Saturday, June 12, 2010

Food Tip: Snacks for the Road

Now that our family has a couple long road trips under our belt, I thought I would share some of our snack ideas. Most of these are for the kids, because honestly, all our kids want to do in the car is eat!

First off, make sure you have some "new"snacks. These are the best to pull out when the kids start getting a little stir crazy. I like to find these snack at the dollar store. I never shop the dollar store for food, and there always seems to be some random snack food that I have never seen before, or haven't had in a long time!

Second, I have found that have a lot of zip lock sandwich bags is a must! This way, if you have more then one kid, you don't have to divvy out the snack beforehand. You can just bring the full container, and the divide it up into the ziplock bags when the kids request it!

So, here is my list of car trip "must haves"

-Beef jerky: great source of protein, and sometimes takes the kids a while to chew!

-Nuts: again, great source of protein and fiber. My kids love the bbq habanero almonds from Costco, they are weird like that. They also love cashews too! Whatever your kids like, make sure they are shelled... it is much less of a mess!

-Grapes: non-sticky messy fruit! You don't have to cut it up, and it can easily go into the zip lock bag for the kids! I did try and do the frozen grapes, but they ended up defrosting before we go to them, and it made the texture a little funky.

-Ritz Crackers and Easy Cheese: Potentially messy, but luckily not in our case. I would squirt on some cheese and hand it back, until the kids (and driver) couldn't eat any more! You can turn it into a  game too, draw a picture, letter or number with the cheese, and make the kids guess what it is!

-Fruit Snacks: My kids love them! I picked out special kinds for each kid, which I normally do not do. This way, the kids were a little excited about it!

-Bread Sticks and Cheese: This is a dollar store find. Remember those cute little bread-stick shaped crackers with the fake looking orange cheese to dip them in? Yah I found them, and my kids thought they were so cool.

-String Cheese: Healthy, filling, and takes some time to eat!

-Gum: My kids love gum and we used it as a distraction to stretch out potty breaks and to help ease ear pain from altitude changes. It was great!

-Propel Fitness Water: I try not to serve soda on road trips, it just sugars them up and makes them have to pee! However, plain water just isn't as fun! We found propel fitness water was great! Only 15 calories and the kids thought it was juice.

-Dry Cereal: This was great for my 18 month old. She loves cereal and so we just had a box of it and filled up her baggie whenever she wanted it.

-Gold Fish Crackers and Pretzels: pretty much a normal snack staple.

-Hard Candy and Gummies: This is more for the driver, but the kids love it too! Candy like this helps keep my husband awake without having to resort to caffeinated beverages.

-Granola Bars: May get a little messy, but they are easy to store and to serve! Be sure to not do the Fiber One bars. Save those for when you aren't going to be stuck sitting in a car all day.

If you want some more ideas, hop over to Super Healthy Kids and check out her list!

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