Your Little Monkeys Will Love These Frozen Banana Pops - Mission Fruit - Day Three

I know it might seem a bit lazy of me, but I (and my children) love these frozen banana pops from Trader Joe's. While I'm sure it would be just as easy to dip fresh bananas into melted chocolate and stick them in my freezer, I must admit I love the convenience of tearing open a box and letting my kids grab one of these healthy, frozen treats while I deal with the after-dinner clean-up.

Late last week I discussed an informative piece I read by Joy Bauer, Today Show contributor, called "Feeding Your Kids: Seven Mistakes To Avoid." One of her insightful suggestions was that in order to avoid a junk-food deprived backlash down the road we should not eliminate sweets from our children's lives, but rather limit them. She also said that whenever possible try to find more healthful ways of incorporating treats into their diets without them really catching on to your secret. One example she gave was "sneaking" in fruit with a small dose of sugar (e.g. strawberries and whipped cream). Adopting that same approach, I think these frozen bananas really fit the bill and given they are from Trader Joe's they also follow her other recommendation of avoiding products with unhealthy ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup. The ingredients on these Trader Joe's "Gone Bananas" could not be simpler -- bananas and chocolate (cocoa paste, cocoa butter, sugars, soy lecithin) -- there are not artificial ingredients or preservatives here and each pop is 160 calories, which certainly makes for a respectable, low-calorie dessert.

For those of you who are less fortunate and do not have a Trader Joe's near-by (my sympathy goes out to you), I found this recipe for Frozen Banana Pops on-line. This blogger also has some other tasty spins on frozen banana treats.

Oh, click on the link if you need to be reminded of all the great benefits of eating bananas.