Simple Home-Made Healthy Snacks

 We’re all well aware of the impact that sugar can have on our little one’s health, and it can be a real struggle to find suitable snacks that aren’t laced with high amounts of sugar which turn our tots into complete terrors. Despite many snacks being labelled ‘healthy’, so many are full of sugars, preservatives and additives, which we have no idea about their impact on our children. To avoid as many processed foods as possible home-made health snacks are something which are simple to do and fun enough to get the little ones involved with. 

Teaching children from an early age about raw, natural ingredients can help to set-up them up for a healthy lifestyle in the future, and educate them about the impact that food can have on their health. 

Thankfully with these recipes you don’t need to be Jamie Oliver, you just need a small amount of time, a few simple ingredients that you can get from your local supermarket and of course your little ones by your side to do the all important taste testing. 

Yogurt Covered Fruit 

According to the Live Well campaign by the NHS, we should all only be aiming for one portion of a fruit a day. With fruit being as high in sugar as some sweets, it should be treated exactly the same way with portions being little and often. But to give that extra twist why not coat some of their favourites in a delicious high calcium yogurt. The trick here is find a low sugar yogurt such as a natural yogurt or Greek yogurt as even petit filous have a crazy 5g of sugar per tiny pot!

If finding a low sugar yogurt seems like a lot of hard work there are now a number of sugar free websites you can visit such as Happy Sugar Habits, which can give you a heads up on the best ones to buy, before you go label checking mad. To make it more fun try adding some food colouring to the yogurt and make them all different colours. Smother them in yogurt and leave them in the fridge to cool before offering them out when the hunger monster appears. 

Popcorn 

By far the lowest sugar and low calorie snack that both you and the tots can enjoy no matter the occasion, popcorn is such a fun and versatile snack. 

Whilst you can purchase bags of it from the supermarket, pre-packaged popcorn is often covered in sugar or salt. Instead opt for buying a bag of corn kernels that you can pop at home.  Not only will this bring hours of fun with the children mesmerised by the sounds and transformation that happens right in front of their eyes, but you can add all sorts of flavours to it without covering it in sugar or salt. Adding a sprinkling of dried parmesan for a cheesy sensation, or even a little honey and cinnamon for a sticky sweet treat. 

Vegetable Crisps 

Getting children to eat vegetables can sometimes be an entire battle on it’s own. Either you’re lucky enough to have a tot that munches on their greens like there’s no tomorrow, or you’re on the other side, doing everything and anything to hide vegetables in their food so they don’t notice. 

Vegetable crisps can be a rather cheeky way of giving them some of their essential nutrients and helping them to avoid the high fat alternative. From beetroots, sweet potatoes and parsnips, there are a variety of root vegetables that you can choose enabling you to give them a little variety and work out what they enjoy the most. There are a number of easy recipes online such as this Good Food tutorial, which can guide you through the process, and once you know the basics you can begin to experiment with all sorts of other vegetables. 

Flapjacks 

Sometimes there’s simply nothing better than an oaty flapjack to keep the little one’s hunger at bay between meal times. They’re fun and easy to whip together, and leave minimal room for any baking errors. 

But as we all know, most flapjacks have a good lashing of butter, sugar and syrups that can mean they’re just as bad for us as having a treacle tart. However, with a few simple adjustments to any traditional flapjack recipe you can make it far healthier and less sugar filled.Swap butter for an organic coconut oil such as this one, remove any sugar, and swap the treacle syrup for honey. By just making little amends like these you can save yourself and your tots some visits to the dentist, and not feel so guilty when they reach for an extra portion. 

As food is so important to our children’s growth and development, every meal and snack can count in helping them lead a healthier life. The struggle is very real when it comes to getting our tots to eat well, but hopefully these simple home-made snacks will give you and your little ones some fun in the kitchen at least. 

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