Whether you want to lose weight or just eat healthier, snacks play an important role in your diet. Finding ways to add healthy snacks to your diet is easy. These snacks can be made from common foods you find in any grocery in McKinney, TX, so they’re not expensive to make, nor are the ingredients difficult to find. The role of snacks in your diet should be not only to add more nutrition, but also help keep you feeling fuller so you’ll eat less at meals.
Go to an old favorite of dieters, raw veggies and dip.
While some people can eat every raw vegetable available and never need a dip, most of us like that little extra flavor and pleasure that comes with dipping a veggie. When you add a dip to your snack, it adds extra calories, so in this case, size matters. There are a multitude of veggie dips that are excellent two of my favorites are bean dips and spiced yogurt dip. You can mash almost any type of of bean, with white beans making one of my favorite. A food processor and plenty of spices and lemon zest make a delicious dip. Canelli beans, herbs and Parmesan cheese or other beans pulsed with spices are exceptional. There’s a world of yogurt dips that are super simple, like mixing sriracha sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper with Greek yogurt. Mashing avocado with lemon juice and spices, Parmesan cheese or salsa also makes a great dip.
Fruit and protein is an outstanding snack.
Nut butter spread on apple slices or grapes with small sticks of cheese can boost your energy immediately with the sugar from the fruit and keep it high with the slower digesting protein. One of my favorite, especially in the summer, combines cottage cheese and cantaloupe. Applesauce and cottage cheese is another good one.
Drink a smoothie that won’t add pounds.
Unsweetened yogurt can make a great snack, especially when combined with fruit. If you have a blender handy, throw it in the blender and make that fruit frozen. It’s delicious. Mix 1/3 cup yogurt with 2/3 cup of frozen fruit and ice.
- Freeze cubed mango for a cold summer treat that’s sweet and satisfying. Blend frozen berries or fresh fruit with yogurt and pour it in a Popsicle form. These are frozen treats you won’t want to miss.
- Pack small plastic bags with serving sizes of tree nuts and seeds for a low calorie, high nutrition treat. A few dried cranberries, dark chocolate bits or raisins can add to the flavor and variety. Don’t forget pistachios.
- A fourth cup of popcorn kernels in a brown paper sack that’s folded on the end is the perfect way to make low calorie microwave popcorn. Sprinkle with various seasoning from wasabi to buffalo wings or a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.
- Frozen bananas either plain, mashed and whipped like ice cream or dipped lightly in nuts make a tasty snack that adds nutrition without adding a lot of calories.