Soccer is all about playing, fun, friends and snacks - maybe.

When is comes to the snack part, we need to remember a few things:

1 - NO NUTS or products with nut oil/pieces/flour.  This is in consideration for all of those with life threatening allergies including  the players and siblings.

2 -  Do early morning game/session require a snack?  That is purely up to the team.  While it might be a "tradition" to have snacks, we can think outside the box and veto snack exchanges when it doesn’t make sense.  If we all ate a big breakfast, we’re probably not going to be hungry for an 8 am game, likewise if we’re going out to eat right after the game.  Maybe all of the teams at one hour decide they didn’t want any team to have snacks so the players wouldn’t miss it (out of site out of mind).  Talk to each other and the coaches about your desires.  We are a community that can make any rules we want.

3 - Candy is dandy but it causes many of the diseases we are fighting in this country so we should consider limiting our offerings to fresh fruit, vegetable sticks or some other good food choices.  Use this opportunity to prepare something for the team together, a learning experience if you will.  Let’s try some of those good food hints we read about to show our kids we love them so much we’re going to give them items that are good for them.

4 - Remember the siblings, coaches & assistant coaches.  Do you want to include these "extras" or not?  It depends on your "snack" ideology.  Is it just to replace fuel used during the session?  Are these team/family bonding moments?

Someone somewhere has probably written a book on sports snacks and many of their rules are probably broken in the items listed above, but, there are many parents who have concerns with this subject and would like it addressed, so there is no time like the present to start.

Please feel free to help develop our Mini Soccer Program Snack Ideology by emailing any questions/comment/concerns to msp@loudounsoccer.com.