Here's The Scoop / September 2012 / Healthy snacking

Sep 19, 201208:36 AMDaily News

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Healthy snacking

Parents are always looking for snacks that help nurture their kids’ growing bodies, but what about a snack that nurtures their minds too?

Bitsy’s Brainfood is a new snack for kids that claims to be is not only very nutritious but aims to encourage kids to think and learn while enjoying the food.

The founders are two moms—Maggie Jones Patton and Alexandra Buckley Voris—who believe healthy bodies and minds are connected.

Bitsy’s Brainfood are essentially small cookie-like snacks in the shapes of letters. Although they look like little crackers, the flavors quickly prove its not junk food: sweet potato oatmeal raisin, orange chocolate beet, zucchini gingerbread carrot and lemon broccoli.

Six Central Penn Parent staff tested two of the flavors and the results were very polarizing. The first three testers didn’t like the snacks at all, but the other three liked them and wanted more.

“I hate sweet potato, but this is really good,” said one tester who tried the sweet potato oatmeal raisin. “I’m a sucker for healthy stuff.”

All six preferred the oatmeal raisin to the other sample, chocolate orange beet. One of the testers who didn’t like the snacks said you can definitely taste all three flavors—which she said isn’t really a good thing.

The critics either didn’t like the taste or thought it lacked taste altogether, even comparing it to “a stale graham cracker.” And while the sweet potato oatmeal raisin was sweet, it looks like “dog food.”

“If I was 2 and had never had candy, I may like it,” one critic said. “It’s definitely sweet.”

As for the orange chocolate beet, the name alone scared one tester who gave it a shot anyway and said the aftertaste was awful. Another critiqued it for being able to taste all three flavors very strongly.

As for the three who approved, their only concerns were price and where to find them in the grocery store. One said she’d buy them for her kids and then snack on them too and said she’d like to try them with milk.

Where to find them: Bitsy’s Brainfood are available at Wegman’s.

Kurt Bopp is assistant editor/web for Central Penn Parent, and his favorite healthy snack is apples.