By Brandon Lee, D.O.M
Summer is in full swing, the kids are out of school, and now their hunger is your problem! Yay! No worries, we have your back. With these healthy and quick summer snack ideas you will be at the front of the line for mom of the year honors without adding extra wrinkles to get there. No need to spend lots of time in the kitchen working on something healthy that they probably won’t want anyway, or giving in to the ease and convenience of rocket pops and swiss cake rolls. These 4 snacks will keep them satisfied and coming back for more until the school bell rings anew!
Organic Almond Butter and Greek Yogurt Spread with Sliced Banana
This recipe is full of healthy fats for your children’s brain development and probiotics for healthy digestive microflora. This is really a potent one-two punch for your children’s cognitive ability and besides that, it’s delicious!
- 1 6oz Container of Greek Yogurt
- 3 Tbsp Almond Butter
- Coin Sliced Bananas
- For an extra zip, sprinkle with Cinnamon, powdered cacao or experiment with sea salt
No method needed here. Simply blend the yogurt and almond butter, dollop onto sliced banana, sprinkle with topping of your choice, and shazam, you’re done.
Chocolate Avocado Fruit Dip
Remember when you had to trick your kids into eating something healthy like drowning broccoli with cheese, butter and ranch dressing? You almost wonder if you did more harm than good! Well lucky for us, chefs have been chef’ing and researchers have been researching, allowing for a convergence of both of these disciplines into modern recipes that are both insanely healthy and delicious, evidenced by the following recipe. We all know that avocado is a real power food with healthy fats and cacao has been blazing trails to the delight of late night sweet-toothers everywhere with its antioxidant and magnesium content. Surprisingly when you blend these two together you have one heck of a snack to dip your favorite fruit into. Here is the recipe…
- 2 large ripe avocados
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cacao powder
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of sea salt
- Thin with your choice of milk as needed
Method:
- Blend all ingredients together in a food processor and serve with your favorite fruit!
Tangy Frozen Watermelon Popsicles
This snack can be made in the amount of time it takes you to say the name. And watermelon is as synonymous with summer as ham is with burger. All you need is a watermelon, some popsicle sticks, a lemon and little freezer space. This one is especially great to get the kids involved in by having them help shape the popsicles. Just cut up your watermelon into wedges or any shape you want leaving the rind at the bottom. Once you have them shaped, insert the popsicle stick through the rind, lay flat on a tray and squeeze fresh lemon over it. Leave in the freezer for at least an hour them pull out and enjoy on a hot summer day!
Peanut Butter Banana Coconut Protein Cookies
It goes without saying that growing kids need protein and what better way to sneak it into their diets than through cookies! Add to that the potassium in the bananas that replaces what is lost during those long summer outdoor play sessions, healthy fats from coconut and peanut butter and fiber from oats and you basically have it all covered. Look at you, you caring and cleaver parent you!
- 2 Large Bananas
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 2 tbsp organic peanut butter
- 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
- 2 tbsp Shredded coconut
- Optionally add raw honey
Method:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Mix all ingredients together in large bowl.
- Scoop dough onto greased cookie sheet. Remember these are a snack so keep them a reasonable size!
- Bake for 15 minutes and voila!
