped at home in coconut oil, serve with a mix of nuts. Watch this recipe – Popcorn 3 ways.
- Rice cakes with hommus
- Rice cakes with avocado and egg or tuna, or tomato and cheese, or nut butter
- Veggie sticks with hommus
- Apple slices spread with nut butter
- Celery sticks with nut butter, cream cheese, or avocado
- Fruit in season with mixed nuts (remember the nuts are important for protein and fats)
- Roasted Pepitas or chickpeas
Sweet
- Yoghurt with some fresh fruit, nuts and coconut flakes
- Chia puddings like this banana chocolate chia pudding
- Breakfast dessert, although called breakfast we also have for afternoon tea
- Any of the fruit items from the crunchy list but served with but butter or nuts
- Freeze yoghurt and top with berries or even home-made muesli with nuts/seeds
- Porridge with fruit, nuts or seeds
- Smoothies – be sure to add some good fats like coconut cream, avocado, peanut butter plus throw in some LSA or nuts for protein
- Home made banana ice cream (frozen banana’s blended in food processor), add some nuts to make sweet and crunchy
- Thinly slice some sweet potato and normal potato on the mandolin. Cook in oven till crunch. Serve with Kale chips too.
- Fruit and veg bread topped with yoghurt
- Banana chia pikelets served with peanut butter
- Pikelets with yoghurt and fruit
Creamy
- Smoothies – see comment in sweet
- Chia Puddings
- Rice Pudding
- Chocolate mouse made on avocado and frozen banana
- Protein or bliss balls, like these chocolate protein bombs
Savoury
- Olives, cheese, and crackers or rice crackers (watch for pesky ingredient #’s), plus some veg sticks dip
- Mountain bread toasts with avocado or hommus
- Edamame
- Home made 2 minute noodles – chicken broth with and rice noodles. Add in some poached chicken too.
- Egg and bacon muffins or slice
- Bacon and zucchini Slice
- Mini pizza’s – make your own dough, and add toppings
- Scrolls – ham, cheese, mushroom etc. Use your own dough
How to make real food snacks convenient
The real key to making real food, whether it’s snacks, lunchboxes, breakfast or dinner, is the 3 P’s I use in The 5 Minute Healthy Lunchbox System eCourse.
1. Plan
On the weekend, choose perhaps 3 snacks from the lists above, and shop for the items needed to make these. Remember it is always wise to have a few packets on hand which are your back up packets for those times you don’t have time to cook. Here’s the ones I have in my pantry.
2. Prepare
Cut, slice, cook – do what you need to do to prepare these snacks in advance so they are convenient and grabbable for the week ahead.
3. Pick n grab
Write a list of the snacks that are available this week. Place this on the fridge and pantry so the kids can see what’s on offer. This way the kids can pick n grab them out themselves or you can quickly check the list, then pick n grab before you go to pick them up etc.
My Red Hot Tip
If your kids can eat peanut butter, buy a good 100% peanut butter (nothing else but nuts) and serve that on banana or apple slices. It’s a sure fire hit!