18: Summer Snacking Tips From a 7 Year Old

In this episode, my seven year old, Camryn, joins me to talk about snacking habits, and how kids may see snacks. We talk about strategies to offer more fruits and veggies, let kids play a role in the snack process, and fun ideas that you can try at home. Camryn even shares some tips for enticing picky eaters to try new foods, and some fun summer-friendly options!

Snacks mentioned in this episode:

• Edible cookie dough
• Pumpkin spice cookie dough
• Sweetpotato zucchini muffins
• Greek yogurt banana bread

Chapters

• 1:17 Summer Snack Challenges
• 3:49 Creative Snack Ideas
• 9:17 Encouraging Healthy Eating Habits
• 13:20 The Importance of Snacks in Summer
• 16:35 Energy-Boosting Snacks
• 18:27 Nutrition vs. Convenience
• 21:58 Cooking and Involvement in Food Preparation
• 23:01 Revisiting Foods and Taste Preferences
• 24:25 Conclusion and Future Topics

Transcript

Camryn (00:04)
Welcome to the Managing Mealtime Madness podcast, your go-to resource for making family meals less stressful. I'm Sarah Schlifter, a registered dietitian and mom of three, here to help you simplify meal time from the mental stress and prep work to gathering around the table. No matter what family looks like for you, sharing meals has real benefits. Whether you're squeezing in a workout, rushing to soccer practice, or tackling the never-ending dishes, I've got you covered.

Welcome back to the Managing Mealtime Madness podcast. Today we have a special episode and a fun one because I have my seven-year-old here. Want say hi?

Sarah (00:45)
My is Cameron and I'm seven.

Camryn (00:48)
Yeah, Cameron's just got home from camp and actually you're the only one home. Well, the two year old is sleeping and the four year old is at her camp. So we are, we've been talking about doing this, doing a fun little episode for you guys. maybe we can do more. Yeah. If you like it. ⁓ I thought it would be fun to talk about summer snacks because I think that can be hard for some families when you're out of the school routine.

Sarah (01:05)
can do it more.

different from when you're at camp and school but when you're at home you can it's not the same

Camryn (01:25)
Yeah, what do you think? Like when you're at school, you have set times for your snack, right?

Sarah (01:30)
like yeah so first before we go to school i eat breakfast then the second thing we eat is we have snack it's like usually right before specials

Camryn (01:44)
So you have your snack time at school and then you have lunch. And then usually when you come home from school, you were pretty hungry so we would do a snack.

Sarah (01:54)
Yeah, I usually pick cereal.

Camryn (01:57)
That's one of our favorite easy snacks.

Sarah (01:59)
Not one of my favorites. That's the only one I

Camryn (02:02)
and then we would have dinner. But in the summer, since we're not on the same schedule,

Sarah (02:08)
lots of different foods you can eat like for example breakfast you can have two snacks before lunch or before dinner you can have two snacks before dinner

Camryn (02:20)
you mean like one snack just in lunch and one between lunch and dinner? That's how we try to do it. But I would say there are some days where we're kind of snacking throughout the day. That just seems to happen more in the summer. Maybe it's

Sarah (02:22)
I am back.

Yeah!

few days ago we just came home from the beach and the only thing my sister and brother wanted to do was eat snacks the whole car ride.

Camryn (02:42)
Yeah, I think snacks pretty much got us through that car ride. So what would you say your favorite snack to eat in the summer is?

Sarah (02:51)
Probably I really do like cereal In the winter it will for summer my favorite fruit can be watermelon cantaloupe Pineapple, I like a lot of different fruits

Camryn (02:54)
I like cereal year-round.

Yeah, I think you all do pretty well with fruit. What about veggies, like some that we're growing in our garden?

Sarah (03:16)
yes we have cucumbers and the cucumbers we've actually we actually have some growing ⁓ but i really do like cucumbers carrots ⁓

Camryn (03:29)
You like tomatoes, peppers, which we're growing in our garden. We have them our first ones. So that's exciting. All right, Cameron, here's a fun question. If you could create your own snack, what would it be called and what would it be?

Sarah (03:30)
Yeah

the vanilla and mint twist and it could have vanilla ice cream and mints and you put it in a blender and you twirl it and you could put like chocolate sprinkles or rainbow sprinkles or

Camryn (04:03)
Mmm

It sounds like a milkshake kind of? Yeah. Sounds good. I like milkshakes.

