September is a difficult month for both students and parents. Moms and dads have no time to relax, because everything needs to be thought out, organized and controlled. For example, prepare school and sports uniforms, check lessons, and take care of hearty and healthy snacks. After all, good nutrition is one of the key components for the healthy development of the child.

Future and real parents from the Joy-pup team have collected for you the TOP 7 options with tasty and healthy snacks for school. You and your students will love these simple recipes and fresh, original ideas.

More recently, the Day of Knowledge thundered in schools, and parents already have an important homework to do: what to prepare a child for school? After all, a school snack should be tasty, healthy and fresh. Eating habits are laid down from childhood, which is why it is so important to instill in your child a love of healthy food. The secret here is simple – the food should be bright, beautiful and the child should like it.

What should be the right snack

Water. Be sure to bring a bottle of water with you. Not juice, not tea, not soda, but pure water. The brain activity of a student directly depends on the amount of water consumed. A child who does not drink enough fluids does not study well and cannot demonstrate his or her full potential.

Fruits (apple and pear slices, banana, grapes, berries), dried fruits. They contain fructose, which is necessary for brain nutrition. As you know, after a couple of hours after breakfast, blood sugar drops, and with it the ability to concentrate decreases. Fructose will restore blood sugar levels and maintain concentration at the proper level. In addition, fruits also help quench thirst and maintain water balance in the body, which is very important for schoolchildren who forget to drink water in a timely manner.

Tip: to prevent the cut fruit from turning dark, just sprinkle them with lemon juice.

Vegetables: carrot sticks, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, chopped sweet peppers, cabbage, celery, lettuce, greens, etc. When choosing, try to focus on the tastes of the child and the seasonality of vegetables.

Foods containing protein (meat, fish, chickpeas, cheese, eggs). Healthy dairy products could be added to the list, if not for one “but": they quickly deteriorate. Therefore, if you decide to give your child something dairy to school, take care of proper storage. Use a thermal bag for this, preferably with a cold battery inside, which will allow you to maintain the optimum temperature of the products.

Bakery products: sandwiches, rolls, crackers, dryers, bagels, bagels, bread, croutons, bran, muesli bars, etc. Ideally, they should be made from whole grain flour, moderately salty, moderately sweet. But, as you know, fastidious schoolchildren have their own ideas about the ideal. Therefore, parents have to get out as soon as possible: someone cuts out beautiful figures in the form of circles, triangles or stars from healthy bread using special knives, someone draws funny faces. In general, in the struggle for proper nutrition, all means are good.

Snacks: dark chocolate containing at least 70% cocoa, nuts, seeds, homemade popcorn – not a semi-microwaveable product, but one that you yourself fried with a minimum amount of oil and salt.

Snack Recipes

Ciabatta: These are rolls made from pita bread and various fillings. Roll out pita bread, brush it with cheese sauce, and place omelet slices, ham, vegetables and herbs on top. After that, twist everything into rolls and bake in the oven.
Chicken snacks: Boil the chicken fillet, cut it into pieces, and then roll each piece in chopped nuts with an egg and bake in the oven. To make your child enjoy a bite to eat, put some sauce that he likes in his lunch box.
Apple with Peanut Butter: Take a regular apple and cut it into several pieces horizontally. Lubricate each piece of apple with nut paste and sprinkle with raisins or seeds. Honey can be added as a sauce.

Lavash rolls

Thin Armenian lavash is a great option for a healthy snack. Lavash needs to be spread with some kind of pasta (but not spicy) or the same cheese. You can take still unsalted cheese or feta, mix with fat sour cream. If the child likes vegetable caviar or hummus, then you can take them as a base. Spread cheese or vegetable paste on pita bread, add fresh vegetables (if you don't have spicy cheese as a base, you can also take fruits, apples, bananas, pears, and so on). Wrap everything in a roll, cut into portioned pieces for one bite and put in a container.

Nutritious smoothie

Instead of the sweet, store-bought yogurt, make a tasty and healthy smoothie for your child. This snack option is suitable in order to renew strength after the first lesson.

Mix homemade yogurt, berries and fruits in a blender. Any will do – blueberries, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, peach and other fruits.
You can make a regular fruit smoothie without yogurt, as well as a fruit and nut drink with banana, kiwi, raspberry, hazelnuts and honey.
A smoothie made from three ingredients – banana, honey and kefir – also has great nutritional value .

Important!

Warn the child that the smoothie must be drunk after the first lesson, otherwise the drink will go bad.

Mini quiche with broccoli

How to get your child to eat healthy vegetables like broccoli? Hide them in the thickness of a delicious fill of milk, eggs and cheese!

This recipe can also be considered basic and adjust it for yourself. As vegetables for the filling, you can take zucchini, cauliflower, carrots, etc.

To create mini quiches, you will need unsweetened shortcrust pastry (any recipe you have tested), tartlet molds, boiled vegetables, and a filling of a mixture of eggs, milk or cream of low-fat and hard grated cheese.

Put the dough rolled out in a thin layer into molds, add finely chopped vegetables and pour the egg-milk mixture. Bake at 190 degrees for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

Thin pancakes with apples

What do you need:

200 g premium wheat flour
500 ml cold milk
2 eggs
1 st. a spoonful of granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Apple filling:

3 sweet and sour apples
1/2 cup sugar
peel of 1 orange

Peel apples and cut into small cubes. Put apples in a pan, add sugar and add zest. Fry over medium heat with the lid open until the apples caramelize. Cool down.
Put 1 heaping tablespoon of apple filling on a pancake and wrap.
The pancakes are frozen. Can be reheated in a frying pan with butter.

Then they switched to pita rolls – pita bread, soft cheese, cut chicken breast, iceberg lettuce there, sprinkle with curry and cheese sauce.

