11 Healthier Versions of Your Favorite Childhood Snacks

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By Molly Horan2013-07-27 18:30:40 UTC

Just like the sudden need to play your VHS copy of The Little Mermaid, food nostalgia can strike at any time. Being an adult may give you the freedom to walk into a supermarket and buy a box of Gushers for dinner, but it's not the most nutritionally sound decision.

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None of these healthier approximations of your lunchbox favorites will taste quite like the original, but watching the vintage commercials should at least put you into the proper '90s state of mind to feel like a kid again.

1. Dunkaroos

Use the fruit-based whole grain Teddy Grahams as your dunkers and Greek yogurt as the dipping sauce. For added authenticity, add tiny chunks of fruit in the yogurt to stand in for the sprinkles.

2. Gushers

Place a popping boba inside a raspberry. The boba is pretty sugary, but the nutrients in the raspberry make up for it.

3. Lunchables

Pack yourself a healthy lunch in miniature. Pack a kid-sized plastic jug of tea, and half an apple cut into slices for dessert. Then put it all in a cake box divided into sections with pieces of cardboard. To fully recreate the Lunchables experience, make sure to remind your co-workers how much cooler your lunch is than theirs.

4. Fruit Roll-Ups

Attack a piece of all-natural fruit leather with a cookie cutter.

5. Sprinkl'ins

Take plain, unsweetened yogurt and mix in a variety of tiny pieces of fruit. While the fruit chunks won't have the chalky-sweetness of the sprinkles, they will recreate the rainbow swirl when mixed in.

6. Ritz Bitz Sandwiches

Swap out peanut butter for almond butter and eat a big salad later on.

7. Capri Sun

Using a juicer or blender liquefy some of your favorite fruits, adding in some kale just because, then pour it into one of those pouch water bottles.

8. Fruit by the Foot

Microwave several pieces of fruit leather then meld them together. Using a pizza cutter, cut a long one inch wide strip. For best results have a friend over and challenge them to a classic fruit by the foot race.

9. Ring Pop

First you'll need to eat a Ring Pop so you have the plastic base. Then carefully impale a strawberry on the stick. Because if you want a lollipop you can eat a lollipop, but what you really want from a recreated Ring Pop experience is a snack fashionably attached to your finger.

10. Cookie Crisp

A bowl full of cookies is never going to be super good for you, but by making tiny, bite sized cookies out of a healthier cookie recipe you'll be taking a step in the right direction.

11. Tang

Just drink some orange juice.

Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images News

Topics: childhood, Health & Fitness, snacks, Watercooler