My son is turning 8 - which, in our family, means he gets a birthday party. We're having it at the rec center, which means that it will be active, and I feel good about that.

But I am having a problem with the food thing. I am frequently at the rec center when they have kids' parties, and I see cake, cookies, chips, tons of candy, pop, etc. I have yet to see ANY snakcs that are remotely healthy. I think I am going to have to concede the cake, but I don't want to be part of the culture that perpetuates this obesity cycle. On the other hand, I don't want my sweet little son to be the weird one whose mom forced everyone to eat carrots at his party. Isn't there a middle ground?

Please - I would love ideas on what I can feed those munchkins that they will love, but won't make me feel like a drug pusher.

I would give them choices. Have a veggie tray, but also one bowl of chips.

Sloppy Joes can be healthy--we use 1 pound of ground beef & 1 pound of ground turkey, and then 1 can of regular Manwich & 1 can of Manwich Bold.

A veggie tray & some dip, a fruit salad, a bowl of chips, and a birthday cake?

Drinks can be Kool-Aid?

For fruit salad, kids love when you use maraschino cherries in it. (Drain them & rinse to get most of the sugar off)

I have an idea about cake. Do cup-cakes. If he like chocolate I have a very rich, very easy, and low fat recipe:

1 box store bought cake mix
1 (15 oz.?) can pumpkin puree
1 cup water
1/4 c. egg substitute (optional)

mix all together until smooth. Batter will be thick. Follow the temp. and time directions on the box. You can do a cake but I recommend making 24 cup-cakes, there only 1 WW point each, not sure of the calories. You could buy different frosting's and sprinkles and things and let the kids decorate them if and how they want. Also the pumpkin adds a ton of Vitamin A and you can't even taste it! I make these all the time and wrap them individually in plastic wrap so they're like the 100-cal. packs that I can't afford to buy.

Great suggestions, PrettyFace.

And, Littlebig - I'm so glad you mentioned that. I tried that not too long ago with the reduced sugar devil's food cake mix. It was SO good. Not healthy enough to eat the unlimited quantities that I wanted after having a small bite, but a HUGE improvement over regular cake. How could that have slipped my mind? Now - any genius ideas for frosting?

I don't actually have a recipe but what about a cream cheese frosting using non- or reduced fat cream cheese and Splenda. You could add food coloring for fun. I've never liked frosting much so I'm not the best to ask. You could try looking on RecipeZaar.com. It's free and I've found some really good recipe's there.

Cream cheese frosting, maybe? You could mix low fat cream cheese with splenda? Could flavour it with a dash of a flavour essence, or else add some unsweetened cocoa?

Chipolatas wrapped with bacon - these aren't too bad, or chicken drumsticks? Or bits of chicken on a stick, satay-style? I'd go for fruit as finger food, probably, rather than fruit salad - slices of watermelon, fresh strawberries, that kind of thing? How 'bout mini-pizzas? You could do something with a more low-carb base?

edited to add:

HA! Crosspost!

i got this really neat idea off familyfun's website. a sandwich on a stick. i can't imagine they would be that expensive either. you just get the kabob stikcs, bread, cheese, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, pickle and optional olive. cut them up and assemble. kids will dig it. or put fruit on the stick and have a yogurt dipping sauce. very cool.

Are you doing a meal or just snack foods?
Fruit is always a winner. What about apple slices with lowfat caramel dip? Cheese cubes, pretzels, Sun chips...

I found a recipe that I thought sounded cute and kids might eat ....fruity mice

CUT A PEAR IN HALF COVER IT IN WHITE CHOCOLATE PUT HALF OF A CHOCOLATE BUTTON FOR EARS PUT IN FRIDGE WHEN HARD WITH MILK CHOCOLATE DO EYES PUT LACE ON AS TAILAND COVER IN SWEETS

These are one of my dbf's personal favorites
1.Made-Over Pigs-In-A-Blanket
Pigs-In-A-Blanket is standard party-fare, especially for kids! The only problem with Pigs-In-A-Blanket is that it doesn't tend to be very healthy at all, but that doesn't have to be the case. To boost the health content of your party time Pigs-In-A-Blanket use either all-beef nitrate free hot dogs, nitrate free turkey hot dogs, or veggie hot dogs. Cut the hot dogs into 4 pieces to make the party treats "tiny" and wrap in Pillsbury Cresent Rolls, then bake according to the package directions. Pillsbury Cresent Rolls aren't the healthiest bread product you can wrap your Pigs-In-a-Blanket in, but they are the quickest! For an even healthier party-time Pigs-In-A-Blanket, make your own whole wheat bread sticks from scratch and wrap the dogs in them.