Sarah (04:15)
and it's gonna be called the vanilla mint twist

Camryn (04:21)
Vanilla mint twist. Okay, we'll see if any other kids are into that. So let's give them some more ideas. So maybe moms are at home without a routine this summer and maybe kids all day are asking, can I have another snack? Can I have another snack? Kind of like Sawyer does sometimes. So what are some snack ideas that we could share with them?

Sarah (04:39)
Yeah

step

Camryn (04:45)
We do a lot of beef sticks. We usually pair them with like a fruit.

Sarah (04:50)
Yeah, like it or and a great

Camryn (04:53)
The little clementines are great. And we love those snacks because it's easy for on the go. Like we'll probably do it before swim class later. ⁓ We do apple nachos a lot.

Sarah (05:01)
Yeah

Yes, Apple nachos.

Camryn (05:06)
Which is, you want to tell people what that is?

Sarah (05:09)
So it's technically an apple, you can put yogurt, any kind of yogurt. But we usually do Greek or this healthy kind of vanilla yogurt.

Camryn (05:20)
We really like, I really like, it's made by Chobani and it's Madagascar vanilla, but I think it only has five grams of added sugar and no artificial sugar. So it's just a lower sugar option, but it's vanilla and cinnamon and we all like it.

Sarah (05:35)
usually do Greek yogurt or that vanilla yogurt ⁓ and then you can only do one or we usually do that with almond butter or peanut butter almond butter is exactly the same as peanut butter it's just not not made with peanuts it's technically made with almond

Camryn (05:54)
Very good. Yeah. So, and then sometimes we put fun sprinkles on top. Yeah. Or cinnamon and granola. I like the crunchy granola on top. So that's a great, fun, easy snack idea for moms. They don't have to cook. You just cut up an apple or you can get a little apple slicer and you can have your kids actually do this. Kids can make this all by themselves. We do, let's see, we do egg muffins a lot, like the frozen ones from Costco. buy those.

Sarah (06:23)
just got this new package of like these rainbow birthday cake ones of those and they are delicious. They do have a tiny bit of sugar in them but ⁓

Camryn (06:36)
We're not anti-sugar. It makes them taste good. So yes, a brand sent us some muffins to try with veggies in them, but also they kind of, I would say, taste more like cupcakes. The kids ate them. They love them. ⁓ So we do muffins. We do those egg muffins from Costco. We make muffins a lot. I love to just make sweet potato muffins. If I have shredded zucchini, I'll throw those in there. I have a few recipes for those on the blog.

I feel like every week we're doing some sort of muffins. Lately I've made Greek yogurt banana bread to get some extra protein in there. We do snack boards a lot. Like if we do a snack plate, what kind

Sarah (07:17)
We usually have like a fruit a veggie, maybe a few chocolate chips Like chips

Camryn (07:22)
Something crunchy.

Yeah, pretzels. We like those pea chips, pea crisps. Blanking on the brand name. That's okay. We'll have a dip like ranch or hummus. We do chips and salsa a lot. We love tortilla chips and salsa. We do quesadillas a lot.

Sarah (07:33)
I think I'll bring them over. ⁓

Maybe salsa.

My favorites is well the cases to you that I the case and yeah, I eat is the bean and cheese quesadilla so that Your tortilla you put it you grill it in the cheese I use yellow cheese and then you can put beans in it as well

Camryn (08:09)
Yeah, it's a great way to up that protein and fiber. We use a lot of canned beans. Speaking of, another snack recipe with canned beans is this sweet potato cookie dough recipe or pumpkin cookie dough. They're both on my blog and you use a can of chickpeas and like half a cup of mashed cooked sweet potato or you could fill that in with pumpkin.

You add some maple syrup, a little bit of salt, some peanut butter, and you put it in a food processor and it blends to like this cookie dough. So that's a great no bake snack idea. You just keep it in the fridge and you can dip fruit in it. You can dip graham crackers and things like that. That's a fun snack. If you have children who are a little pickier and maybe don't like a lot of fruits and veggies, mom's good.

Sarah (08:58)
you date you can like set it and with something like mix it in with something ⁓ maybe you'll eat it or they if it looks funny or something they might play with it and that means like they're getting used to it a little more and they might try it

Camryn (09:04)
That's a good idea.

That's

right. We encourage playing with their food. It's okay if they don't try it, but if they play with it, they are. Just like you said, they're getting comfortable and that counts as exposure. But sometimes I'll take like a kebab stick and you can put like grapes and you could sneak a piece of chicken in there and cheese cubes and a grape tomato and cucumbers and watermelon and you just kind of put it all together on a little kebab stick and that's kind of fun for them to hold and they can eat things off of it.

