Kids snacks; How to Eliminate the Sugar and Improve Behavior

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"So if I limit or eliminate sugar, what can I give my kids for snacks?"

Good question.

First, an encouraging word. Our tastes are mostly acquired. Including our taste for sugar. This is why, when we visit a foreign country with very different food, we often dislike it. We did not acquire a taste for it. Similarly, if there is a food that we do not like, if we take a small amount of it periodically, we will develop a taste for it.

If yours is a  young family, you can influence the lifetime eating habits of your children based on this principle.

This is why my children were always required to eat a little bit of everything. Saying "Oooo I don´t like that" did not work at our house. Only a spoonful was required, but that spoonful WAS required before seconds of anything. Consequently my children, as adults, like and eat almost everything. We CAN teach them if we start early.

If a child does not develop a taste for a variety of foods, they often become malnourished and subject to illness. It is a special disaster when people learn to eat only meat and few vegetables. As parents we can address that, pleasantly, when our children are young. Eating should always be kept pleasant. Just saying you have to eat your salad before you can have more potatoes does not ruin a meal. Trying to force children to eat something because "it is good for you" CAN make meals unpleasant and we don´t want to do that.

So if you have a young family, now is the time to help your children develop healthy tastes and eating habits. And to train their tastes away from sugary foods that ruin good health.

But what to do about snacks and treats? Here are a few ideas.

1. Fruit is a natural snack. We can keep fruit in the house and available for the children. And if we keep healthy snacks IN the house and unhealthy snacks OUT of the house, we can watch the health--and sometimes even the behavior--of our children improve.

2. When my children were young we had a freezer. When watermelon was in season I bought it on sale in large quantities. I sliced it normally, took off the peel, and then sliced into triangles and laid the slices on sheets in the freezer so that they would freeze without sticking together. When they were sufficiently frozen, I put them into plastic containers in the freezer and then froze another batch. In the summer when it was very hot, they loved to eat the frozen watermelon.  Mmmmm. So did I!

3. Smoothies. Freeze bananas and other fruit. Again, if you have a freezer you can buy in quantity on sale. Overripe bananas, often found on sale, are especially good for this purpose. Put the frozen fruit in a blender. Add water or, if available, fruit juice or coconut milk enhances the flavor. Add some lemon juice. Experiment with combinations. It´s fun.

I suggest you avoid adding any sweetener. Blended fruit is sweet enough. Often parents condition their children to demand extra sweetening by adding it because they like it that way themselves. So just avoid it and see what happens. Here is another factor. If your children see you eating something as if you like it, usually they are preconditioned to the same taste.

If you choose to add a sweetener, we strongly advise against sugar. In fact, we hope you no longer keep it in the house! You can use a little honey. But even much honey will affect you and your child exactly the same as sugar so the more we can avoid giving our kids even honey, the better their health is likely to be. Scientists have found that sugar paralyzes your immune system for several hours after you eat it. There are good scientific reasons to eliminate the sugar if our goal is better health for ourselves and our families.

4. Popsicles. You can now find plastic popsicle molds. Blend fruit in season; put in the molds and freeze. Here again, you can experiment by combining different things. Coconut (unsweetened) can be an interesting addition. Ripe pineapple is wonderful!

Remember we are talking about eliminating the unnatural desire for excessively sweetened food. Please do not use any artificial sweetener for any purpose at anytime!

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