Category Archives: Snacks

Eating When Hungry, Or Eating When Bored?

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Food is one of the most important things on this earth. We use it to stay alive, for nourishment and for celebration. In some cultures, food even takes on spiritual qualities, and the experience of eating is elevated to the ecstatic, the holy, and the ceremonial.

We are lucky to live in a time and place where many people have access to plenty of food to eat, but this excess has come with an unhealthy side effect. Many people have become divorced from eating in a mindful way, and as a result, obesity is on the rise. People are now in need of asking, “Am I only eating when hungry, or am I just eating because I can?”

Only Eating When Hungry: A Few Strategies

  • Distract yourself. Instead of heading to the kitchen every time your mind starts to wander, take a short walk to get your blood flowing. Even just ten minutes outside will give you an energy boost and might even give you some inspiration for better things to do than mindlessly snack. Alternatively, you can call a friend, do your nails, or draw a picture.
  • Have a drink of water. It has been suggested that the body sometimes has a hard time differentiated between hunger and thirst. If you’re feeling a little bored and a little hungry, pour yourself a glass of water. Many times this will be refreshing, and you’ll realize that you’re not really hungry any way. Plus, going to the kitchen to get water will give you something to do for a minute or two!
  • If you do feel hungry enough to have a snack, The Huffington Post suggests putting your food on a plate to keep yourself from overindulging. When you are eating out of a big bag of potato chips, you will invariably lose track of how much you’ve had to eat. What may have started out as a relatively harmless little snack can snowball into an all out binge if you don’t keep a little perspective.

Learning to eat mindfully and to make healthy choices are important skills to learn. Listening to your body will help you stay healthy and happy!

Source:

  • “7 Ways To Stop Eating Out Of Boredom”, Huffington Post

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Eating Snacks Instead of Meals? America’s New Eating Habits

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The world is changing constantly, exponentially becoming louder and faster with each passing day. This new freneticism extends to every part of our daily lives, including meals. USA Today reports that more and more people are eschewing the traditional breakfast-lunch-dinner model in favor of constant snacking and meals eaten on the run.

This shift in behavior isn’t just limited to eating in smaller and more frequent doses. USA Today goes on to say that there is a greater trend toward eating meals that are typically reserved for specific times of day whenever they please, like having breakfast food for dinner.

Eating Snacks For Meals

The trend of on-the-go eating and constant snacking is most pronounced among younger people. According to USA Today, over 1/3 of the meals eaten by Millennials (people born after 1982) are actually snacks, plus they are often eating snacks more than once a day. Additionally, across all age groups surveyed, only 5% of people reported eating three whole meals per day. Certainly today’s busier schedules are having a direct impact on the way that people eat. Perhaps the question that we are asking ourselves these days is “Who has time to sit down for three big meals a day?”

Whatever and Whenever

Frequent snacking and irregular meal times aren’t the only new ways that people are taking in their daily sustenance. There is also a marked upturn in people who are eschewing conventional meal order wisdom and choosing to chow down on pancakes for dinner and pizza for breakfast. In fact, USA Today reports that at McDonalds, 1/5 of their apple pies and cookies are sold in the morning hours (when people are “supposed” to be chowing down eggs, bacon, or oatmeal) and that Dunkin Donuts also sells plenty of chicken salad sandwiches at breakfast.

So what does this mean for you? Well, more people eating in different ways means more choices, which can mean better options and the ability to customize your meals. But though it may be easier for you to get whatever food you want at whatever time of day and eat it at whatever pace and wherever you want, make sure to slow down every once in a while. A savored traditional meal at home can be a great break from your fast-paced life!

Source:

  • “Marketers adapt menus to eat-what-I-want-when-I-want trend”, USA Today

Better meals begin with better planning. We can help. 

A Midnight Snack That Doesn’t Ruin Your Diet

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There are times when a midnight snack is simply irresistible. Maybe you have to stay up late working, or perhaps you simply can’t get to sleep. Whatever the reason, there is no denying that a midnight snack has a special sort of appeal.

Unfortunately, many people feel guilty about eating late at night for fear of excess weight gain. But in fact, eating late at night isn’t necessarily worse for you than eating other times of the day, as long as you make healthy decisions. Men’s Health Magazine recommends keeping your midnight snacks to less than 300 calories. Any more and it is considered a full meal. And anyone can guess that adding a full meal to your daily routine can certainly lead to weight gain.

Healthy Midnight Snacks

Men’s Health goes on to say that it is best to wait an hour or two to go to bed after your healthy late snack so you will have enough time to digest your food before sleeping. It is also a good idea to stick to snacks that are high in proteins as opposed to those that are high in carbohydrates. Try snacking on these low calorie foods if you have a late night craving:

  • A Fruit Smoothie – A smoothie made with kefir or almond milk is a sweet way to wind down from the day. The kefir contains beneficial probiotic bacteria, which is healthy for your digestion.
  • Yogurt – Low fat yogurt is a great food to snack on at any time of day, including late night cravings. It is high in protein, a great source of dairy, and you can even add in some sliced fruit or berries to get an extra serving of fruit for the day.
  • Popcorn – What could possibly go better with late night television than some healthy air popped popcorn? High-fiber popcorn will satisfy your snacking urges and fill you up.
  • Sliced Fruit or Veggies – You know that fruit and vegetables have many health benefits. Are you getting enough servings? Adding a late night snack of fruit or veggies will help boost your daily intake.

If you love snacking late at night, don’t worry. As long as you do it mindfully, you can still stick to your healthy diet.

Source:

  • “10 Healthy Late-Night Snacks”, Mens Health Magazine

Get more tools for planning healthy meals here.  

3 Ways Not To Eat Processed Foods

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We live in a truly remarkable era of food. On any given day, we can enjoy French beignets for breakfast, hit up an Indian buffet at lunch, and wind down at night with some Ethiopian takeout.

Sadly, the mass availability that we see in our current food system also comes with a few downsides. Perhaps the most profound change in the food we buy today is the extent to which it has been artificially flavored, colored, and processed. It can be overwhelming, but avoiding processed foods can be one of the healthiest chances you can make in your diet. And don’t worry: there are plenty of easy ways not to eat processed food while still enjoying the things you like.

3 Ways Not To Eat Processed Foods

  • Parents Magazine recommends avoiding any food that has more than 7 ingredients on the label. Once upon a time foods were made of simple ingredients like flour, sugar, butter, and eggs. Now, food labels are littered with hard to pronounce words like dextrin ethyl cellulose, aspartame, and calcium caseinate. The less ingredients in a food, the less likely you will see the latter pop up – or least they will be easier to spot in the list! When you taste the purity and wholesomeness of simply-made foods, it will remind you that sometimes less really is more.
  • Stay away from any food that lists a sweetener in the first three ingredients.  Be aware that sugar has many names: sucrose, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, honey, molasses, fruit juice, etc. Don’t be fooled, sugar by any name is detrimental to your health. It is best to only have it in small amounts. Also, always choose “whole grain” on the label over “wheat”, which is sometimes nothing more than colored white flour.
  • Though it isn’t always convenient, sometimes the best way not to eat processed foods is to make your meals yourself. The problem with eating pre-prepared meals and packaged foods is that they are designed to last for a long time. Very few “natural” foods are nonperishable, so they must be processed and pumped full of preservatives and other chemicals in order to keep them on the shelf for any extended period of time.

It will take some effort to be processed-foods free, but it is worth it in the long run. Swearing off processed foods is one of the healthiest changes you can make in your diet.

Source:

  • “5 Ways Your Family Can Avoid Processed Foods”, Parents Magazine

Get more tools for planning healthy meals here. 

Fresh Fruit Juice Myth: A Healthy Substitute for Fruit

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Eating more fruit is almost universally recommended for anyone who is trying to get healthy. Fruit is packed with vitamins, antioxidants, and healthy fiber. And eating fruit on the go is a great way to easily get in a nutritious snack without a lot of hassle.

Lately, the juicing trend has been getting a lot of attention, with fresh fruit juice stands and smoothie bars popping up all over the health food scene. The promise of these establishments is enticing: all the nutrition of fruit in a delicious juice or smoothie that tastes great and is easy to drink. But while fresh fruit juice is indeed delicious and does have some redeeming nutritional qualities, it is not a good substitute for the real thing. CBS News reports that juice does not have all the same health benefits of eating fruit because fresh fruit has four times the amount of fiber that fruit juice does.

Fresh Fruit Juice Nutrition

It’s easy to be confused about the actual nutritional benefit of fresh fruit juice. It came from fruit, so it makes sense that it must be just as healthy. However, that isn’t always the case. The problem is that fruit juice has just as much sugar as fruit but without all the healthy fiber. In some cases, whole fruit has almost four times as much fiber as fruit juice. Plus, you often consume the juice of more than one fruit, which means you are drinking all of the natural sugar (called fructose) from these multiple fruits with none of the fiber to fill you up. This means that some fruit juice has as much sugar as a can of soda.

The antioxidants in fruits and vegetables will of course still be present in 100% juice, so it can be incorporated into your diet in a healthy way. Just make sure that you aren’t replacing whole fruit with fruit juice, and are staying mindful about sugar content.

Source:

  • “Squeezing Truth Out of Juice Myths”, CBS News

 Better meals begin with better planning. We can help.

Food Combination For Naturally Healthy Snacking

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Salt and pepper. Sugar and spice. Peanut butter and jelly. Some things were just made to go together. But did you know that certain food combinations are healthier together than they are alone?

Men’s Health Magazine reports that this phenomenon is called food synergy, and can be applied to oatmeal and orange juice, olive oil and tomatoes, and raw fish and soybeans. While we are so familiar with these food combinations that we rarely give a thought to how they came to be, Men’s Health goes on to suggest that these cooperative pairings might have been the intuitive product of testing by evolution. This testing-through-lifestyle might explain the commonly puzzled over fact that people who eat traditional diets live longer, healthier lives.

Food Combination For Health

Armed with this knowledge, you can use the science behind food combination to create better snacks and meals. Try out one of these scientifically approved combined foods for your next snack:

  • Tomato and Avocado – This Mediterranean-influenced snack has more benefits than just delicious flavor. Researchers have found that lycopene, an essential nutrient that is found in tomatoes, is better absorbed when combined with fat. This can be in the form of avocado, olive oil, nuts, or cheese.
  • Citrus Fruit and Oats – Oats are great because they are high in fiber, which can help lower cholesterol. But that fiber benefit can be multiplied by a whopping dose of Vitamin C, like the amount found in citrus fruit. When the fiber in oats combines with the vitamin C in citrus, oxidation of LDL cholesterol can be prevented.
  • Blueberries and Walnuts – Respectively, blueberries and walnuts are both super foods. So it is no surprise that this food combination is off-the-wall powerful. The combined medley of polyphenols can help keep the brain strong by warding off inflammation and oxidative stress.
  • Apples and Chocolate – An apple with chocolate a day keeps the doctor away? Researchers have found that the chemicals in apples, which have the anti-inflammatory flavonoids quercetins, and chocolate, with the antioxidant catechin, combine to improve cardiovascular health by supporting anticoagulation and loosening blood platelets.
  • Peanuts and Whole Wheat – There is no question that peanut butter and bread is a winning combination. But this childhood staple is more than just a tasty after school snack. Researchers at Iowa State found that peanuts possess the amino acid that is missing in wheat, making peanut butter sandwiches on wheat bread a complete protein.

Why have one healthy ingredient when you can have two? Combining foods is an easy way to get a quick, powerful health boost at snack time.

Sources:

  • “The Most Powerful Food Combinations”, Men’s Health
  • “Surprising Food Combos That Boost Your Health”, Redbook
Ready to start smarter meal planning with Food On The Table? Start here.

Jowar Makes A Snack Food Splash

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For hundreds of years, jowar has been feeding the people of Africa. This abundant cereal whole grain, also called sorghum, is an important staple crop in the diets of Africans. It thrives in areas where other crops may fail due to the harsh environment, so it is often a main source of nourishment for the people there.

In the Western world, we often use jowar as feed for livestock. But more and more people are taking note of the grain’s versatility, abundance, and impressive nutritional profile and turning to jowar for their own meals and snacks. It can be ground up and used as a flour, or eaten like oats as a porridge.

Benefits of Jowar

Like many whole grains, jowar is high in fiber. Fiber is an important nutrient for both health and weight loss, and just one cup of jowar has almost 48% of the average daily recommended amount of fiber. It is also high in protein which is essential for muscle recovery and growth, and also contains high amounts of phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and iron. Finally, jowar is a gluten free grain. That means jowar flour can be used to make all sorts of gluten free goodies.

Popped Jowar

Jowar is also popular in India, where it is roasted over fire or a stove and pops out like popcorn. This delicious snack is a smaller, sweeter, and healthier substitute for popcorn. Like popcorn, its simple to make in an air popper or over heated over the stove with oil. Season your popped jowar any way you please. Salt, chili powder, and Parmesan cheese are all great options.

If you’re looking for something new when it comes to snack food, why not try out this delicious, healthy grain. It has a proud heritage, excellent nutritional pedigree, and it tastes great!

Source:

  • “7 Sorghum”, The National Academies Press

 Get more tools for planning healthy meals here.

Peanut Granola: An Under-The-Radar Junk Food

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Eating granola conjures up images of long hikes through state parks and healthy breakfasts in the morning. Even the word “granola” has become synonymous with a natural healthy lifestyle. So would you believe that this wholesome food might actually be sabotaging your weight loss goals?

The Daily Mail reported that in a study of five different granolas, most had more than 12.5 grams of sugar per serving. To put that in perspective, these granolas have more sugar per serving than a can of cola. And even more surprising, the granolas were almost uniformly bursting with high amounts of saturated fat, some with even more than the amount found in fast food french fries.

What Happened to Healthy Peanut Granola?

Peanut granola and other granolas have been marketed as health foods, but there is more to these “healthy snacks” than meets the eye. Many of these granolas do in fact have healthy ingredients like oats, nuts, seeds, and dried fruits. The problem is that the ingredient list doesn’t stop there. Often times, granola ends up packed with preservatives, oils, and sugar. And don’t be fooled by natural sugars: even granolas that are sweetened with honey, cane syrup, or fruit juice can be very high in sugar.

Healthy Peanut Granola Recipe

Though it may be difficult to find truly healthy store bought peanut granola (though you may have better luck at a health food store), you don’t have to give up good granola. Try this healthy version for a lower fat, lower sugar option:

  • Peanut Granola WIth Cacao Powder - Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix together 1/4 cup cacao powder, 1 cup rolled oats, 3/4 cup sesame seeds, 1 cup sunflower seeds, 2/3 cup melted coconut oil, 1/2 cup maple syrup, 2 cups raw peanuts, 1/2 cup whole cane sugar, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and sea salt in a large mixing bowl. Line baking sheets with parchment paper (you’ll probably need two) then spread out granola on baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes. Flip over halfway through.

When it comes to finding a healthy granola, just remember that the most important thing is to check the label. Watch out for high fat, high sugar granolas, or just make your own healthy peanut granola.

Source:

  • “That ‘healthy’ bowl of granola has more sugar than coke… and more fat than fries: Busting the diet food myth”, Daily Mail Online

Better meals begin with better planning. We can help.

Coconut Custard And Other Thai Desserts

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Thai food has been popular in America for many years, owing to delicious dishes like khao phat (fried rice), kaeng phet (red curry), and phat thai (fried noodles). But not much attention has been paid to coconut custard and other delicious Thai desserts.

