Why is it children come home from school starving? The minute Hailey would walk in the door after school she was raiding the cabinets and refrigerator. Since I was a single, working mother there wasn’t anyone at home to supervise her choice of after school snacks. Many times she would fill up on things that weren’t good for her and then she wouldn’t eat dinner.
I needed to make better choices at the grocery store and I also needed to find some things Hailey could make that didn’t require any appliances since I wasn’t comfortable with her using kitchen appliances or knives when I wasn’t home. Hailey is a very picky eater and doesn’t like thinks like granola bars or yogurt so unless I wanted to buy sugar laden snacks I had to come up with some better ideas.
A few of the things my picky eater enjoyed:
* Peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Bananas are easily sliced with a butter knife or even a little plastic knife.
* Apple slices and peanut butter- I would peel and slice the apples the night before, sprinkle them with lemon juice so they wouldn’t brown and refrigerate for the next day.
* Celery and hummus- slice the celery the night before and put it in the fridge in a container of water.
* Fruit- Hailey’s favorites were bananas, kiwi and cantaloupe.
* Cookies- every once in a while, not too often, we would bake cookies together on Sunday night and I would bag them and she could have a bag with two cookies with her fruit.
* Muffins– there are many healthy recipes on the internet using fresh fruit and fruit juice, make ahead, freeze, take one out in the morning and put it in the refrigerator; it will be thawed when they get home from school.
Use whatever your kids really like, just tweak it as much as you can to make it as healthy as possible. When I knew Hailey was eating a healthy after school snack I didn’t worry so much about her filling up and not eating her dinner. If healthy choices are available and easy to get to your kids will eat better and so will you.