Healthy Snack of the Week: Popsicles and Frozen Treats

With summer upon us, there’s no better time to reach into the freezer for a popsicle or other sumptuous, refreshing, mouth-chilling treat.

This week’s Healthy Snack of the Week post offers some frozen treats that are a cut above the run-of-the-mill popsicle in your grocer’s freezer.

And, with little effort, they can be a healthy alternative for those with a sweet tooth.

Many fruit popsicles have added sugars. If you are buying your frozen treats, look for those made from 100 percent fruit juice and without sugar or sweeteners added.

Essentially, there are two types of frozen treats to consider: those made with yogurt and those that are strictly fruit.

For 100 percent fruit popsicles, Wesley Delbridge, registered dietitian nutritionist and national spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, passes along a simple recipe from the Chandler (Arizona) Unified School District Nutrition web site.

Utilizing a cup of 100 percent fruit juice, one and a half cups of frozen fruit and three-ounce Dixie cups to hold the mold, the recipe will make eight frozen treats.

Delbridge also suggests Natalie Monson’s recipe for FroYo (Frozen Yogurt) Bites at superhealthykids.com. It will make 10–12 frozen cubes, utilizing only a cup of plain yogurt, a cup of strawberries (for pink) or a cup of blackberries or blueberries (for purple).

“We love yogurt around our house,” Monson writes. “But we don’t love that fruit flavored yogurts are full of sugar, and sometimes my kids don’t like the chunks of fruit in the yogurt. So we came up with these FroYo Bites to make our own fruit-flavored yogurt that is delicious to everyone.

KidsHealth.org offers a recipe for frozen yogurt pops, high in calcium (approximately 262 mg) and coming in at 127 calories each. This recipe is for three to four pops and simple enough that older kids can prepare them on their own.

If you’re looking for fresh fruit pops on a stick, try blending a 20-ounce can of crushed pineapple, one banana, a half-cup of vanilla yogurt, a half-cup of ice and a half-cup of pineapple juice.

Have you made frozen pops? Do you have ideas for a frozen treat that you’d like to pass along? To share, please use the comments section below.

For previous Snack of the Week suggestions and more articles on healthy eating, visit Learning Liftoff’s food posts and view our recipes.

Featured Image – Jennifer Chait / CC by 2.0