What’s your nephew’s favorite snack food? Could it be peanut butter?

As allergies rise and schools ban peanut butter, we have to feel grateful if our nieces and nephews can eat the stuff. Peanut butter provides an easy and nutritious snack in a pinch.

Peanut butters like Skippy and Kraft are packed with sugar (and icing sugar! Yuck!). It’s worth trying to get your niece or nephew to taste a more natural and preferably organic peanut butter over commercial peanut butter. I’m not so sure all the excellent peanut protein outweighs the sugar overload of the popular brands. There might also be a concern over pesticides used to grow the peanuts.

Once you’ve found your favorite kind of peanut butter, here are a couple quick classic peanut butter snack ideas:

Peanut butter celery sticks
If the thought of this makes you cringe, you’ve never lived! Try out this simple snack next time you are visiting with your niece or nephew.

-Organic Celery
-Natural Peanut Butter
-Raisins
    
Wash and cut your celery into three-inch chucks.

(Celery is considered one of the Dirty Dozen. The veggie doesn’t have protective skin which makes is pretty much impossible to wash off pesticides. Going organic with celery is essential to making this a healthy snack.)

Spread a generous amount of peanut butter into the groove of each piece of celery.
Press a couple raisins into the peanut butter. I tell my nieces and nephews the raisins are frogs sitting on a log and this seems to make them pretty happy. This snack goes well with a couple of apple slices on the side.

Peanut Butter and Banana
These two foods were made to be eaten together! Thinly slice a few pieces of banana and throw them on top of a piece of peanut-buttered whole grain toast. Who could resist?

Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches
These little snacks are perfect if you are planning on spending the day out and about with the kids. Prepare them ahead of time, let them cool, and carry them in your back when they start to feel a little peckish.

Check out this delicious Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches recipe by Naturally Savvy contributor Lisa Odergard.

Peanuts are very high in protein and that can be especially helpful if your niece recently decided she wants to give vegetarianism a try. There are 25 grams per 100 gram serving of protein alone. Peanut butter also contains niacin (B3) and vitamin D.

Some people stay away from natural peanut butter because it’s generally drier than the creamy stuff we find at the supermarket. But peanut butter was meant to be sticky, and it’s nothing a fresh glass of milk won’t fix.

Bottoms up!

Andrea Donsky and Randy Boyer are co-founders of NaturallySavvy.com.

Published: December 22, 2010