The Power of Dipping

• Buy a pack of tiny paper cups to fill with a delicious, wholesome dip made of light cream cheese and french onion soup mix. Accompany the dip with baby carrots and sugar snap peas.

  Slice up pieces of whole wheat pita bread, or use whole grain crackers and provide a cup of hummus for dipping.

  Low-fat ranch dressing tastes good on just about any vegetable. Low-fat yogurt is inexpensive and tastes great with pre-sliced apples.

A Happier Trail Mix

• Make your own trail mix with whole grain crackers or pretzels, raisins, yogurt chips, dried cranberries, dried bananas and sunflower seeds. You can avoid nuts altogether in case of allergies.

Smoothies

• Buy frozen fruit in bulk. Make sure it has no added sugar. You can add fruit or carrot juice and vanilla yogurt. Whir it in a blender until it's well combined. Pour a half of a cup into a small paper cup for each child. This gives them at least two servings of fruit and one of vegetable if you used carrot juice.