After a busy day at school, the first thing kids want when they walk in the door is something to eat. Sometimes, they can’t even wait that long -- kids who ride the bus need a healthy, packable snack they can stash in their backpacks and carpooling parents need a portable snack kids can eat enroute.
Filling the bill for a healthy, tasty and easy-to-pack snack is a tall order. Lots of snacks appeal to kids, but aren’t healthy. Or they’re healthy, but hard to take along. One easy alternative is pretzels. The good news is pretzels aren’t just fun to eat, they’re also low fat and relatively low in calories.
Now, Snyder’s of Hanover has made pretzels an even better choice. In the past year, they’ve reformulated their pretzels to replace partially hydrogenated soybean oil with Canola oil.
"Our research and development efforts are dedicated to providing products that satisfy our customers' desires for both good taste and healthier snack alternatives. In fact, most of our pretzel products have been trans fat free since 2002,” says Claude O'Connor, vice president of marketing and sales at Snyder's of Hanover. “We support the FDA's new regulations that will better inform consumers about the ingredients of the foods they enjoy."
Pretzels have been a popular snack choice for ages. They were invented around 610 A.D. in Southern France or Northern Italy. Historians believe the pretzel made its way to America on the Mayflower in 1620. Local lore has it that the hard pretzel was invented when a baker’s apprentice fell asleep while baking soft pretzels. When he awoke, the fire in the hearth had died down and he figured the pretzels hadn’t been baked long enough. He fired up the furnace again, baking them twice as long as normal. When the master baker discovered this, he was outraged at the “ruined” pretzels -- until he ate one out of curiosity. He discovered they were crisp, crunchy and delicious. He was also pleased to discover that the new hard pretzels retained their freshness much longer.
Today, the center of pretzel history in America still resides in Pennsylvania, where the first commercial bakery was founded in 1861. Pretzels have come a long way since that sleepy apprentice’s time. They come in all shapes and sizes, flavored and unflavored, salted and unsalted. Synders of Hanover offers dozens of pretzel varieties to suit all tastes.
Parents will appreciate the company’s new Lunch Packs, which contain eight 1.5-ounce packages of either Pretzel Snaps or Sticks. These convenient packages make it easy to include them in your child’s lunch, or to simply toss in his backpack for an afternoon snack. They’re also easy to stash in your glove compartment for any time the munchies strike.
image source