Sarah (09:44)
Yes, it's very fun as well. I actually really like those when my mom does that one of my favorite snacks to eat in the summer like I said cereal, but like a fruit could be like pineapple and watermelon and a veggie could be like carrots and cucumbers and peppers and one of my favorite

of cereals is frosted mini-wheats I actually had those in my lunch today and I haven't eat the last one because I had so much frosting I wanted to save it for the end I love saying saving things like my favorite things for the end so I feel like I have more of it

Camryn (10:26)
So when you were at school, what kind of snacks did people eat? Did you feel like your friends at school were eating many fruits and vegetables or not?

Sarah (10:37)
saw one of the girls, ⁓ she ate strawberries and grapes but sometimes her mom packed her these little cookies once in a while.

Camryn (10:51)
Well, you got stuff like that for a while too.

Sarah (10:54)
To other kids eight years little like Breadsticks and then there was like maybe three ⁓ but like a chocolate thing Yeah chocolate

Camryn (11:07)
like a dip. That's

taken me back to my childhood. You dip like the little, ⁓ Dunkaroos were my favorite. You don't even know what those are.

I have so many fun memories of snacks growing up and that's kind of our motto. We want to keep snacks fun. Package snacks definitely have a purpose and a time and convenience.

Sarah (11:28)
fish a lot in Pirate's booty.

Camryn (11:30)
We do, but if we can add nutrients in or serve nutrient dense options, that's great. ⁓ Cameron, what are some snacks you like to cook or what are like some foods we're trying to get you to cook a little bit more.

Sarah (11:44)
me

I'm helping my mom make like cakes and muffins and that kind of stuff. I also can like like I can try to serve myself like for breakfast if mom's like okay Cameron I can also make oatmeal like she's like what do you want for breakfast and I'm like well I can try to make it ⁓ so I can like make oatmeal and just put the

waffle and the toaster and I can help I help with pancakes a lot and one of the kind of pancakes that you can something that you can add in is cottage cheese and you can put syrup on it

Camryn (12:25)
Yeah, you're a great help.

because that's not your favorite when I did that. But it is a great option to increase the protein and I don't necessarily think you tasted it but you saw.

Sarah (12:46)
Right. Which I didn't like.

Camryn (12:48)
Yeah, you didn't like seeing it.

Sarah (12:50)
and don't like cottage cheese but sometimes I try to try it as much as I can but it's not really my favorite. Yeah.

Camryn (12:59)
would say you're probably my most adventurous. You are the most adventurous eater. You try everything and you're a good eater. You eat a lot of different foods. So hopefully over the course of our series we can help other kids want to try new foods, right? Did you say you have a question for me?

Sarah (13:17)
Yeah.

Yes, I do. One of my questions is what

Why do you think snacks are important in the summer when we're outside a lot?

Camryn (13:35)
⁓ good question. Reading from our outline here. So, when we're running around outside a lot, we are expending a lot of energy, right? So, the way I talk to you and Hannah says we need some energy.

Sarah (13:48)
in the summer you want to drink a lot of water which I didn't really do today.

Camryn (13:53)
We'll do it before swim. But when we talk about needing energy, especially for active kids, older kids who might be in sports and activities and even summer camps, if they're moving around a lot, you do want to make sure that you're offering snacks because it may be difficult for them to get what they need in just three meals. And sometimes eating meals at camp or outside of the home can be a little bit different. They may be more or less willing to eat things. So I prefer to pack comfortable

convenient snacks that I know they'll eat. Or if we're outside at our house, ⁓ we offer pretty much ample things. Actually, one of my favorite snacks for active kids is Clif Bars. They have like the little mini Clif Bars. You like the oatmeal frosted one, right? You and Hannah?

Sarah (14:41)
Yeah

Camryn (14:43)
The

oatmeal frosted one. So they have a few different flavors. They have a new cookies and cream flavor that actually we just they sent us and we liked that. So it does have higher sugar content but again if kids are active and outside and needing and expending energy they need that sugar, that carbohydrate. So that's a great option. There is some protein and fiber in there and then I would probably offer you know some protein. The main proteins

Sarah (14:51)
You

Camryn (15:10)
We do on the go, we do cheese, ⁓ more so the younger too. That's not your favorite, but Greek yogurt. A lot. do the yogurt pouches. We do beef sticks. We do whole grains. So I think people forget that whole grains like whole wheat bread has protein, even mini bagels that we were doing in your lunch this week that has some protein and we add some peanut butter to it.

