Teach Kids about Food Science with these Hydrating Snacks!

A well-rounded education comes with understanding food nutrition and why certain foods are healthy to eat. With the summer heat on, it’s important to keep hydrated when outdoors. Yet drinking water is not the only way your family can keep cool. Since our team is all about teachable moments, introduce your kids to food science to learn about snacks that can help them beat the heat over summer break. Who knows, this may even spark an interest in future studies and careers in food chemistry, food technology or even food engineering. The following 5 snacks are pretty yummy too, so read on!

Watermelon

Watermelon is chock full of water, and also contains lycopene, vitamin C, and a small amount of dietary fiber! It’s such a fun food, and you can do so many great things with it. You can enjoy it just the way it is, you can cut it into wedges or popsicle shapes and freeze them for an extra-cooling treat, or you can even slice it into rounds and dab it with a gob of yogurt and some other bits of fruit for a fruity dessert pizza!

Cucumber

Did you know that cucumbers are 95% water? Because of the amount of water it contains, and how much energy it takes to heat up the water inside of it, cucumbers stay cooler on the inside even at room temperature. That’s why we say the phrase ‘cool as a cucumber’!

In addition to being a great snack to hydrate with, cucumbers have antioxidants and a lot of fiber in them. We just love adding slices of peeled cucumber to water to give it a spa-day flavour. But if you’re not a fan of cucumber water, you can also make lots of recipes like quick pickles or a slightly sweet cucumber salad.

Tomatoes

Do you know whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable? The answer is the tomato fruit itself is botanically a berry! Isn’t that weird? Tomatoes are super high in lycopene, but they’re also a great source of other nutrients including potassium and vitamins B and E. We think the perfect summer way to enjoy a beautifully ripe tomato is in your favourite sandwich, but Mozzarella and Tomato Salad is a close runner up.

Celery

When most people think about foods high in water, they might skip over celery. But a single cup of celery can have as much as 115g of water in it! It’s got so much fiber packed into it as well, both soluble and insoluble. For that reason, celery is also a great snack to pick up when you’ve got the urge to munch something crunchy instead of going for potato chips.

Celery makes a great portable snack with ants on a log! But we also love enjoying some crunchy celery with air-fried chicken wings for a quick and easy dinner. If your little ones aren’t fans of buffalo wings, you can dab the wings with BBQ sauce or simply season them with some garlic and herbs.

Peaches

While you won’t be able to get your hands on local peaches until around August, you might be able to find some early peaches (and its close kin nectarines) in the grocery stores already. But make sure you don’t buy them unless they smell ripe, because too-green peaches are just a world of disappointment.

Peaches have a whopping 85% water content in them, and they’re also a good source of vitamins A and C. A ripe peach is something almost too good to ruin by putting it in something else! But a fresh peach gelato is probably the next best thing.

We hope you have a wonderfully busy and active summer! Don’t forget to protect yourself with adequate sunscreen when you go outdoors, and of course, stay hydrated!