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Best Low Sugar Food for Kids on a Road Trip

Updated on July 18, 2019
Lady Lorelei profile image

Mother of 2 daughters and grandmother of 7, I strive daily to achieve an optimum level of health and happiness. Life is all about balance.

Bananas are excellent fruits to serve up on a road trip.
Bananas are excellent fruits to serve up on a road trip.

Keep Your Back Seat Passengers a Little Quieter This Trip

Kids have a whole lot of energy to begin with but just add sugar and ask them to sit still for a couple of hours in a confined space and see what happens.

It really isn't a pretty picture and restless bored kids is exactly what usually happens on most family road trips. Vacations that involve traveling for more than an hour or two can quickly turn into a nightmare if you have restless kids.

Well this trip let's limit their sugar and see if that helps out a bit. This is a listing of some of the best sugar free breakfast and snack food for your children's next road trip.

Most of the Food Prep Should be Done the Night Before

You are off on a road trip in a couple of days and you are thinking that the frightening image of the kids going clinically insane in the back seat of the car is exactly what is not going to happen this time.

"Nope not this vacation. The kids are not going to be riding on a sugar high this trip."

Well with a little planning you could be right. The day before your big trip is the time to chop and package the snacks your kids will be chowing down on when you hit the road. Preplanning gives you the perfect opportunity to insure their snacks are healthy and virtually sugar free.

Hot or cold pizza it is an ideal kid food morning, noon, or night.
Hot or cold pizza it is an ideal kid food morning, noon, or night. | Source

It Begins with Breakfast Before You Hit The Road

Breakfast is another meal that has to be added into the equation as well. The morning of the trip you are rushing around the house getting the last minute details taken care of so it can be all too easy to toss a quick sugar filled breakfast cereal into the kids.

Those precious minutes that are so scarce when you are preparing for a road trip can seem to fly by very quickly in the AM. It can be easy to give in and take the easy route but the problem is that as soon as you hit the road the sugar will kick in and you will have the kids bouncing up and down in the back seat like ping pong balls gone wild in a wind tunnel.

A good breakfast for the kids before a road trip is vital which means that eliminating sugary foods is important. No sweetened cereal, no oatmeal because you can't have it without adding brown sugar, no fruit or jam (high in natural sugars), no pancakes and syrup and absolutely no fruit juice.

Cereal is quick, easy, and kids generally love it but stick to the non-sweetened varieties.
Cereal is quick, easy, and kids generally love it but stick to the non-sweetened varieties.

So What Do You Fix the Kids for Breakfast?

Breakfast gets narrowed down to a few choice options. Milk or water for their morning beverage and for the main fare eggs and toast, bacon and toast, yogurt, or leftover pizza.

Wondering how that pizza got to be leftover? You are going to order pizza for supper the night before your road trip because that frees you up time to get the packing done. Rather than ordering just one pie though you are going to go for the two to four pizza deal. Many pizza places offer a "Two Pizza Deal" and it reduces the cost of the second and subsequent pizzas substantially.

Pizza for supper is one choice that saves you a lot of work and not only on the morning that you will be leaving but also on the night before the trip. Pizza for supper and any leftover pizza will go into the fridge to become a quick and easy breakfast the next morning.

You rarely have to fight with kids to get them to consume pizza. Any and all food items classified as finger food are generally well liked by kids of all ages.

How to Pack Healthy Fun Food For Children of All Ages

No Sweet Snacks While You Are on The Road

The picnic basket sitting on the floor of the car should be filled with a delightful array of finger foods. Fried chicken, sandwiches, bananas, carrot sticks, celery sticks or small packages filled with raisins, nuts, cheese squares and bite sized pieces of sausage are ideal for munchies on the road.

Pre-make zip lock baggies filled with a variety of munchies and finger foods the afternoon before your trip. Fortunately bite size pieces of food can be time consuming to munch out on and this can actually help to keep your kids busy while they are on a long car trip.

Pack plenty of zip lock bags filled with snack foods to keep the kids busy in between meals. Bags filled with buttered popcorn and other baggies filled with a variety of protein rich nuts are ideal road snack food for children. Note: If kids play with their food while they eat it then that food also becomes a time occupier. AKA: Amusement for kids on the road trip.

Marching along a miniature train track at the Cranbrook Rail Museum
Marching along a miniature train track at the Cranbrook Rail Museum

Yes Juice is Healthy But Save it Till You Are Off The Road

The juice boxes that usually go along on road trips can be replaced with bottles of water or small individual milk jugs. Yep, this road trip keep the kids juice free to help keep natural sugars to a minimum. It can be surprising where sweets hide.

Children on sugar are rowdy and the car is no place to have them attempting to burn off that excess energy. If you can manage to keep your kids sweet free then there will be no sugar crazed munchkins bouncing around in the back seat this trip.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2014 Lorelei Cohen

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