🌯 Healthy Snacks

Ever feel like Homer Simpson at a donut 🍩 shop? Today, we’re talking snacks that won’t leave you saying D’oh after your snack crash!”

Rules for Snacks

When I think of my childhood favorite snacks, the nostalgia just comes rushing back. These snacks pushed well into adulthood before I considered eliminating them.

We’re talking Cheetos, push pops, cookies, rice crispy treats, ice cream, and nutter butter bars 🤤! What was or is your favorite?! I feel a relapse coming just thinking about them!

At some point as we get older, we start to realize we can’t thrive on the fake food and feel much better as we transition away.

It is REALLY difficult to give up our snacks. Today I’m going to give you a lot of snack options but let’s start with some snack rules for making better choices.

• 🍎 Timing: the worst mistake is the late and middle of the night snacking. Your body needs that fasting period to digest and prepare for sleep. If you keep feeding, you are only lessening your quality of sleep

  🍎 Oils: when looking at what snacks have been cooked in, think olive/avocado/coconut oil or grass-fed or ghee butter. Only consider vegetable oils if the say “expeller pressed”. If you don’t see this it is highly processed and refined with super high heat, altering the fatty acid to something are body can’t recognize.

  🍎 Ingredients: smaller the list the better. The whole food itself, salt, healthy cooking oil/butter, and natural flavors like stevia/monk fruit, garlic, cinnamon, rosemary, etc.

  🍎 Portion Sizes: so easy to overdue snacks and calories shoot through the roof, especially snacks high in fat calories like nuts. Read the label and understand how much a portion size is and how many calories you will take in per serving

  🍎 Balanced Macros Nutrients: Most snacks are loaded with carbs and fats and minimal protein. Look to find some with more protein and more of a balance of carbs/fat

  🍎 Stay Hydrated: people often confuse thirst for hunger. Try drinking some water first before rushing to a snack

  🍎 Plan Ahead: If you are flying or out all day, pack your snacks and bring them with you. Otherwise you end up buying crap gas station snacks or fast food when the urge hits. Stay ready, be ready!

If you like to cook and want some healthy delicious treat ideas, check out the below video!

Protein

• EPIC Bars: I like their Venison, Bison, and Beef

• Paleo Valley: 100% Grass Fed Beef Sticks

• CHOMPS: Grass Fed Grass Finished Beef Sticks

• Fish: Tuna, Sardines, Smoked Salmon

• Hard Boiled Eggs

• Plain Greek Yogurt: add your own fruit like blueberries or I like to heat up some frozen berries and mix them in

Carbohydrates

• Fruit

• That’s It: Mini Fruit Bars the only ingredient is the fruits

• Popcorn: Lesser Evil only ingredients are organic non-gmo popcorn, coconut oil, and Himalayan pink salt. Could melt some grass-fed butter and pour on.

• Chips: Jans

• Rice Cakes: avoid the flavored ones and choose this plain, lightly salted one. Add healthier nut butter or natural fruit jam.

• Homemade Fruit Jam: hard to find jams at stores w/o sugar and other things we don’t want in them. This article tells you how to do it with just chia seeds and fruit. If need a little sweetness, add some honey, organic maple syrup, stevia, or monk fruit

• LaraBars: Many different flavor options, but when picking bars use this one as an example of good ingredients

• Homemade Ice Cream: Raspberry Popsicles, 4 ice cream recipes

• Overnight Oats DIY

Fats

• Nuts, Olives, Guacamole

• Go Raw: Organic Pumpkin Seeds just two ingredients (the nut and salt

• Chia Pudding DIY

• Pili Hunters: Wild Sprouted Pili Nuts

• Epic: Pork Rinds w/Sea Salt and Vinegar 

• Nut Butters: nut butters should just be the nut itself. If the oil is sitting on top, this is just fine, give it a good stir each time.

Airline Travel Hacks: 

The cost of airport and airline food is ludicrous. Buying a bottle of water feels like buying real estate in Manhattan! A few hacks for your travels:

• Drinks: Bring your own empty bottle, get some water at the fountain and use a powdered drink like Laird: Coconut Water freeze-dried or an electrolyte powder like LMNT.

• Coffee: Get some hot water on the plane or at one of the airline shops and add Four Sigmatic: Mushroom Mix Coffee Lion’s Mane

• Food: you can bring any food you want to include a cooked hot meal to the airport. A thermos can keep it hot for you. Also, any of the above snacks can be packaged in clear bag or glass Tupperware container.

• Liquid Limit: 3.4 ounces in a clear bag/bottle.

• Instant Meals: You could brings something like Oats that only require hot water you can get from the flight attendant.

Ingredients to Avoid

Start reading labels and trying to avoid ingredients like natural flavors (mystery ingredient), MSG, artificial sweeteners, food colorings, added sugar, corn syrup, guar gum, carrageenan, sodium benzoate, trans fat, xanthan gum, and yeast extracts

CONCLUSION

These won’t be as delicious as the snacks that have been scientifically engineered to give us a dopamine spike bigger than Tony Stark’s first flight in the Iron Man suit.

They are pretty good though and once you have re-trained your pallet to whole foods, you will find the taste of the overly processed to be too much.

Happy Snacking 🍉

Last weeks newsletter: 🥦 Organic? Really? 🥦

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