Super (Healthy) Snacks!
Snack: noun. a light meal : food eaten between regular meals; also: food suitable for snacking.
Origin: Middle English snak bite, from snaken to bite, perhaps from Middle Dutch snacken to snap at. First Known Use: 1757
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/snack
Light meal was the only synonym I could find when I searched for synonyms of the word “snack”. We have tons of synonyms for eat, and snacking is a type of eating. This says, to me, that snacking is in a category all on its own. It is a very special type of meal, when, used correctly, can be an integral part of your health. My snacking is an integral part of my husband’s health, too, because I get very cranky when I’m hungry. Think cookie monster, throwing all the cookies he can into his mouth.
If you don’t want your significant other or yourself to turn into the cookie monster, have a snack to stave off hunger before you ravage your pantry when you get home from work. Having a healthy snack that only has a few calories and tons of nutrients with health benefits is a whole lot smarter than devouring a bag of Tim’s Jalapeno chips and thousands of empty calories to fill up your cramping stomach. Snacks can fit very nicely into your caloric daily budget and weekly monetary budget.
There are plenty of healthy and great tasting combinations to choose from when picking a snack. My personal favorites are apples and two table spoons of peanut butter for a fiber and protein punch.
One of our favorite resources, Cook This Not That, has an entire “snack matrix” to help if you run out of ideas.
http://www.eatthisnotthatbook.com/uof/eatthisnotthatbook/2012ps/eatthis.html
We have a few more ideas for you below:
Happy snacking everyone, and make sure to tune in next week for Jeff’s tailgate recipes!
Crystal is the founder of Simply Playful Fare. She has been in the kitchen for as long as she can remember. She has a degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing.