Hooked on Veggies: Your Guide to Quick, Healthy Snacks

Val Curtis
Sponsored By

September rolled right through and kept us running. Two new jobs, a new kindergartener, a 4th grader, Back-to-School nights, soccer practices, soccer games, homework, play tryouts, play practices, snacks, snacks and more snacks! Honestly, I feel like a snack buying machine when I am at the grocery store. Each child has their own requests and in the back of my mind, I am thinking, “Too many carbs?” “Are they getting protein?” “Yikes, I don’t want to send nuts!” “I should bake a whole lotta something on Sundays!” I tried the baking thing and it was all gone by Monday, which is fine, but it doesn’t help me with the need for endless healthy snacks requests during the week.

Cue Garden Lites®. Just when I decided that my plate was TOO full and I couldn’t start any new relationships with brands in September, they offered me some healthy snacks that can be stocked up in my freezer — and they were sending me a boxful.

As I read through some information about the company, I knew this was a perfect match for my family and I thought you would want to know about them as well.

Healthy Snacks from Garden Lites: Superfood Veggie CakesGarden Lites creates delicious healthy, veggie-rich foods with veggies as one of the first three ingredients in everything they make. Their products currently include muffins, snacks, and entrees, and they are introducing veggie-rich waffles in October. All Garden Lites products are frozen and can be found in the freezer section at your local grocery store, but only take seconds to minutes to heat and enjoy.

The shipment came through on my first day of teaching. My kids were starving when we got home from school and they had a friend over to boot. On the way home, I was hoping we had enough carrots and apples to get a healthy snack started. I only had apples — and Garden Lites!

Healthy Snacks for Kids

With a friend over, I am always asking about allergies. Personally, I cannot eat gluten. Garden Lites are gluten, dairy and nut free. Yet another reason to have these stocked in your freezer. They are playdate perfect (for kids OR moms!).

I opened the Chocolate Muffins, placed them on a cookie sheet in the oven for 6 minutes at 350 and out popped delicious, lava cake-esque chocolate muffins. They were gobbled up, along with the apples, in a flash! I gave myself a little pat on the back for offering a veggie-rich food and enjoyed one myself. It was oh-so-good. Even better, if you have a microwave it will take only a few seconds to heat these babies up!

Healthy Snacks from Garden Lites: Chocolate MuffinsThe next day, my kids were asking for more. I couldn’t blame them. I wanted to save them so my husband could have a taste since he is a serious chocoholic.

This weekend, I created a sampler – some might call it “almost lunch”- of the blueberry oat muffins, the veggie cakes and the chocolate muffins for the wrap-up.

Here is how it went down:

Healthy Snacks from Garden Lites: Chocolate MuffinsMy daughter ran in and said, “Mama, you can take tons of pictures of me. I will brush my hair and put on my cute dress.” She wanted to start with the chocolate. I had her start with the muffin and lo and behold, she munched that bad boy down SO quickly! Next, was the Superfood Veggie Cakes – ANOTHER winner! She wrapped up with a Chocolate Muffin, took one bite and said, “SO good, but can I have another Blueberry Muffin? Those are my favorite!” My camera was busy clicking away when in dropped the Hubs.

Healthy Snacks from Garden Lites: Oat Blueberry MuffinsHe picked up the chocolate first, popped it in and said, “Mmmmmm”. This is high praise folks. The tell-tale sign of delight? He grabbed a muffin and a Veggie Cake and walked off. #Winning

Adults Love These Healthy Snacks, Too!

I tried a Superfood Veggie Cake. THESE ARE ADDICTIVE. Good news. They are a great snack OR a side dish OR I am thinking these will be great to take to work for lunch. There are 6 per container (12 in a box) so I would only take 2, but YUM! They are SO good. There is brown rice, red pepper, garlic and all kinds of veggie goodness in these and they are really, truly delicious. I would love to report that I tried the muffin, but someone – I won’t mention names – took the rest off the plate while I was taking photos.

Bottom line? You should have some of these in your freezer. Click here to find a store near you that carries Garden Lites.

Healthy Snacks from Garden Lites
Oh, and Garden Lites Team, when those waffles come out, I have the perfect taste testers for you.

In the meantime, feel free to follow them on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter.


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Keep 'em in the freezer and heat 'em up for healthy, quick snacks that are gluten free, nut free and dairy free

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Garden Lites. The opinions and text are all mine.

Written and photographed by Val Curtis, Editor-in-chief of BonBon Break.