It’s that time of the year again. School is out and the kids are excited to spend the summer playing outside and getting messy. Summertime in many households — mine included — can often mean more treats. Who doesn’t love a cold ice cream on a hot summer day?!

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For kids, it’s normal to want sweet delicious dessert foods more often — after all, they have a biologically driven affinity to sweeter foods! But there has to be a limit. Too many sweet treats can fill kids’ small tummies and displace their hunger for healthier foods. So, let’s talk about how to manage sweet treats this summer.

How many is too many?

I have no doubt that many of you are asking the question “how many treats is too many?”. Unfortunately, there’s no one “right” answer to this question. According to the Division of Responsibility of Feeding, that’s up to the parents (and it’s a personal decision). What works for your family? A few times a week? Once a day? A few times a day? In my household, we don’t have a set treat plan. Instead, we offer treats at random, leaving the kids with no expectations. This means that they are often surprised when I suggest an ice cream afternoon or when dessert is offered with supper!

Sugar – natural vs. added

When offering treats it is important to remember that not all sugars are the same. Natural sugars are found in fruit, sweet vegetables (like beets and carrots) and milk. These types of sugars are not included when we talk about limiting added sugars in our diets. That is because even though fruit and milk contain sugar, they also have a lot of other important nutrients that the body needs: like vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein and antioxidants!

Added sugar on the other hand, which includes things like white sugar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, coconut sugar, date sugar and more, are all often added to foods with low nutritional value, such as candy and popsicles! That’s why I often serve my kids — and us adults — nutritious homemade frozen treats in the summer. And bonus, they can double as hydrators, too! One of my favorite things to offer is homemade popsicles, smoothies and fudgesicles sweetened with real fruit and made from other nutritious foods like Greek yogurt. This makes frozen treats the perfect combination of refreshing, filling, hydrating, delicious and nutritious!

Here are my top ten favorite frozen treats (all made by dietitians): 

• Creamy Avocado and Banana Fudgesicles
• Banana Cream Pie Healthy Ice Popsicles

• Two-Ingredient Cherry Vanilla Popsicles
• Creamy Frozen Lemonade
• Kid-Approved Tropical Green Smoothie
• Three-Ingredient Strawberry Nice Cream
• Chocolate Peanut Butter and Frozen Yogurt Banana Bark
• Fruit and Frozen Superfood Yogurt Bites
• Fruit and Yogurt Popsicles
• Vegan Nutella Banana Ice Cream