Apples – beautifully halves lie with a carved inside, you can put a pear in the same place.

Oh, and a thermos of tea. And some sweetness.

Meat sandwich

A great option for a school lunch is baked chicken, turkey or beef. You can bake in foil, then cut into portions and give the child a snack with a slice of bread. You can cook lean meat in a slow cooker or in a double boiler. Add mugs of cucumbers, strips of sweet pepper to the sandwich.

pancakes

Baking pancakes is, of course, a long time. But they can be baked for future use and frozen, and then just get it and quickly cook breakfast, lunch, and a snack to school.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
A glass of boiling water
A glass of milk
A glass of flour
Vegetable oil

This custard dough does not tolerate stops, so we arm ourselves with a mixer (you can, of course, use a whisk, but your hands will quickly get tired). Beat the eggs with a pinch of salt in a strong foam, pour a glass of boiling water, without ceasing to beat. Next, pour in a glass of milk and gradually pour in a glass of sifted flour. We're still whipping! Pour in a little vegetable oil – and that's it!

We bake pancakes in a well-heated pan. They are thin and weightless. And, as you can see, not a gram of sugar!

These pancakes are perfect for any toppings, be it grated cheese and ham, bananas with chocolate paste or slightly salted salmon with cream cheese.

Eggs

Chicken and quail eggs are good sources of choline. Thanks to this substance, impulses are transmitted through cell membranes and lipid metabolism is normalized (and this is important for the brain). Choline is so important that it is important for expectant mothers to use it during pregnancy – without it, the baby's brain will not be able to fully develop. Choline must be in the diet of schoolchildren: it improves cognitive function, provides good memory, and even reduces the vulnerability of the brain to toxins in childhood. Make whole-grain bread sandwiches with sliced eggs for your child.

Chicken and quail eggs are a source of choline, thanks to which impulses are transmitted through cell membranes and lipid metabolism is normalized (important for the brain)

Oatmeal cookies

Everyone loves cookies. And oatmeal is something from childhood. Cooking takes about 10 minutes on the strength, and another 15 – in the oven.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
70 g butter
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
70 g sugar
150 g no-boil oatmeal
20 g wheat flour

The hardest part is separating the whites from the yolks. Beat the yolks with half the butter, cinnamon and sugar. The main thing is that the sugar dissolves. Beat egg whites until stiff foam.

Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and fry the oatmeal for 8 minutes. Once cooled, mix with the egg-sugar mixture and flour. Carefully add egg whites and mix.

It remains to cover the baking sheet with parchment or baking paper (you can also use a silicone mat) and put the resulting mixture with a spoon. Bake for about 15 minutes at 180 degrees.

Pizza buns

All children love pizza, but taking a slice of pizza to school is not at all convenient. No problem! Prepare delicious buns for your child that will taste no different from his favorite dish.

Prepare the basic yeast dough as for pizza and roll it into a thin rectangle. Lubricate it with tomato sauce and sprinkle with grated cheese. Put finely chopped ham or boiled chicken on top and roll a roll from a rectangle. Next, cut it into circles at least 2-3 centimeters thick and place the buns on a baking sheet. Bake products at a temperature of 180 degrees for about 25-30 minutes until golden brown.

This recipe is quite time consuming, but you can make a batch of buns and freeze them after baking. Then you will only need to get the required number of buns and defrost them before school.

Choosing a lunch box

It is worth starting from how many dishes the student will take with him, it can be:

monocontainer with one compartment;
lunch box with several partitions or different cells;
sealed liquid container that retains heat;
heating product.

The shape and color of the lunch box depends on the preferences of the child, so it is worth offering to choose from several options. However, before that, you need to decide which of the materials is suitable.

Plastic

Such models are convenient, but usually they do not contain many cells. The main advantage is low weight, and the disadvantage is the short shelf life of food and the need to replace it every few months.

Silicone

After eating, they are folded, so they save space, and they are also allowed to heat food in the microwave. However, they are usually sold with plastic lids that cannot be placed in a microwave oven.

Metal

Usually it is stainless steel. Lunch boxes made of metal keep food temperature for a long time. The disadvantages include the inability to use in the microwave, as well as the cost and weight.

Glass and ceramics

They do not absorb food odors. Some models are equipped with a special bag for moving them so that nothing leaks. Glass containers are used in the microwave oven. The main disadvantage is a lot of weight.

When choosing a lunch box, you should also focus on size, design, compactness, tightness and design features.

General recommendations

1 Portions should be optimal: not too large – so that the child can eat, and not too small – so that he does not remain hungry. Focus on your child.

2 Ensure proper food storage. It is advisable to put perishable products in a thermal bag or a separate container, in compliance with the required temperature regime using a cold accumulator.

3 When choosing products, give preference to less salty and fatty varieties. For example, when it comes to cheese, choose a less salty, low-fat option.

4 Perishable foods such as eggs, meat, fish, dairy products should be eaten within 4 hours of preparation (when stored at room temperature).

5 Some snacks can be prepared in advance and frozen (sandwiches, pies, pancakes).

What happens if you refuse to snack?

While you're trying your best to make sure you always have something healthy to snack on at home, your efforts can be overwhelmed by your parents and other adults who offer your child food they shouldn't. call it useful, or even vice versa.

“Feed your children healthy food at home. You will see that over time they will learn to make much more nutritious food choices than before," says Ansel, a mother of two.

Jacobsen, also a mother of two, offers this advice: "Teach your children to appreciate the feeling of hunger they feel, and also that they don't always have to eat what is offered to them."

And finally, look at what you snack on. You must serve as a role model for your child. As kids get older, they tend to follow the traditions of the family, so choose healthier foods when you're snacking yourself.