5.Pretzel Coated Chicken "Strips"
While regular chicken strips are usually fried and therefore laden with fat, Pretzel Coated Chicken "Strips" are a more healthy yet party-friendly option. Cut boneless, skinless chicken breast into strips and dip into one egg white mixed with water. Then dip into crushed pretzels to coat. Bake the chicken "strips" in the oven at 375 for about 30 minutes or until cooked, and serve with honey-mustard dip or Organic ketchup.

.Fruit Skewers and Yogurt Dip
Tiny fruit skewers with yogurt dip are a fun party food that kids (and adults) can enjoy. To assemble the tiny fruit skewers purchase plastic colorful toothpicks and thread fruit on them. Fruit can include any color seedless grapes, honeydew balls, cantaloupe balls, watermelon balls, small cubes of pineapple, and slices of Clementine oranges. The yogurt dip is simply Low-Fat Vanilla yogurt, but check the sugar contents on each brand of yogurt before you decide which one to buy for your dip, some yogurts can have very high amounts of sugar

4.Veggie "Flowers"
Most kids won't go for a vegetable tray at a party, but they might be more willing to eat their vegetables if they are set out creatively! Design vegetable flowers made of carrot sticks, celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, raw broccoli, and raw cauliflower. Design each flower on a separate kid-sized plate, and set a small cup of low-fat ranch dressing in the middle for dipping. Kids may be much more willing to eat the vegetables at the party if they each have their own little "flower" complete with their own portion of dip!


Hopefully this is helpful

ETA: What I did was good healthy kids party food and it came up with a lot of good sites to try

ETA2: One recipe that I saw that would make cupcakes a little less messy is to get the flat bottomed ice cream cone and pour the mix in there and then bake. Dunno how it would work, but it might be a nifty idea

All great suggestions! I don't have any kids myself so I'm not 100% sure what would go over well. I do know that kids like easy eating suff (hence all of the chips and stuff at b-day parties). What about trail mix, minus the nuts of course? Hot dogs with chicken weiners? I love the fruit tray suggestion! Do you normally do ice-cream? If so, you could switch it to frozen yogurt.

Parties that I have been to it doesn't seem like the kids eat very much anyway, the snacks are half uneaten anyway because they are too busy doing other stuff. Probably less will be more in this case unless you plan on having a sit down lunch. The last b-day party ds went to the mom put out bowls of chips, a veggie tray, a fruit tray, bottles of water and pitchers of apple juice. Then they had the cake which my ds only ate about 2 bites.

I'm going to agree with Jen on this one. I was just this last Saturday at my niece's 8th birthday party. There was tons of food and only the grown-ups eating. The kids would take a couple of bites and be off to play... so less is probably just as well. The kids won't even notice!

The fruit tray (my niece and nephew love strawberries and seedless grapes) is a great idea... maybe some pretzels instead of potato chips. For cupcake frosting, try cookinglight.com. There recipes are usually pretty good.

Have fun!

Just a thought -- my son had cupcakes for his birthday, but I pushed them all together and frosted them that way, so I could write Happy Birthday Christopher on them and it looked like a cake.

I would think anything they could make themselves they would like -- maybe some type of cracker with pizza toppings, I made a jello fish bowl ounce with gummy fish/worms "floating" in it in a new fish bowl (have the recipe if you want it), I also have a cake recipe where you actually cut out the center of the cake, fill it with blue jello and make a lake with swimmers out of it. And, a fruit salad inside 1/2 a watermelon is cool too!

Good luck!!!

What about tea sized sandwiches made with turkey and/or ham and cheese. They are kid sized and convenient.

I believe the Sneaky Chef book has a recipe for frosting in it.