How to Control Summer Snacking

How to Control Summer Snacking

By Tiffany McAvoy

I love summer. I love the warmth, the sounds, the smells, and the fresh produce.

However, among those things are the dreaded words “I’m bored,” “I’m hungry,” “I’m thirsty.”

I finally decided I had to come up with a plan to lessen the number of times I heard those pleas from my kids throughout the day.

Here are some tips for easy snacking when the kids are home in the summer:

♦ Stock a drawer in the fridge with yogurt, cheese sticks, cottage cheese, and fresh fruit. I divided the fruit into individual servings and put them in baggies.

♦ Fill bottom shelf of the fridge with healthy drinks, water bottles, and juice boxes.

When my kids are hungry and thirsty, they are allowed to get anything they want from these sections in the fridge.

It benefits all of us, because I don’t have to stop what I’m doing to get them something, and I know they are eating healthy snacks.

I don’t forbid sugary foods, but I do want to monitor how much of it they eat.

I have a container in the cabinet filled with chips, cookies, beef jerky and chewy fruit snacks.

Like the fruit, divide the cookies and chips into individual serving sizes.

The kids are allowed to snack on these foods, but they have to ask before they can get in the “Sugar Snacks” cabinet.

This makes the food not taboo, but teaches them moderation and in turn helps them have a healthy relationship with food.

Tiffany McAvoy is the mother to Tristan, 20, Abby, 13, and Tori, 9. She is an elementary school teacher in Madison County and writes about her family’s adventures with food on her Facebook page “TOTEally TIFF.”