(See Part 1 of this article from last month's issue, 4 Quick-Fix Tips To Make Meals & Snacks Healthier)

Parents are always on the lookout for new ways to boost the nutritional content of the foods our children consume, but we often don’t have time to prepare elaborate meals and snacks. Last month, Little Rock Family brought you a number of “quick fixes” to make meals and snacks more nutritious, and this month we have even more ideas.

Use Your Words

Hannah Mayer has been known to take a few liberties when describing the healthy foods she wants her daughters to eat. There may be nothing unusual about adding olive oil and steak seasoning to asparagus and roasting it in the oven until crispy. But not every parent thinks to tell her kids they are being served green French fries. “They devour them,” says Mayer, who has discovered that labels matter. Try some inventive naming for yourself and you’ll marvel as those X-ray Vision Sticks, otherwise known as carrots, rapidly disappear.

Stress Less

It’s normal to worry when your 3-year-old eats only macaroni, but it isn’t helpful to force her to eat her broccoli. According to author Missy Chase Lapine, we should never bribe our children to eat healthy foods. “The less you show them that you care about what they are eating,” she says, “the more likely they are to try the healthy foods you secretly want them to eat.” In “The Sneaky Chef,” she advocates hiding fruits and vegetables in dishes kids love because she believes this approach takes pressure off parents, allowing us to teach healthy habits without forcing the issue. For kids who balk at raw vegetables, simply roasting them might do the trick. Roasting often makes vegetables taste sweeter, ripe for a sprinkle of kosher salt.

Get Ready to Grab and Go

It’s no secret that kids love to snack. In fact, according to one 2010 study, snacks – mostly chips, candy and other junk foods – account for more than 27 percent of children’s daily caloric intake. But even if you have little time to cook and are always headed out the door, you can still make nutrition a priority. Just grab some of these snack options when you go: Hard-boiled eggs (wrap a prosciutto slice around each to make a tastier treat), whole-grain pumpkin muffins, homemade trail mix (nuts, seeds, dried fruit and only a few chocolate chips), baby carrots or broccoli florets with a snack-sized container of hummus for dipping, grapes (freeze them ahead of time to keep them cold), reduced-fat string cheese, olives, roasted chickpeas or pumpkin seeds, pre-portioned bags of whole-grain cereal, or dried strawberries or mango chunks.