Thursday, July 26, 2012

some of my favorite snacks

Confession: I'm a huge snacker.  I can eat a very balanced and fulfilling meal and be ready for a snack 90 minutes later.  I've learned to manage this by having moderate sized meals and frequent snacks.  So, today I figured I would share some of my favorite go-to snacks.  I try to make them healthy, filling, and if possible, easy to pack.
I have also recently read a few articles about "Superfoods".  I don't know a whole lot about the science behind them, but I usually consider Web MD to be a credible source.  So when writing this post, I tried to focus on snacks that included superfoods!
  • I heart fruit.  Apples* (love the apple core slicer), oranges* (Scott's favorite!), mixed fresh fruit... in the summer, strawberries and blueberries* are my favorite.  Kiwi* is another favorite, and Scott really loves grapes so we often get those as well.  Mixing them all together in a big bowl makes for a fun and easy fruit salad.
  • When fresh fruit is hard to come by, I also enjoy sugar free applesauce (~50 cal per serving) and pre-packaged pears in light syrup (around 35 cal per serving)
  • Cashews or other nuts (walnuts*, almonds, peanuts) (1/4th a cup is usually around 170 cal - so it's a lot of calories for a little bit of food, but it's good to get the protein!)
  • Baby carrots, sometimes with hummus, sometimes plain
  • Bell pepper, sliced, sometimes with hummus, sometimes with salsa
  • Chips and salsa (good when you just want some salty chips!)
  • 1 cup of plain cereal (Cheerios and Crispix are staples here, around 100 calories per serving)
  • Low fat microwaved popcorn (we buy the 100 calories bags, which are great!)
  • A handful of dark chocolate chips* (this isn't really filling, it just satisfies my craving for chocolate when I don't have the time/energy/caloric budget for a bigger dessert).
  • Slice of toast with peanut butter
  • Nature Valley Honey 'n Oats Bars (my MIL got me hooked on these)
  • Fruit smoothies (I should get back into making these!)
  • Pickles (basically zero calorie, so this is good when you want a snack but you know you don't really need to be eating)
*considered a "superfood"

Low fat yogurt is also considered a super food and would make a great snack, but I'll be honest, I HATE YOGURT.  I'm constantly trying to learn to like it - regular yogurt, Greek yogurt - any of it.  But I can only stomach it about once every 2 weeks.  It's a texture thing.  (I do like putting plain Greek yogurt on things in lieu of sour cream, somehow, in that context it's fine).

What are your favorite snacks?  I think I need to put some new ones into my rotation...

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