Don’t Be Nutty

Accepting the fact that kids can’t eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at school anymore is a sad reality of modern day motherhood.

Our kids can’t bring anything with nuts in it to school—or anything that was made in a factory where nuts have been processed. It’s a part of life now and everyone is responsible and accountable, not just the parents of the children with the life-threatening allergy.

The real challenge lies in the snack though—not the sandwich. These days our time is limited, so making healthy and nutritious snacks from scratch is as tough as finding a healthy, pre-made nut-free snack in the store.

So if you like to know exactly what goes into the snack you’re sending, try some make-at-home time-trusted faves like:

• Fruit—slice, dice, cube or cut into balls and sprinkle a bit of lemon juice on top to stop from browning (this works especially well for apples and pears). Keep seasonal fruits in mind. Mandarins are great this time of year and peel into sections for easy access.
• Yogurt is not just for breakfast anymore. Send a mini tub in the lunch bag with a small ice pack to keep fresh, or freeze yogurt tubes in advance. They will be the perfect temperature by snack or lunch time.
• Small cheese snacks are always popular with dairy lovers. Pack some BabyBels or cheese strings for them—they are fun to play with, too.
• Popcorn is a classic favourite. Pop it at home and send in snack-sized containers.
• Always think ‘mini’ when appealing to the mini people. Mini bagels and mini pitas stuffed with something healthy (like hummus, bean dip or cheese) will keep small tummies filled.

• There is no shortage of homemade muffin recipes available. Whether the recipes come from SavvyMom or you add your own fresh fruit to a store-bought mix like a nut-free Quaker muffin mix. We like to mash up bananas or slice some apples and mix them in before baking for a nice chewy texture.
• For a super healthy crispy rice square recipe, try this version courtesy of Lianne Philipson Webb’s recipe book, Sprout Right. It’s full of great ideas.

If store-bought is for you, but you find yourself spending too much time in the snack aisle looking for peanut-free labels, here’s what you need to know:

• Look for labels that have the ‘no peanut’ symbol on the front. That means they were made in a peanut-free facility and they are safe. Even your kids will recognize it.
• President’s Choice has a lot of good options in their range of snack foods. We like the mini-chefs Funshine biscuits that are made with whole wheat and come in single serve packs, as well as the whole wheat, cheddar-flavoured Little Penguins Snack Crackers.
• Dare makes a mean Bear Paw Soft Cookie that comes in lots of different flavours (banana bread and chocolate brownie are our faves).
• Dried fruit is another good nut-free choice. Dried mangoes are one of the most popular choices for kids since they are really sweet. Apricots are good, too (raisins are so 1985).

For the die hard PB&J moms, there are a host of soy butter alternatives to peanut butter available these days. When combined with sliced bananas or fruity jam, they taste pretty good and are jam (pun intended) packed full of protein. Just remember to send the sandwich to school with a note to teacher so they know that tasty butter is nut-free.

Remember, you are what you eat. So go nuts, but just save them for when you’re at home.