(10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare)

By Lisa Messinger
Food and Cooking at Creators Syndicate

When kidlets learn to prepare their own food it's a step toward life-long independence. A cool trick that's easy on the schedule and the wallet is teaching them how to create cold snacks on hot summer days. Good nutrition can easily be tucked into these fun treats as well. All ingredients are to taste.

Fun fare like this also proves food preparation can be easy, nutritious, inexpensive, fun - and fast. The creative combinations are delicious proof that everyone has time for creating homemade specialties and, more importantly, the healthy family togetherness that goes along with it!

Another benefit: You - and your kidlets - effortlessly become better cooks, since these are virtually-can't-go-wrong combinations. They can't help but draw "wows." 

• TROPICAL TREATS
  Preparing snacks also can be a way to teach kids about other topics, like geography and climate. The fun result can be a kid cooler that's a quick tropical mix of pineapple juice and coconut milk that's blended with a frozen banana for a summer smoothie


• GOING NUTS OVER NUT BUTTERS
  Teach kids to wash and dry celery, trim with adult supervision and fill the stalks with nut butters, like peanut, almond, cashew and hazelnut, and a drizzle of black and white sesame seeds (often rated the healthiest food of all) and perform a taste test to decide which butter they like best.


• THE DIP CHALLENGE
  Challenge kidlets to come up with their own healthful dips to serve with fresh vegetables and whole-grain chips. Bases might include nonfat Greek yogurt (higher in protein and lower in fat than many other yogurts), nonfat sour cream or fat-free salad dressings. Teach them about fresh herbs that might work well, such as mint, basil, thyme or mashed fruits that will add fun colors, like seedless watermelon or blueberries, as well as a drizzle of honey or molasses for sweetness.


• MIXING UP SEASONAL TRAIL MIX
  Kids often love trail mix. Teach them how it's made by giving it a lighter summer spin. Use golden raisins, dried cherries, and dried blueberries, along with dried banana chips, oats and other whole-grain cereals, such as strawberry flavored mini shredded wheat squares.

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK: Sometimes a book for one subject can provide universal help in the kitchen. The Complete Guide to Sushi & Sashimi by Jeffrey Elliot and Robby Cook features 625 step-by-step photographs with instructions. Many, though, translate well beyond the sushi bar. Just one example is opening clams; there are eight photos which teach that skill, including tips like the foot of a clam "tastes like the ocean, while the muscle is slightly sweet." Similarly, the Diabetes Rescue Diet by Mark Bricklin, former editor-in-chief of Prevention magazine, is jam-packed with health and cooking tips from the Mediterranean diet that research recommends, such as "one study found that a heart-healthy diet that included almonds lowered LDL cholesterol as much as a statin drug did."



Lisa Messinger  at Creators Syndicate is a first-place winner in food and nutrition writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Council Against Health Fraud and author of seven food books, including the best-selling The Tofu Book: The New American Cuisine with 150 Recipes (Avery/Penguin Putnam) and Turn Your Supermarket into a Health Food Store: The Brand-Name Guide to Shopping for a Better Diet(Pharos/Scripps Howard). She writes two nationally syndicated food and nutrition columns for Creators Syndicate and had been a longtime newspaper food and health section managing editor, as well as managing editor of Gayot/Gault Millau dining review company. Lisa traveled the globe writing about top chefs for Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service and has written about health and nutrition for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Reader's Digest, Woman's World and Prevention Magazine Health Books. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.