Sarah (15:34)
Almond butter like I said it's technically the same thing as peanut butter just has almond almonds instead of

Camryn (15:41)
Yeah, so we'll buy, and we buy that in Costco. It's a much better bang for your buck. We get the big ones and we go through them quick. All right, Cameron, have you noticed if you feel hungrier in the summer versus the school year? Have you noticed that at all?

Sarah (15:57)
Yes, I'm wasting a lot of my energy and I don't want to eat as much as I usually do.

Camryn (16:07)
really? Maybe because it's hot? Because sometimes that does dampen.

Sarah (16:11)
same time I don't like going to sleep so it's ⁓

Camryn (16:14)
I don't know how you put those two thoughts together, so you don't restore your energy?

Sarah (16:21)
Keep

it and then when I eat the good food that makes me have more energy. Yeah

Camryn (16:28)
okay.

Sure. You want to ask me another question? Yeah.

Sarah (16:34)
What's a snack that gives you lots of energy to run around?

Camryn (16:38)
I think that was one of the questions I was gonna ask you.

Sarah (16:41)
Well one of the snacks that I like to run around... Okay, one of those snacks is probably a beef stick. fruits are veggie.

Camryn (16:54)
You know what? You like those little fruit cups? Oh yeah! And they have some juice in them, like the 100 % fruit juice, so it's hydrating and quick energy. Yeah. We do homemade popsicles, but we also buy popsicles from the store. like, I think it's Zarbis brand, that's just fruit. That's quick energy for if you're running around and you're hot.

Sarah (17:18)
But we also like, I like these red, white and blue ones.

Camryn (17:22)
Mm-hmm the rocket ship ones. Yeah. Yeah, those are fun

Sarah (17:27)
and My mom brought these little mini ice creams from Trader Joe's They're super good. She got like a vanilla and chocolate one. It's like Chocolate and then inside the chocolates vanilla, and then it has a chocolate cone and then the strawberry has a normal color cone Chocolate and then inside the chocolate with strawberry ice cream

Camryn (17:50)
Yes, that is our favorite dessert. We sometimes take that when we're doing our little walk after dinner. Yeah. Or bike ride. Well, yeah, those are great. I actually have to get more at Trader Joe's. If you haven't seen them, they're like the perfect size for kids because they're a smaller portion, even though the kids always want more. But they are so cute and mini sized. ⁓

Sarah (18:12)
Maybe you could have another one, because they're so tiny.

Camryn (18:16)
We don't have put rules around food, whatever works best for their family. ⁓

Sarah (18:21)
snacks that are healthier than some other ones?

Camryn (18:26)
Yeah, that's it. Was that on our script? you just know you just came up with that. was like, that's an interesting way to word it. So yeah, I think through this podcast, we, I never want to really shame parents and talk about food as good versus bad or healthy versus unhealthy. Cause I think all foods have a place, but it's a good question. So that being said, there are certainly snacks that give you more nutrition and maybe more.

energy, more sustained energy that's gonna last longer. And that would be those snacks with fiber, protein, so beef sticks if you're having some fruit. We do smoothies a lot. We make a ton of smoothies. We made them this morning. Greek yogurt. Like I mentioned, if kids like flavored Greek yogurt, that Chobani Madagascar vanilla is my favorite, but there are

Sarah (19:18)
other kinds like that. Maybe like a strawberry.

Camryn (19:22)
Another brand I like is the Fage Greek yogurt and that you can buy the individual packs with like the it's kind of like a few puree in the corner that they can dip it in. But this is summer snack so that might be a little harder to send to school if you don't have refrigeration but there are lots of different lunchbox, cooler box options these days so that might work for your child at school.

Anything else Cameron that you want to share about like snacking in the summer, eating in the summer? ⁓

Sarah (19:53)
Well, I do have a few questions for you, Mom.

Camryn (19:56)
⁓ okay.

Sarah (19:59)
Snacks are okay to eat but how many should you eat in a whole day?

Camryn (20:05)
⁓ that's a really good question. I don't know if there's one right answer, right? It might be different. Like, think about a day you were like swimming for hours or you worked really, really hard and you just found yourself really, really hungry. Maybe the normal two snacks wouldn't be enough, so maybe you'd need three. Or maybe you ate less at your meals if you were hungrier. Or maybe you were sick, so you weren't hungry and you only wanted one snack.