That’s too bad, because anyone who has ever tasted Thai coconut custard can attest that it is incredibly delicious. And as it turns out, many of these Thai desserts are low in fat and calories. The ingredients lists are usually short and feature solely natural ingredients. Like many Thai dishes, these desserts often feature coconuts, which grow abundantly in Thailand, and mango.

Healthy Coconut Custard

Traditional Thai coconut custard is often served with black sticky rice, fresh tropical fruit like mango or banana, or inside a squash or pumpkin. This recipe is a good choice for people who are dairy free, because its made with nutritionally rich coconut milk. Simply mix 4 eggs with 1/2 cup sugar then add 1 cup fresh coconut milk. Place a ramekin onto a baking dish with 1 inch of water in it, spoon custard into the ramekin, then bake for 40 minutes on 300 degrees.

Thai Mango Sticky Rice Dessert

This is a classic Thai dish that is simple yet exotic. Soak one cup sweet rice (also called sticky rice) in one cup of water for 30 minutes. Add 3/4 cup more water plus 1/4 can coconut milk, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and one tablespoon brown sugar and stir. Bring to a boil then cover partially with a lid and reduce heat to medium low. Simmer for 20 minutes, then turn off the heat and cover tightly with the lid. In another pot, warm the remaining coconut milk with 2 tablespoons of sugar. Serve rice mounds topped with bite-sized pieces of mango and the coconut sauce.

These Thai desserts are the perfect complement to a Thai food dinner, or even just by themselves for a sweet treat. The exotic flavors and simple ingredients of these Thai dishes will have the whole family coming back for more.

Source:

  • “Coconut Custard Baked in a Pumpkin”, Thai Kitchen

Get more tools for planning healthy meals here. 

Crispy Snacks That Won’t Ruin Your Diet

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For every diet, there comes a time when you must decide between that piece of fruit and that decadent piece of cake, that salad and that steak, restraint and indulgence. For some, that moment is just a daily part of dieting. For others it is only an occasional siren. The fact is, you will face that challenge. Fortunately, you have some friends in the diet challenge. They are: baked potato chips and chili roasted chick peas.

If you’re the type of dieter who enjoys a nice crunch to their snack foods – the kind of crunch that typically emanates from something that leaves a heap of oil and salt on your fingers – welcome to the club. There is something so satisfying about that crunch. If your diet were a block of wood, the sound would be something like what happens when Jackie Chan’s fist comes thundering down upon it. In a word, ecstasy.

If you want to indulge your craving for crunch and your soft spot for the savory while still staying true to your healthy meal plan, check out these tasty and healthful crispy snack recipes.

Chili Roasted Chick Peas

1 cup dried chickpeas
2 teaspoons chili powder
1.5 tsp salt
1 tbsp lime juice

Wash the chickpeas and cover them with water about 2 inches abve the chickpeas. Soak them in this way overnight. Drain the chickpeas and place them in a pot with water covering them. Bring the pot to a boil. Once the pot is boiling, reduce the heat and add 1.5 tsp chili powder. Let the mixture simmer for 10 minutes, drain and place in a bowl. Toss the chickpeas with lime juice. Preheat the oven to 400F. Place the chickpeas on a baking sheet so that none are piled on each other and brush them with lime juice and chili powder. Place them in the oven and let them cook for about 50 minutes.

Baked Potato Chips

Medium Russet potato
Parchment paper
Salt
Seasonings: chili powder, creole seasoning, sea salt

Use a mandolin or v slicer to slice the potato into nearly identical wedges and place on parchment on the turntable of your microwave. Microwave at full power for 4-6 minutes or until brown spots start to appear on the potatoes. Turn off the microwave for one minute then turn back on full power until potatoes are golden brown.

Just because you’re on a diet doesn’t mean you have to give up that glorious feeling of crunching something between your mandible and maxilla. Enjoy these crispy snack recipes to add a little crunch to your daily routine.

Source:

  • “9 healthy crunchy snacks”, Best Health Magazine

Better meals begin with better planning. We can help.