Think healthy snacks

• What's the evidence?
• Why healthy snacks?
• Why limit some foods?
• Healthy snack ideas

Children need plenty of energy and nutrients for healthy growth and development. Children need to eat appropriately sized main meals and may also have a healthy between-meal snack.

The between meal snack needs to be eaten at about the same time everyday to avoid children ‘grazing’ or becoming so hungry they overeat. Learn about meal structure: Start with breakfast fact sheet.

• Make healthy snacks convenient. For example have watermelon pre-chopped in the fridge or have a batch of healthy muffins in the freezer ready to be warmed up.
• Limit buying high-fat, high-sugar or high-salt snack foods.
• If cutting down on high-fat, high-sugar or high-salt snacks is hard at first, set limits on how often they can be eaten.

What’s the evidence? *

In Australian children, a fifth of their fat consumption comes from foods like sweet biscuits, cakes and pastries. Sugar consumption is also highest in adolescents. These factors lead to high kilojoule intake, which can cause unhealthy weight gain.

Why healthy snacks?

Snacks need to be packed with nutrients. Fruit, high fibre and wholegrain foods, as well as low fat dairy foods are excellent choices for between meal snacks.

Think about the size of the snack. Snacks don’t need to be too big. Give children just enough to keep going until the next meal. As a guide for packaged foods, choose snacks that are less than or around 600 kilojoules per serve.

Why limit some foods?

Snack foods like chips, pastries and sweets are usually high in saturated fat, sugar and salt. These foods are also usually high in kilojoules and low in nutrients. Eating too many high kilojoule foods can lead to unhealthy weight gain.

Healthy snack ideas

Cereal based foods:

• wholemeal and wholegrain toast, fruit toast, toasted sandwich
• wholemeal and wholegrain English muffins and crumpets
• high-fibre muffin with fruit or grated vegetables (see recipe below)
• high-fibre breakfast cereal with fruit and yoghurt
• homemade popcorn with no added fat or salt
• pikelets make with wholemeal flour.

Vegetables and fruit based foods:

• fresh or stewed fruit†
• home made or canned vegetable soup with low added salt
• raw vegetables cut into sticks and served with a low-fat dips like hommus, tzatziki and salsa†.

Dairy based foods:

• reduced-fat yoghurt
• reduced-fat cheese cubes or slices
• reduced-fat custard.

†To prevent choking, raw vegetables and fruit should not be given to children aged four years and under. Encourage sitting down when eating, chewing food thoroughly and provide lightly-cooked vegetables.

Fruit muffins

Makes 24

½ cup canola oil
½ cup honey
1 cup grated carrot
2 bananas, mashed
2 apples, unpeeled and grated
3 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups reduced-fat milk
1 ½ cups unprocessed wheat bran
1 ½ cups oat bran
2 cups plain wholemeal flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup raisins

Preheat oven to 190 °C (375 °F). Lightly grease two 12-cup muffin tins.

In a large bowl, mix oil, honey, carrot, bananas, apples, eggs and milk. Stir through the two kinds of bran and let stand sit for 10 minutes.
 
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and cinnamon. Fold dry ingredients, along with raisins, through the bran mixture until just mixed.

Fill muffin cups two thirds full with mixture and bake for 20 minutes, or until muffins are firm to touch. Turn muffins out onto a wire rack to cool.

Learn how to Start with breakfast fact sheet. (this is the next fact sheet in the series)

Our team has research expertise in nutrition, physical activity and parenting (psychology). Our collaborative research focuses on understanding and promoting healthy lifestyles for Australian families.

If you would like to know more or explore collaborative opportunities, please contact: