If you’ve subscribed to The Dinner Daily, congratulations! You have already taken a big step forward to eating more healthy dinners in 2016. Since our meal plans are based on simple, fresh ingredients, and often take 30 minutes or less to prepare, it’s easy to eat better.
But, dinners are only one meal, and let’s admit it, most of us get pretty hungry between meals too. That’s when it’s hard to stay on the healthy eating wagon. The good news is there are lots of great options so you can feel good about your between-meal munching too! The key is avoiding the sugary snacks that leave you feeling hungry again soon after you eat them. Here are our top four picks for healthy snacking:
- Nuts – Nuts, and particularly tree nuts such as almonds, cashews and walnuts are probably the best snacking food you can choose. They have “good” oils, and all sorts of health benefits including better cholesterol, lower cancer risk and weight control. Just keep it to a handful at a time and you’ll be doing yourself a favor by choosing nuts.
- Hard Boiled Eggs – Remember when they told you not to eat too many eggs? Well, that is out the window and eggs are now considered a pretty perfect food, packed with protein and nutrients, and they stick with you for a while. It takes just a few minutes to boil a bunch of eggs – keep them in the fridge and have them ready for snacking. Or try the new trick of making them by baking them at 350 for 30 minutes then immerse in ice water for 10 minutes. Just place the eggs in a muffin tin to hold them in the oven!
- Jerky – This is another high protein snack that sticks with you, is hard to eat fast and keeps very well even without refrigeration for snacking on the go. You can find jerky made from all sorts of meats and even vegetarian jerky, in lots of different flavors. Try to choose jerky that is lower in sodium.
- Veggies and Hummus – Yeah, plain veggies don’t rank high in snacking excitement, but when you dip them in some hummus, they are wonderful. You can often find hummus in small snack-size packages that are great to take to work, or wherever you will be. Since hummus packs both protein and nutrients, it won’t leave you feeling hungry an hour later.
All of the above options are great additions to sensible eating, but just remember there is too much of a good thing, so keep your snacking light. Don’t snack till you feel full, just enough to end the hunger urge.
