Last year I wrote about Mom's thoughts on team snacks for kids in rec sports. A few people posted comments. Some agreed that healthier snack options like fruit, vegetables and water are a good fit at kids sport. Other people believed that a treat at games or practice is no big deal. Over the year, I've continued the discussion about snacks for kids in sports and two common themes stood out...
Here are the top two comments I heard about healthy options at kids' sports:
1) Most parents and coaches (coaches are parents too!) agree that healthy options at team sports are a good idea but they don't think kids will eat them.
Is it true that kids won't eat healthy options? A Mom in Listowel with 2 kids in sports put this notion to the test. With support from the coaches, she coordinated snack sign up for her kids' teams and asked the parents who signed up to only bring vegetables and/or fruit for snack. The result: kids ate the vegetables and fruit and none of them complained! At the end of the season, some of the parents that signed up to bring the veggie and fruit snack admitted that they really didn't think it would be so well-received by the players. Because it went over so well, the coach is doing the same snack program this season.
Other Moms shared similar stories - when it was their turn to bring snack they brought fruit and the kids ate it all.
2) Healthy options are a good idea but they take time to prepare and cost more.
I agree that there are some veggie and fruit options that take time to prep. I don't believe that healthier options are always more expensive so I did some cost comparisons to find out if this was true. What I discovered is that the cost of healthier options is comparable to many prepackaged snacks. The items I priced are below. The cost is the amount you'd pay to give one serving to each child on a team of 10-12 kids. The costs are based on regular priced items a major grocery store chain.
Vegetables, Fruit and Water Packaged Snacks
Water ... free! Fruit juice or fruit drinks....$3.99
Bananas ....$1.77 Store-bought mini-muffins ... $3.99
Cucumber ...$1.94 Freezies .... $4.50
Watermelon ...$2.99 Pop/Iced tea ...$5.89
Apples ....$3.99 Individual cookie packs ...$5.98
Cantaloupe ....$3.99 Granola bars...$6.38
Ready-to-eat mini carrots ...$3.99 Fruit roll-ups ...$6.98
Orange wedges...$4.44 Sports drinks...$9.99
If you'd like the complete list of veg and fruit snack ideas with the cost comparison that was put together, send us a message. And, if you're a Coach and you're thinking about having healthier snack options for your players, we've got some information that you might be interested in too.
We'd like to hear from you if you're a Mom with kids in sports and you've brought fruit or vegetables when it was your turn to bring the team snack. Let us know how it went.
Michele, RD
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