How to Shop for Healthy Snacks

A recent study on Australian children has found that children and adolescents consume more energy from low nutrient, calorie-dense foods than any other age-group, with the average child receiving 3 unhealthy snacks in their lunch box each day.

Nutrition experts recommend that parents should pack just one packaged snack each day in their lunch box. It is also recommended that this snack is either a wholegrain snack (such as a muesli bar) or dairy-based (such as yoghurt) or a fruit based snack.

Tips for best packed snacks:

• Energy: Choose a snack with 600kJ or less
• Sugar: Some sugars occur naturally in foods such as milk or fruit. To check for any ‘added’ sugar, check the ingredients list. If sugar is one of the first two ingredients listed, it is likely to be high in sugar
• Fat: It is more important to look for the TYPE of fat. Look for snacks that have less than 2g of saturated fat per serve
• Sodium (Salt): Check the nutrition label for less than 100mg of salt per serve.

Healthy Snack Ideas (Meets at least 3 of the above criteria)

The following snacks are available at most supermarkets and are suitable for children and adults.

Wholegrain snacks

• Carman’s muesli bar ‘bites’ or ‘rounds’ (346kJ)
• Uncle Tobys muesli bars (average 560kJ)
• Ski D’lite apple and pear bars (363kJ)
• Nestle milo cereal bar (334kJ)
• Real McCoy air popped corn (439kJ)
• A row of rice crackers (415kJ)
• Small tin of baked beans – no added salt (460kJ)
• Wholegrain crackers or vegetable sticks with salsa, hummus, low fat tzatziki or natural yoghurt

Dairy based snacks

• 100g tub of Vaalia (French Vanilla 425kJ) or Ski D’lite yoghurt (Vanilla crème 379kJ)
• Pauls The Wiggles Yoghurt with Real Fruit Strawberry (369kJ)
• Yoplait Go-Gurt Yoghurt Tubes Strawberry (307kJ)
• Aunty Betty’s creamed rice (417kJ)
• Reduced fat cheese sticks or cubes

Fruit based snacks

• Whole fresh fruit (250-350kJ)
• Coles Farmland or Goulburn Valley or Sweet Valley Two Fruits in Juice (330kJ)
• Golden Circle or SPC Fruit Salad (335kJ)
• Golden circle Splurtz Apple and Strawberry Fruit Puree (283kJ)
• SPC fruit snacks two fruits in strawberry jelly (376kJ)