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Healthy Snack Foods For Children Organized By Food Groups

Maggie LaBarbera • RN, MBA • Apr 14, 2012

Preparing healthy snacks for on the go or to eat at home. Make sure you have foods from at least 2 food groups.

Snack time are a perfect time to get another serving of vegetable, fruit or calcium. Most children get enough grains and protein.

Snacks are important for children because their bodies are growing because:

children are growing their body needs fuel to support all the work creating new cells.
kids have small stomachs so they eat less - this means they require more smaller meals snacks help satisfy their hunger.
Most children need about 2 snacks a day around mid-morning time and mid-afternoon time. Plan snacks as part of their routine meal plan.

Here is a list of foods that make healthy snacks organized by food groups.

Snack	Vegetable	Fruit	Grains	Dairy	Protein
Banana and yogurt.		banana		low fat yogurt
Spread celery sticks with peanut butter or low-fat cream cheese. Top with raisins	celery sticks	raisins			peanut butter
Whole grain pita pocket with ricotta cheese and apple slices		apple slices	whole grain pita pocket	low fat ricotta cheese
Trail mix		dried fruit	cereal		nuts
Frozen yogurt on two graham crackers and add sliced banana		sliced banana	graham crackers	low fat frozen yogurt
Low fat vanilla yogurt with crunchy granola and blueberries.		blueberries	crunchy granola	low fat vanilla yogurt
Small baked potato with reduced-fat cheddar cheese and salsa.	baked potato salsa			reduced-fat cheddar cheese
Snack kabobs of low fat cheese and grapes on pretzel sticks.		grapes		low fat cheese
Peanut butter on apple slices.		apple slices			peanut butter, soy or nut butter
Dried cranberries and chopped walnuts in instant oatmeal.		dried cranberries	instant oatmeal		chopped walnuts
Waffle cone with cut-up fruit and low fat vanilla yogurt		cut-up fruit	waffle cone	low fat vanilla yogurt
Flour tortilla with a slice of turkey or ham, low fat cheese and lettuce.	lettuce		flour tortilla	low fat cheese	turkey or ham
Mini Pizza: Toast an English muffin, drizzle with pizza sauce and sprinkle with low fat mozzarella cheese.			English muffin	low fat mozzarella cheese
Toast a whole grain waffle and top with low fat yogurt and sliced peaches.		sliced peaches	whole grain waffle	low fat yogurt

You can see that as you mix and match, you can easily create a snack made up of at least two food groups!

Vegetable Group	Fruit Group	Grains Group	Dairy Group	Protein Group
cucumbers sliced	Sliced mango	whole wheat bread	low fat or skim milk	edamame (soybean)
celery sticks	kiwi	whole oats bread	vanilla low fat yogurt	sugar snap peas
carrots	apples	whole grain bagel	mozzarella cheese	leftover chicken
lettuce	handful of raisins	stick pretzels	low fat sliced cheese	handful of nuts
tomato	handful of dried cranberries	tortilla	cottage cheese	peanut butter
jicama	banana	cereal - 5 gm of fiber	cube cheese	boiled egg
sweet potato	melon balls	flatbread	fortified soy milk low fat or skim	egg salad
baked potato slices	sliced peaches	whole wheat shaped pasta	fortified lactose free milk low fat or skim	almond butter
corn and peas	strawberries	crackers	ricotta cheese cup	soy butter
cauliflower trees	blackberries	whole wheat pita	string cheese	tuna
broccoli trees	blueberries	whole wheat English muffins	milk based pudding cup	beans
zucchini sticks	cherries	rice cakes		ham slices
peas in a pod	mixed fruit cup			hummus
cherry tomatoes	raspberries			sunflower seeds
green salad				beans
				sliced ham or lean turkey