■l4—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, May 26,1984
I
Snacks can be fun
end nutritious
BY SUZANNE KEENE
LANCASTER With summer
vacation rapidly approaching, now
is a good time to start planning
some nutritious snacks for those
hot, sticky afternoons when your
child comes to you with a hungry
tummmy.
While serving traditional junk
foods might be the quickest and
easiest way of satisfying your
child’s cries for a snack, it
probably isn’t the best way.
Before you reach in the
refrigerator and pull out a soda or
serve your little ones candy bars
and cookies, stop to think about
their daily nutritional needs and
the damage that sugar can do to
their teeth.
Your child needs a varied diet
with foods from each of the four
food groups: Meat, fish, poultry
eggs or other protein equivalents;
Milk and dairy products; Fruits
and vegetables; and Breads and
cereals. There’s no need to give
your child empty calories -
calories that contain little or no
food value • at snack time. You can
serve a variety of tasty snacks that
will contribute essential vitamins
and minerals to his diet.
A quick look inside your pantry
and refrigerator will probably
yield most of the ingredients you
need to prepare a quick, nutritious
snack. Peanut butter, dried milk,
and fresh fruits and vegetables are
some, but certainly not all, of the
things you can use.
Just because the snack is a
nutritious one, doesn’t mean that it
won’t taste good or that it won’t be
fun to prepare. A child can help
prepare the snacks listed below
that were designed with kids in
mind. The next time your child
comes to you for a snack, try one of
the following recipes from 4-H.
BUGS ON A LOG
3 stalks celery
1 grated carrot
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 tablespoon nonfat dry milk
24 raisins
Wash the celery and cut into 3-
inch sections. Scrub and grate the
carrot. Mix the peanut butter, dry
milk and carrot in a small bowl.
Use a knife to stuff celery with
mixture. Place two raisins on top.
Serve with a glass of milk.
SUPER APPLE SANDWICH
1 apple, sliced and cored
1 tablespoon nonfat dry milk
2 tablespoons peanut butter
Wash the apple. Mix dry milk
and peanut butter in a small bowl.
Slice the apple into four sections.
Remove the core. Spread mixture
over one slice and top with
another. Makes two sandwiches
Serve with a glass of milk
XM>\
f j.
A NEST OF GOLD
2 cups finely grated carrots
V* cup raisins plumped in lemon
juice
1 tablespoon lemon juice
V* cup salad dressing or mayon
naise
3 or 4 grapes, berries, peanuts or
cottage cheese
4 crisp lettuce leaves
Combine raisins and lemon juice
in a small dish. Wash, scrub and
carefully grate carrots. Combine
carrots, raisins and dressing in a
bowl and chill. Place Vi cup of the
carrot mixture on a crisp lettuce
leaf on a plate. Shape the carrots
into little nests. Wash grapes or
berries, shell peanuts or shape
cottage cheese with a small spoon.
Put “eggs” into the nests. Serve
with crackers and a drink.
STRAWBERRY FLOAT
% cup strawberries, fresh or
frozen
1 tablespoon sugar
1% cup milk
2 scoops ice cream
Place strawberries into a mixing
bowl and mash. Add sugar and stir
until dissolved. Put mixture into
jar. Add milk and close the lid
tightly. Shake until foamy. Pom
half of the mixture into each glass.
Top with a scoop of ice cream. A
banana float is just as good. Use a
small banana.
Strawberries and Readiness
It’s soon the time of year to put
on your shorts or an old pair of
jeans, find those little wooden
boxes and head for the garden. It’s
strawberry picking time.
Picking strawberries wasn’t
always my favorite Job. However,
as I’ve gotten older I seem to
appreciate the rich Lancaster
County earth, full of healthy
growing things (weeds included).
One thing I learned early was
that you pick only the ripe
strawberries the “ready” ones.
You never pick the green and white
ones. You always keep them at
tached to the vine until they’re
ready. That’s the way nature
works! The first strawberries
always are delectable, but it
doesn’t mean they are always
better. They are just ready sooner.
A child can easily prepare many
of these recipes, but before he
begins his project, make sure he’s
familiar with the following list of
cooking tips for kids from Betty
Crocker.
• Wear an apron and wash your
hands.
• Read the recipe all the way
through.
• Take out all the pans and utensils
you will need.
• Take out all ingredients and
measure them.
By Michelle S. Rodgers
Lancaster Extension
Home Economist
You can’t rush growth,
strawberries need the gift of time.
