After School Snack Ideas

Most kids are 'starving' when they walk through the front door! Be armed and ready with these ideas – perfect for warding off the munchies ‘til dinner.

• Freeze a handful of seedless green grapes for a cool treat.
• ‘Sticks and stones’ ice-cream cones – use an ice-cream cone for serving a mix of wholegrain cereals, dried fruit, popcorn and raw mixed nuts.
• Banana hotdog – lightly spread peanut butter or jam onto a piece of mountain bread and cut to fit the size of a banana. Roll up the banana and cut into 3 pieces. Hold together with a toothpick.
• Mix chia seeds through low-fat vanilla yoghurt, then stir through raspberries (or diced fruit) before serving.
• Get the kids to make ‘strawberry mice’ – place an inverted choc chip at the tip of a strawberry (for the nose), and a sesame seed for each eye. Use sliced almonds to make ears, and attach a tail made of a Nice and Natural Fruit String.
• ‘Confetti’ pitas – fill a small pita with grated low-fat cheese, vegemite and grated colourful vegies (zucchini, carrot, capsicum, celery, etc).
• Make sandwiches and cut with cookie cutters to create fun shapes.
• Whip up some homemade savoury muffins using grated vegies, or make low-fat dark chocolate muffins with hidden beetroot or zucchini.
• Crispy Critters with dip – cut flat bread into animal shapes using cookie cutters. Bake for 5 minutes, or until crispy. Serve with hommous or a vegetable dip.

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Hot Healthy Breakfast Ideas

Eating a healthy breakfast impacts your entire day, although many people skip this critical meal. Breakfast plays a role in helping to prevent overeating, promotes energy and improves memory, productivity, creativity and mood. There are quick breakfast options available, but many of them are cold. When weather turns colder, some people want a hot, healthy breakfast.

Quinoa Hot Cereal

The Martha Stewart website provides a recipe for quinoa breakfast that is not only hot and healthy, but also quick to make in the morning for breakfast. Regular oatmeal is also a good option for a hot, healthy breakfast, but quinoa offers some variety. A bowl of quinoa hot cereal takes approximately 25 minutes to make, but most of that time is allowing milk to boil, which lends itself to an easy breakfast to make while you're getting ready to go to work. The George Mateljan Foundation for the World's Healthiest Foods website indicates that a quarter cup serving of quinoa provides nearly 50 percent of the daily recommended intake of manganese and serves as a good source of iron, magnesium, copper and phosphorus. A serving of quinoa contains just nine calories. Quinoa porridge also contains blueberries, providing even more nutrients.

Peach Ricotta Pancakes

Pancakes are a common breakfast food, but making pancakes on the go for a hot breakfast may not be possible. The syrup and butter typically used with pancakes can make pancakes an unhealthy choice as well. "Best Health" magazine provides a recipe for peach ricotta pancakes that takes less than 10 minutes to make if, as the magazine suggests, you combine all the wet ingredients the night prior, store them in the refrigerator overnight and quickly mix in the dry ingredients in the morning. This hot, healthy breakfast of pancakes made with ricotta cheese receives a topping of fresh peaches, negating the need for butter or syrup for sweetness and cutting out much of the fat and calories associated with typical pancake breakfasts. The Fruit Pages reveals that a 100g serving of peaches serves as a good source of vitamins C and A and contains fibre, protein and trace amounts of vitamins B1, B2 and B6.

Eggs Benedict

Eggs benedict can serve as a hot, healthy breakfast by replacing the fattening butter sauce with a hollandaise sauce made of yogurt and replacing high fat ham or bacon with a single slice of lean ham. "Fitness" magazine offers a recipe for a healthier version of eggs benedict that should take no longer than 15 to 20 minutes to make. The George Mateljan Foundation for the World's Healthiest Foods website reports that one egg provides approximately 22 percent of the daily recommended intake of tryptophan and 20 percent of selenium and also serves as a good source of vitamins B2, B5 and B12, protein and phosphorus. The yogurt in the sauce also contains calcium, phosphorus, protein and vitamins B2 and B12.

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