It can be challenging to encourage healthy eating habits on the road where it can be only too easy to reach for chips and cookies, especially on vacation. When doing your RV trip planning, keep these healthy snack ideas in mind for your kids!
Homemade Fruit Leathers
Better than the candied fruit rolls you find at the store that are full of artificial flavors, colors, and excessive sugars, homemade fruit leathers make excellent kids’ snacks on the road! You can get creative with what you put in them, ask your kids what they’d like. Apple cinnamon? Guava with shredded coconut? Yum! Thanks to Abigail R. Gehring for the recipe!
Tools
- Oven preheated to 140 degrees
- 13 x 15 inch cookie sheet with edges
- Plastic wrap
- Blender or food processor
- Rotary pizza cutter
Ingredients
- 2 cups fruit
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- ¼ cup of honey
Directions
Preheat oven to 140 degrees. Core, peel, and remove seeds from fruit, then dice. Put diced fruit, lemon juice, and honey into blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Line the bottom and sides of your cookie sheet with plastic wrap and then pour on the fruit blend. Spread the fruit blend evenly over the surface. Put your cookie sheet in the oven and let it dry at 140 degrees for up to 18 hours. You know it’s done when you poke the leather in the middle and no indentation is left behind. When it’s done, immediately use a pizza cutter to cut the leather into strips, peel them up off the plastic wrap, and roll them up while they’re still warm. Let the rolls cool and then wrap them in plastic and they’re good to go!
Low-Sugar Granola Bars
By controlling the amount of sugar and varying the ingredients you can make granola with wide ranges of nutritional content for your kids. This low-sugar granola bar gets its sweetness from bananas and honey instead of brown sugar and syrup. They’re super easy to make in an RV and you can even make some ahead of time to freeze until you hit the road. Thanks to Lex Hosh at Cooks.com for the recipe!
Tools
- Oven preheated to 350 degrees
- Two large bowls
- 9 x 12 inch cake pan, greased
Ingredients
- 2 cups dry oatmeal
- 2 cups of assorted nuts and dried fruit pieces
- ⅓ cup chocolate chips (optional)
- 3 ripe bananas
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp. honey
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In one large bowl, combine nuts and dried fruit pieces with oatmeal and chocolate chips (if using them). In other bowl, mash up the bananas and mix in the honey and egg until smooth. Mix the banana mixture in with the oatmeal mixture and stir until everything is coated evenly. Press the mixture into the greased cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until the edges are brown. Let it cool, cut the bars, and either eat or freeze them until you’re ready to go on your trip!
For more ideas on how to travel well, read our other RV travel guides at the Gilbert RV Insurance blog. We also have valuable resources to help you with your RV trip planning and offer a wide range of insurance products to keep you safe on your journey!