It is fairly easy to understand
readiness when we are talking
strawberries. It is always harder
to understand readiness when we
think about children. As children
grow and develop the readiness
questions change from: When is
the right time to expect my child to
walk, talk, read or be toilet
trained? Older children bring
questions such as, when is my child
ready to handle certain respon
sibilities, to date, to drive? Maybe
understand readiness in children is
more difficult to understand
because we are emotionally in
volved. We are not emotionally
involved with strawberries.
New experiences can contribute
to building confidence and security
in a child. Exposing children to
new experiences prepares a child
for new growth and new abilities.
Having new experiences such as
going to nursery school, visiting a
grocery store, or trying a new
game will help a child develop
more confidence. This is true if we
accept and respect the child’s level
of readiness for each experience.
The need to understand and accept
your child’s readiness for an ex
perience is as important with
everday experiences as with new
experiences.
Children can’t be ready before
they’re ready. It is just another
law of nature.
Children and strawberries may
• Be sure your mother is in the
kitchen when you cook.
• Ask your mother to help you use
sharp knives, can opener, electric
mixer or broiler.
• Ask her to measure and pour
very hot liquids for you.
• When you pare vegetables,
always point the sharp edge of the
knife away from your hands.
• When you chop or slice foods, use
a wooden cutting board.
Today's family is changing,
but not falling apart
ITHACA, NY Many people
point to the divorce rate in this
country and the number of women
working outside the home, and
conclude that the American family
is falling apart.
In fact, though, a smaller
proportion of today’s children live
in single-parent homes than in the
past, and the number of marriages
being disrupted actually has
declined, according to Edward
Kain, an assistant professor of
human development and family
studies at Cornell University.
Rather than concluding that
current trends signal a demise of
the American family, Kain is more
positive. He views family changes
in a context that includes the past.
“We live in a world of rapid
change. It is not surprising that
families have been changing in
response to the world around
them,” Kain says. “To understand
problems that face families in
contemporary America, it’s im
portant to understand families in
the past.”
The divorce rate, for example,
has increased, but the mortality
rate of middle-aged parents has
decreased. In 1900, one in four
children had a parent die before
the child reached 15 years of age; -
in 1976, only one in 20 children
experienced the death of a parent
before reaching the same age.
“While increases in the divorce
not be awfully different. Unripe
strawberries don’t make sweet
jam or sell well at market, just as
unready children cannot do well
in some situations.
To achieve the goal of developing
secure, happy people, we must be
aware of a child’s level of
readiness and accept the stage of
ripening that the child is in.
Now, how about taking that box
of strawberries and making some
strawberry shortcake we’re all
ready for that!
The Extension Service is an
affirmative action equal op
portunity education institution.
• When you’re through cooking,
wash your dishes, put them away,
wash the counters and leave the
kitchen clean and neat. Make sure
the range and the oven are turned
off.
These are just a few suggestions
for nutritious snacks that kids can
make. With a little thought, you'll
probably be able to invent some
new ones of your own.
rate have indeed meant that more
children live in families of divorce,
a smaller proportion of today’s
children live with one parent
because mortality rates have
declined so drastically,” Kain
explains.
Similarly, although more
couples divorce today, fewer
spouses actually experience
disrupted marriages, also due to
the declining mortality rate. In
1900, seven out of every 10
marriages were interrupted by
death or divorce within the first 40
years of marriage. In 1976, despite
the large increases in the divorce
rate, only six in 10 marriages were
disrupted.
“Thus, there actually has been a
decline in the number of people
who suffer the trauma of marital
disruption,” Kain states. “The
difference today is that marriages
are much more likely to end in
divorce than in death of one of the
partners.”
The entire context of marriages
has also changed, Kain says. A
woman born in 1786 spent about
seven married years with no
children in the household. A
woman bom in 1890 spent about 18
child-free years of marriage. A
typical woman today, however,
can expect more than 30 years of
marriage with no children in the
household.
“Marriage clearly means
something different today,” Kain
says. “It involves much more time
spent in an interpersonal
relationship with only one other
person. Thus, the meaning of
divorce is very different than it
was in the past.”
Some people claim that
American families are in trouble
because they no longer hold the
traditional family values of the
past. Kain believes that this is an
unrealistic representation of the
past.
“Our image of families in the
past often is based upon myth; we
tend to idealize yesteryear’s
(Turn to Page B 15)