For my daughter's class, she has a challenge where she has to bring in healthy snacks every day with the following constraints:
Less than 5g fat
Less than 5g sugar
Less than 200mg sodium
After a trip to the supermarket, I've decided my daughter will be eating water and air.
Seriously even unsweetened apple sauce had 6g of sugar! Is food really that unhealthy or are those constraints crazy?
Carrots, kale, spinach, radishes, turnips.
ReplyDeleteWhat about baby carrots with an individual serving pack of hummus? Any fruit would probably be acceptable, I assume they want to limit added sugar (so I think unsweetened applesauce should be allowed, I love unsweetened with cinnamon). Or apple with a bit of "just peanuts" peanut butter? Natural-flavour popcorn? Now I'm just naming my favourite snacks :P The numbers are annoying for you because you might have healthy snack ideas, but I assume they have them because if they just said "healthy snack" a lot of parents might think that could include things like chips, low fat cookies, sugar cereal, etc.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the idea is to prevent obesity by making the food so bland nobody will eat it.
DeleteThat's why nothing I suggested is bland (minus natural flavour popcorn maybe, but spices could be added - I love nutritional yeast!).
DeleteThat's your opinion.
DeleteSend the applesauce minus 1 spoonful? Or just ignore the letter of the law and go with the spirit of it. The constraints are crazy.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had more control over the "healthy food" messages that are going to the kid in my life-- a stepdaughter. She's elementary school-aged, and has taken to refusing all sorts of things because she thinks they might be unhealthy. Her pediatrician has been talking about her being underweight for years, and the way she talks about food has me worried about eating disorders when she's older.
The last thing I need is for a teacher to start giving her negative messages about food.
I agree those constraints sound crazy.
ReplyDelete-signed the tired resident off a 24 hour call, whose breakfast is consisting of left-over jalapeno poppers :)
IGNORE!
ReplyDeleteSigned, The absentee resident mommy who can't bring herself to give a sh*t about the insane food neuroses of people who don't work.
Tough rules. All my suggestions (cheese, nuts, avocados) probably fail the fat test. But limiting fat is no longer really supported by the evidence. (And I doubt ever really was for kids.) I know it's still on the books for dietary recommendations - but that won't last. We do lots of whole fats in our house and have been steadily losing weight! Here's a nice article. http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f6340
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you just give your kid an apple?
ReplyDeleteAn apple is not a healthy snack per the standards set by the school. One small apple contains 15 grams of sugar. Adding unsalted old fashioned peanut butter (one tablespoon, a small amount for an apple) would bring the grams of fat above 7
DeleteAn apple would surely fail but the school seemed to accept it as it had no label stating how much sugar it has.
DeleteString cheese (lots of brands, though not all, are 5g fat or less per serving)
ReplyDeleteVegetables (even celery doesn't hit the sodium mark)
Low-sodium pretzels
Light tuna packed in water
Crackers
Popcorn
It's kind of sad that a doctor just throws up her hands at this. "I can't do unsweetened applesauce!" There are obviously more options. See a dietitian/nutritionist.
String cheese was too much fat, pretzels and crackers too much sodium aside from the most bland variety that my kid would never eat.
DeleteShe shouldn't have to see a nutritionist in order to send her kid to school with a good snack. Even most fruits (which most people would agree are "healthy") would above the 5g sugar limit. I think the point of this post was that those are pretty arbitrary cutoffs for deciding what's a healthy sack...
DeleteFizzy, do you not know how to read nutritional information?
DeleteA serving of string cheese can have as low as 2.5g of fat a serving for light varieties. There are several brands less than or equal to 5g. There are a few with 6g.
Most crackers--even the ones that aren't bland--have less than 200mg of sodium per serving.
And yes..someone who doesn't know how to figure this out needs to see a nutritionist.
In context of most children's diet, trying to get them used to one low-impact snack a day is not a hardship for them and teaches their tongues that their tastebuds don't need to be overloaded with every bite.
Ask the school to provide a list of 'recommended snacks'. Give them any additional criteria you need, ie price point, any additional allergies and food preferences. If they refuse, or say they are unable to do so, then respond with the message that you are also unable to meet thier requirements.
ReplyDeleteOh and don't forget, no peanuts or peanut-containing products. Our school district has a no-nut policy due to the high number of kids with peanut allergies. That leaves out a lot of healthy snacks like granola bars.
ReplyDeleteAnd Anon @1253, a lot of schools won't let you bring anything that isn't already in individual-serving-size store-bought packages, of which almost all are "unhealthy" (at least by these standards). You can't just bring in homemade snacks or a big box of crackers. And even the light string cheese can have too much sodium.
- Another mom, who at least only has to bring snacks for the whole class about once a month...
Why is the school promoting snacks? Three meals a day, and no snacking in between, is the healthy option.
ReplyDeleteAllie
Three meals a day with no snacking is the healthy option? That runs counter to just about all the nutritional advice I've read in the past couple of years. Everything I've seen points to a large number of smaller snacks/meals is either better than the three meals a day idea or, at worst, health-neutral.
ReplyDelete