ArcaMax

After School Snacking

When I was a grade-schooler my brother and I would walk home from school each day. He was one grade behind me. It was about a mile from school to the house. If we didn’t get any other exercise at least we got that.

I do know that we went out to play after school but when we got home and dropped our books on the dining room table we had a snack routine that followed immediately after.

Most often I’d do my snacking in the kitchen. I’d go to the pantry and pick up a donut or other pastry my mother had gotten at the bakery. I’d wash that down with a big glass of milk while I watched TV. My shows of choice were to watch Julia Child whip up a dish or I’d watch Graham Kerr, (another famous chef), cook a meal. Little did I know that interest in cooking would carry on into adulthood and become so integral to my life. My brother had different tastes. He would grab a bag of potato chips and a 16 ounce Pepsi and he’d go off to the den and watch his favorite shows.

After that we went out to play with friends until dinner.

I never really worried about my weight until boys came into the picture. At 12 years old I became rather obsessed with diet and food. It didn’t stop me from eating donuts. My tactic overall was just to eat less and less. The education at the time all revolved around counting calories. I became really good at that. I bought one of those pocket calorie books they had by the cash register at the grocery store. I memorized it.

Now I know that calorie counting was a waste of time. What I needed was a low carb way of eating. I needed options and I needed to eat the right stuff.

So now when I think of what kids could be eating after school, potato chips and donuts assuredly don’t hit the list.

Here are some healthy options you can consider for yourself, your kids or even your grandkids.

My top favorite is apple wedges with peanut butter. I even eat this for breakfast sometimes but it sure makes a great snack. Most kids are capable of slicing up an apple without getting hurt. They can choose smooth or crunchy peanut butter. My only caution is that you look to buy unsweetened peanut butter. There are some brands now that are just peanuts in the jar. I hate the stuff with the oil floating on top but you can now find what’s called emulsified, natural peanut butter. It will say “no stir” on the jar. If you can’t find peanut butter that is just peanuts that you like, you can opt for one that has cane sugar toward the bottom of the ingredients list. At least it won’t be an overload of sugar.

Cheese, or cheese and sausage make great after school snacks. I was born in Wisconsin. I wish I had known that it would have been much healthier for me to snack on cubes of cheddar or even munch on cheese curds or string cheese. I never even tried a cheese curd until I was in my 20’s. Boy, was I missing out. We used to save sausage and cheese snacking for Sunday football games. I could have been having that after school. Kids can help themselves from the refrigerator pretty easily with this easy snack. Sliced pepperoni or salami is easy to come by. Just skip the crackers.

Mini-pizzas are an option. You can make mini pizzas in muffin tins by the dozen and the kids can just take them out of the fridge and eat them cold if they want, or they can be heated in the microwave. I have a mini-pizza recipe made with biscuit dough or you go totally low carb and make them crustless.

Cookies can be low carb if you make them yourself. I’ll give you our Plan Z Snickerdoodle recipe for today to give you a start. You can google low carb cookies on line and get recipes too. When I was a kid I used to make cookies almost every Saturday afternoon. That’s how I started my cooking career at six years old. If you have grandkids it’s a great way to interact with them and keep them productively occupied.

Lunch meat and cheese rolls. These are like little sandwiches with no bread. They are super easy to make and kids love them cuz they can walk around with them and munch. They look like little meat cigars. Just get the good deli meat. That means standing in line and asking for the best the deli has to offer instead of buying the stuff in the packaging hanging on the wall. Those packaged versions are chock full of preservatives. Try to find the freshest you can. Same with the cheese. Ask the deli worker to slice what you want. That way too, if you have kids with different tastes you can just buy the number of slices you need for each kid. One kid might like mild cheddar, while another one might like the hot buffalo pepper cheese.

Just take your slice of meat and place it on the counter. Spread with a little sandwich spread of choice (mayo, mustard or even Thousand Island dressing), and then put the cheese on next and roll it up. Secure with a tooth pick of necessary. You can make up a bunch of these and keep them in baggies in the fridge or the kids can easily make them when they get home from school.

Nuts. Nuts are an easy, healthy snack. Again, keep them in baggies so they are portion controlled. For a little sweetness you can toss in a few raisins or other dried fruit bits. Just take it easy on the fruit. That’s where the sugar load would come in.

A fruit bowl. You’ll find if you don’t feed your kids a lot of sugar that they will find fruit to be a real sweet treat. A ripe peach or plums are easy for kids. Those Cuties (clementines) are fun during the winter. The trick here is to try to stick to low-glycemic fruits. Anything that scores a 60 or less on the glycemic index would be good. Apples, berries of any kind, citrus, peaches, pears and plums are all pretty good. Things like pineapple, grapes and ripe bananas are not such great ideas if you are trying to keep the sugar levels down. If you feed your kids grapes just be good about portion control and know that each little grape is like a gumdrop in terms of sugar intake for kids (and adults too).

Granola. If you do a low carb granola and make it yourself you are fine. Almost all granola in the grocery store is a sugar-laden nightmare.

Here’s link to my latest cinnamon granola. Get with the kids on a weekend and have them help make this one. You can divide this into snack portions in little baggies too. This lasts a good week or more if you keep it covered. This is also a perfect breakfast for kids. It has enough sweetness that they feel like they are getting a fun breakfast. I mix this with plain yogurt I’ve sweetened with Truvia and make a parfait. Kids will stay full and focused all morning at school with this one or just the snack of a little baggie full after school will hold them til dinner. A kid won’t fill up on potato chips until they’ve consumed way too many of them.

Hard boiled eggs are an option. I know it might sound crazy to a kid who’s used to eating donuts after school right now, but this is actually what I started eating at 12 as a substitute for a dessert. It was my first venture into dieting. I ate a hard boiled egg if I got hungry late in the evening after dinner. If you start your kids off when they are small with snacks like this they won’t know the difference and will see eggs as a treat as well as a breakfast item.

As a substitute for ice cream, make things like my recipe for the “Easiest Chocolate Mousse on the Planet”. This one is made with mascarpone but you can use regular cream cheese if your budget doesn’t allow for mascarpone. This comes together in a flash. The older kids can make it themselves or you can make up a batch. Just keep it in a covered container in the fridge or you can cover it with plastic wrap and leave it in the mixing bowl. Just serve a scoop just like you would with ice cream. It’s just as dreamy but won’t pack your kids full of sugar. They won’t know the difference. I promise.

I hope these after school snack ideas inspire you to give your kids options that will keep them healthy. You don’t have to buy what the kids see on TV while they watch the cartoons. You control the checkbook. It might be a bit of an education for you to change the direction of what your kids eat but if it’s fun while healthy, I bet they’ll go right along with you and eat the more healthy options. You just have to keep the offerings yummy!

Almond Snickerdoodles

http://www.planzdiet.com/recipes/almond-snickerdoodles/

Servings: Yields approximately 18 cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups almond flour (almond meal. Bob’s Mill is available in the health food section of most grocery stores).
10 packets truvia (10 tsp)
1 stick softened butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Blend all ingredients together. It will take a few minutes to all blend and then will be a bit crumbly. I got all the butter incorporated with my electric hand mixer and then used my hands to finish the mixing.

Roll cookie dough into 1-inch balls (should make about 18 cookies) and place on greased cookie sheet.

Bake for five minutes and then press down slightly with a fork. Bake another 15 minutes and remove from the oven.

If you desire you can sprinkle the tops with a little extra cinnamon and truvia. Let cool completely on the cookie sheet. The cookies are fragile and if you remove before they have cooled they will crumble.

Cheers,
Zola