Tips for healthy snacking while being at home, work and almost everywhere

Due to COVID-19 pandemic dietary habits have been altered, spending more time at home can lead to a greater intake of food, healthy snacks can make a huge difference by the end of the day by keeping you at the bay of those extra calories that you don’t need.

While breakfast, lunch, and dinner are the 3 main meals of the day, snack
are also important not only nutritionally speaking but also physiologically.

Snacking has always been a part of a regular diet, everybody eats snacks from time to time, even more now with the current worldwide situation in which we have to spend more time at home either working or studying, more often than not cravings between meals happens more frequently if we spend to much time sitting.

The decision making between a “good” or “bad” snack it’s based on the nutritional profile of the snack itself, a healthy snack needs to have 3 or more of the next 5 characteristics:

•Less than 250 calories
•Less than 100 mg of sodium
•Content of fiber
•Content of protein
•Little none added sugar

Craving something sweet or salty is always linked to very caloric dense snacks way above the 250 calories like ice cream, chocolate cookies, fry chips, etc; healthy snacks don’t have to be boring, you’d be surprised at just how tasty they are if you know what to choose.

So, let’s throw the excuses aside and run through some tips so you can’t go wrong the next time you’re about to snack, the next food items are easy to prepare and should be adding to the top of your grocery list.

Tip #1 Always go for fruits

Maybe an obvious one but you can’t go wrong with fruits, not only they are high in vitamins and minerals but they are low on calories and most of them are water and fiber, we recommend for the ones that can be very versatile like grapes and strawberries, a cup of 18 grapes are equal to 60 calories, so if you can do the math grapes are a great snack that can satisfy a sweet craving.

Tip #2 Healthy crunch

Chocolate cookies and fry chips are not the only snacks that crunch, its time to talk about “Quinoa Topping” (add link) a crunchy feeling while taking a snack is something that a lot of people like, our quinoa topping not only has that but also bring high nutritional value because is a complete protein, a cup of quinoa topping has as low as 115 calories making it an awesome option to snack. Other healthy low-calorie options for a crunchy felling are apples, carrots, and cucumber.

Tip #3 Lookout for the sodium

On the previous post, we talked about sodium intake (add link) and while fruits and quinoa have very little sodium content (below 100 mg) others commercial “healthy” options can pack more salt than you think, if you’re after a salty craving always be aware of the product nutritional label, below a 100 mg of sodium per serving size is a healthy choice, our Wholefort cereal line up offer as little as 25 mg per serving making it an outstanding snack so you don’t sabotage your daily sodium intake.

Tip #4 Natural Sweeteners

Sweet cravings can be a powerful enemy when you try to care of your diet and overall health, some of the sweeteners that come to mind first are artificial syrups with plenty of refined added sugar that can add a lot of extra calories even to a friendly bowl of fruit, but did you know that there is a natural sweetener with almost no calories, high in fiber and with a very unique sweet flavor, that’s right, we’re talking about “Yacon Syrup”.

Yacon syrup is one of a kind, it’s content of sugar is so low that has been recognized as diabetic friendly and also it’s the high content of FOS (fructooligosaccharides) are the best pre-biotics able to promote friendly bacteria growth in the gut, to a higher extent even than Inulin, taking all of this into consideration you can have all the health benefits without sacrificing flavor.

“Let’s make a conscious effort to eat more healthy, choose wholesome snacks such as fruit, vegetables, and cereal grains while avoiding high-calorie, low-nutrient junk food."

 

Antonio Gomez, RDN, Nutritionist at Wholefort