One of the changes we’ve made at our house to be a little more healthy is to have healthier snack options. Yes, I love Cheetos. However, I know that there are approximately 2,463,910 healthier snacks. We’ve been keeping Pretzel Crisps (we like the “Everything” flavor) and Nut Thins to eat with cheese, and tons of fruit as our preferred snacks. (Unless I’ve recently made those spiced pumpkin muffins from Against All Grain. Then all bets are off.)

My kids love the fruit. And I don’t mean a little bit. They are fruit nuts (see what I did there?) and so a trip to the grocery store is colorful and fresh and often. We buy berries of all kinds (twice as much if they’re on sale), grapes, bananas, apples, plums, and anything else the looks good or is cheap.

Today the grocery trip wore them out, so I had a double nap (WIN!) to do a little more to the fruit than usual. Often, I only have time to throw it in the fridge, and then I’m distracted doing something else. But since I had time today, I decided to take the fruit snacking thing to the next level.

I took the blueberries, strawberries and grapes we bought and gave them a vinegar rinse. I got this ideal from my mom… apparently a vinegar rinse kills bacteria that causes fruit to mold after a few days. Her “recipe” is 1/4 cup white vinegar for every gallon of water. My “recipe” is put the fruit in a bowl of water, dribble some white vinegar in there, and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Seems to work just as well.

The next thing I did was to semi-prepare the fruit so that when my kids want some, I can just toss it in a bowl for them and it’s ready. I cut the tops off all the strawberries, pulled the grapes off the stems, and even quartered a small bowl of them (J can’t eat them whole yet). Blueberries are, well, ready. Obviously.

All of this took me about half an hour, but I was also doing some dishes and talking on the phone, so I didn’t feel like it was wasted. And now J is eating his bowl of quartered grapes and I’m blogging about it, instead of quartering them now!

What are some healthy snacks you like munching on? Do your kids love fruit as much as mine do?