So I think you know your kids best and I think having some boundaries around snacks is helpful. Like we eat our snack at around 10.30 and lunch at 12 so kids know what to expect. But that being said, I also think having some flexibility is important and allowing maybe they just ate less at breakfast because they weren't hungry or maybe they had a really active day yesterday or maybe they're growing.

Just kind of keeping those things in mind too that it's not always a bad thing when they're asking for more snacks. Maybe they legit are hungry and trying to infuse some nutrition into those snacks.

Sarah (21:16)
Helping Your parents make stuff that means you can also choose what you also want to make like if your mom was gonna make let's say Pasta you could maybe choose the pasta you want to make yeah or something like that my mom just got this like huge box of this new mac and cheese and My dad just made a huge pack last night, and it was so delicious

Camryn (21:45)
It was. So none of these brands are paying me to mention them. That just organically came up. So we did get some free product from Google.

Sarah (21:57)
They're one of my favorite countries.

Camryn (21:59)
We do. We very much like their mac and cheese. We usually buy it from Costco. And if you're unfamiliar with them, they are a brand that makes mac and cheese that tastes just like normal mac and cheese, but there's tons of veggies and veggie powders in them. So they are a quote unquote healthier version. So they sent us some new flavors to try. And last night we had the parm. It had a cute name. Parm. Something with Parmesan cheese. was like

Sarah (22:25)
Thank you.

Camryn (22:29)
harms

Sarah (22:30)
like this chicken that was delicious and he put some of that Parmesan cheese on the chicken and I didn't even notice it

Camryn (22:37)
He's the seasoning for the chicken. Yeah, so we made that last night. That's a hit. That's one of the ways to like sneak veggies in, but Cameron knows they're there, so we kind of talk about that openly with her. And I think as kids get older, it's a good practice to be open about food so they know what they're eating. And as you can see, she still likes it. So yeah, that was...

Sarah (22:58)
once upon a time

Camryn (23:01)
So let's give context. So for kids who think they don't like a food, right? Maybe they're saying, I don't like that food. What advice would you give to them?

Sarah (23:12)
Once I loved shrimp, but I didn't like it anymore.

Camryn (23:19)
So when you were two or three, you really liked it.

Sarah (23:21)
yeah I loved it but then I don't like it so I tried it again and I loved it it was so amazing again like I liked it

Camryn (23:33)
Yeah. Well, kudos to you for giving it another try, but that's kind of how it is with feeding kids. You know, they like things, they don't like things and they might like it again. You never know. And that's what happened to Cameron with shrimp. So if we have any kids listening, you should give it a try. Even if you think you don't like it, taste buds change and maybe mom or dad is cooking it up in a different way this time. We're serving it with a different side.

Sarah (23:43)
And then they might like it again.

lettuce but sometimes mom or spinach sometimes mom and dad just sneak it in like smoothies or sandwiches or stuff like that and I eat it without even noticing it's amazing

Camryn (24:20)
All right, I'm trying to think. Do we have anything else we want to share in this episode?

Sarah (24:25)
Well, we could do another one and show some more.

Camryn (24:28)
I think so. I think if you're listening and you have questions that you want Cameron and I to cover in a future episode about feeding kids or if you have challenges with feeding toddlers or kids, we would love to hear them so we can try to help. right, good. I think we gave them some good tips for summer snacks.

Sarah (24:43)
Yes, we would love to.

Question for you mommy. Do you like cold snacks like popsicles or warm ones like grilled cheese better in the summer?

Camryn (25:04)
Hmm. Well, I think I like popsicles better. What about you?

Sarah (25:08)
probably hot snacks are okay but when you have the cold breeze on

Camryn (25:16)
Yeah, grilled cheese is great in the winter with some tomato soup. Hannah's really starting to like grilled cheese now. We'll do some soup roundups in the fall and winter, I think.

Sarah (25:21)
yeah

I love chicken noodle soup.

yeah we can talk about that when it is fall out or winter if you have any questions sarah at bucket list tummy.com

Camryn (25:37)
you

Alright, please give us a rating and we'll see you next week. Thanks for being my guest, Cameron. That's it for today's show. I hope this episode helps you think about feeding your family and makes it a little bit easier. Please, please take a minute to rate the show on your podcast app or listen

Sarah (25:49)
You're welcome, Mom.