Granola Bars: The Perfect Picnic Snack

{Disclosure: Twin Cities Moms Blog has partnered with Sunbelt Bakery for this post. All opinions are my own and these are my kiddos’ absolute favorite snack! Read more about why I love these below.}

I’m not sure about your family, but we LOVE to be out and about all summer long. The weather is finally nice enough that we don’t have to be shut in, like in winter, and there are endless possibilities for exploring in the Twin Cities.  I love to be on the go with my kids and feel fortunate that they get to explore and have adventures all summer long.  What I don’t love is that if I’m not prepared, we have to drop a ton of cash on eating out.  Besides the expense, it seems the quick options for dining on the go with kids are not even close to healthy.

Enter the granola bar.  My girls are obsessed.  Second only to the Bubble Guppies, my 3-year-old has been asking for “gragola bars” constantly since she discovered them, and begs for the “blue ones” all day until she gets one. The Sunbelt chocolate chip are truly a staple in our home, and when we run out, we all panic a little.

I use my girls’ school lunch boxes all summer long – we bring them along to the park, the pool and even just if we’re just going to be running errands all morning long.  I’m not sure about your kids, but mine start to ask for snacks about 10 minutes after breakfast each day.  I just toss these bars into the lunchbox, or my diaper bag, and off we go.

I love the idea of making my own and used to, but honestly, with three kids 6 years and under, that ain’t happening anymore and I need a simple solution – instead I grab these and since they have no preservatives or high fructose corn syrup and they don’t have a lot of sugar, they’re just as good.  Plus, anything that comes with it’s own wrapper and can be thrown into any of our bags counts as a win in my book.  The older my girls get, the more we’re on the move going to and from activities and these are perfect to snack on in between.

These are a just a few of the flavors that Sunbelt Bakery has available, plus they offer granola and cereal bars. Our family favorite is the chocolate chip granola bars, but my husband has a hard time saying no to the fudge-dipped coconut. When the time comes for school lunches, I know I can add some bulk to my daughters’ lunches that they’re guaranteed to eat, and they won’t get bored since we can rotate through so many flavors.