Quiz: Can you pick the better snack?
Surprisingly unhealthy snacks that might be in your cabinet and sabotaging your child's diet. Take a quiz from nutritionist Beth Wallace to find out the best snacks for your children.
Quiz: Can you pick the better snack?
In the world of deciphering nutrition facts, there are some things that can slip past even the most discerning eyes. Parents place a lot of emphasis on the nutrition in their children’s meals, but when it comes to snacks, sometimes even foods that sound nutritious may be wreaking havoc on their otherwise healthy diet.
Think you know which snacks are best? Take this quiz below and test your nutrition knowledge. Pick the healthier snack for your family:
Granola bar or Trail Mix
Sports Drinks or Flavored Seltzers
Popcorn or Pretzels
Sandwich Crackers or Crackers and Cheese
Smoothies or 100 Percent Fruit Juice
Regular Peanut Butter or Reduced Fat Peanut Butter
Correct Answers:
Trail Mix: Many granola bars are highly processed, often containing refined grains and sugary additives.Trail mix contains foods in a more whole form (nuts, dried fruits, dark chocolate).
Flavored Seltzers: Minimal additives make this a better alternative than sports drinks that add calories with no nutritional benefit. Most children do not require sports drinks…even when playing sports.
Popcorn: Air popped popcorn is a good source of fiber, and you can limit the additional butter when you make it yourself at home. Pretzels are easy to over eat and have no nutrients that your body isn’t seeing elsewhere in the day. And watch those portions: even the snack packs of pretzels often have 2 or 3 servings per a bag.
Crackers and Cheese: The pre-packaged sandwich crackers are loaded with sodium and often higher in fat than their DIY counterparts.
100 Percent Fruit Juice: Though I don’t recommend juice often, smoothies can pack 2 to 4 times the amount of calories than a single serving of 100% of fruit juice. Some smoothies do start with healthy components like fruit and yogurt, but most have a significant amount of added sugar to boost the flavor. If your kids love smoothies, let them help you make them with a mix of fruit, ice, and low-fat yogurt.
Regular Peanut Butter: Ever compare a jar of regular peanut butter to a jar of the reduced-fat version? If you have, you will see there is only a difference of about 10 calories. The reduced-fat peanut butter typically has additional sugar to compensate for the missing flavor. The more natural version with full fat will leave appetites satisfied for longer.
Moral of the story? Turn the label around to see what and how much you are actually getting in your child’s snacks. In addition, new research suggests that children will have the greatest satiety (and decreased intake) from snacks that combine vegetables and protein. So serve up some celery with peanut butter, or carrots and cheese, and keep your kids on their way to a healthful day.
Just let these kids live normal lives. Parents today kill me. Your kids, like the millions before them will live to a ripe old age irrespective of this helicopter parenting. Then they will die like the millions before them as well. And there is nothing you can do to stop it.— Bobphxville- Just from personal observation, the difference today from 30-40 years ago is all the soft drinks. There are hundreds of soft drinks today, where 30-40 years ago there was only soda and kool-aid.
— road515 - The media scares parents so much will ill-informed articles about food and science. It begins when you are pregnant and continues on. It is hard for an average reader to decipher what is a real threat and what is not. Agree 100% with Bobphxville.— tina848
- It is not hard to decipher what is a real threat and what is not.
Basically, avoiding foods with lists of ingredients is best. An apple, not apple sauce. Nuts, not granola bars. Your own roasted chicken, not frozen chicken pot pie. Etc.
And especially avoid anything with vitamins or fiber 'added.' Why do you think it was added in the first place?? - Please stop. You're making too much sense! If everyone followed this simple rule, we'd have a much healthier society. — tfnj42
- Tina - With all due respect, the problem is dumb readers who are unable to differentiate between good information and bad information. If you don't teach your kids to make smart food choices, they will eat food loaded with sugar and salt and refined carbohydrates because that stuff is cheap and satisfying and easy to come by. Then they'll grow up to be like Bob in Phoenixville: fat and diabetic with clogged arteries and gout, grumpy and unhealthy, emitting foul odors and spending long hours alone in front of the computer sowing misanthropy on the public forums of philly.com. Your kids are worth the effort it takes to ferret out the good information. — phillyl0
- I used to eat sugary cereal and drink soda as a kid. Now, I don't like either. I still emit foul odors, though. Seriously.....a kid eating a piece of candy doesn't mean the kid will make poor food choices as an adult. — road515
- People who use the phrase "with all due respect" ought to be required to actually show some respect... If you really know Bob, Mr. philly10, then you ought to go talk to him in person rather than spew your hate-triolic verbiage in this 'food fight', and if you don't know him to be "...fat and diabetic with clogged arteries and gout, grumpy and unhealthy, emitting foul odors and spending long hours alone in front of the computer sowing misanthropy..." then you should show your gentlemanly side here and now and apologize for going way over the top, and then promise to never do it again... God Bless...
- There is nothing wrong with informing parents what is healthier to give to there kids.— 2legit2quit
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The kid with the cookie looks just like Rosie Perez!- How about Horse Meat?— ricciaje
- The best snack would be apples or other fruits. All the things listed are processed. The reporter needs to bone up on their snacks list.
- The trick for any parent is to find the sweet spot between the nutritional nihlism of Phoenixville Bob and the nutritional naziism of Joyce Lesby. Yes, what your children eat matters. But best of luck raising happy, healthy, well-adjusted kids in this world if your message to them is that it is never OK to snack on anything but raw, unprocessed foods. — phillyl0
- Horse, the other dark meat!— ricciaje
- Horse, it's whats for dinner!— ricciaje
