Healthy Snacks For Kids
Children require healthy foods in their growing ages. Their growing bodies and minds need the right kind of nutrition. Unfortunately, this is also the age when children get swayed by commercials and may start to enjoy junk foods more than they should. To make sure that your child continues to eat healthy and does not get obese at such a tender age, you should introduce him/her to healthy kid’s snacks.
Children love finger foods, and the best way to keep them healthy is to give them snacks which are nutritious. This not only keeps their hunger under control, but also improves their immunity and teaches them to eat healthy from a very young age.
There are a lot of healthy snack ideas kids will simply love. Breads, cookies, and biscuits cannot always be good for them. These are foods that they should eat only sparingly. Also make sure that you do not give them foods with added colors, artificial flavors and emulsifiers, as those too can be harmful for young children.
The best healthy kids snack recipes are those which are closest to their natural state. Given their way, children would love to grow up on a diet of bread, biscuits and junk food which are all addictive. So let’s make junk healthy.
- Eat foods which are as close to the natural state, which promote growth, immunity and energy. Following are some interesting recipes for healthy school snacks:
- Protein Pancakes: Soak a tea cup of yellow lentils overnight and grind it into a paste in the morning. Add to this two finely chopped tomatoes and one small finely chopped onion. Sprinkle some fresh chopped parsley or coriander and add salt and pepper to taste. Mix the batter well and on a non stick pan, make pancakes out of this batter, using virgin olive oil. You can serve this with a dip made of hung curd and freshly ground mint leaves.
- Spinach Cutlets with Vegetables: Shred a bunch of spinach leaves and add to this one half of a grated radish and carrot. Boil two potatoes and mash them completely. Mix these in a mixing bowl and make a soft dough. You can make balls from this mixture or use a cookie cutter to make interesting shapes. You can give your child the cutlets without cooking them, or bake the cutlets before serving. Serve them with tomato ketchup or hung curd.
- Vegetable Rosti: Boil about 250 gms of potatoes and keep aside. In a mixing bowl, add one chopped tomato and one chopped capsicum to the potatoes. To this, add a quarter cup of boiled corn, a chopped onion, 100 gm chopped mushrooms and two to three olives. Mix all of these well. Now, to the boiled potatoes, add some salt and tomato puree. Mix well. Now make a flat pancake from the boiled potatoes and add the toppings on it. You can bake this for 20 minutes, till the potato turns a little brown, or serve it as it is. This makes one of the best healthy kids party snacks.
- Cottage Cheese Wrap: Grate about 100 grams of cottage cheese. Boil 100 grams each of beans and carrots. Chop a coriander sprig of parsley and chop an onion coarsely. Using 100 grams wheat flour, make a soft dough. Roll these into pancakes using a rolling pin. Sauté the pancake in olive oil. Now take the pancake off the heat and apply a layer of salsa or green mint sauce. Mix together the onion, cottage cheese, carrots, French beans and parsley well together. Spread this on the pancakes and fold the pancake to make a wrap. The vegetables and the pancakes make this extremely filling, making this dish one of the best healthy creative kids snacks.
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