A Visual Guide to 15 Healthy Snacks

MMMMM.... I'm getting hungry.... just one question Note: Avoid microwave popcorn? WHY?

I like nut and legume...

This is a great visual representation of some of the great foods we can eat instead of hitting a vending machine for cookies or candy!

Brian

Maria said:
MMMMM.... I'm getting hungry.... just one question Note: Avoid microwave popcorn? WHY?[...]

what i've noticed with microwave popcorn is that they add artificial ingredients that are not really neccessery. they are only preservatives to keep they added flavourings (read: extra unhealthy calories) such a butter, sugar etc from expiring quickly. i think i'd rather just get a normal bag of popping corn to make popcorn out of. i think it's possible to put that in the microwave if it's put in a paper bag first, although i've personally never tried it out.

Putting regular kernels in a paper bag can cause a fire... I'm speaking from experience there.

There are plenty of fat free, plain microwave popcorns out there, sans "extra calories". Just because there was a recent news story on the problems with the health of people who make the stuff (despite whether or not there was a true correlation between that) the best advice for microwave popcorn is to truly keep the bag away from your face when opening it... but I'm sorry, I've been eating it for decades without any problems, and it's a great way to help stay on track with your diet goals. It's far more filling "per handful" than anything else listed up there for the calories.

I am assuming when you say beware of microwave popcorn, you mean because of the additives, and that popcorn without the additives is fine? I have a special container to microwave plain popcorn in. I got it from cooking.com a few years ago.

Why would you make me hungry like that?

Them's good eating that you pictured. :)

Some really great choices. Snacking helps one to make body composition changes, by keeping the metabolic furnace going!

I would add for the dried fruits to look for sulfite-free. You can get that at most health food stores. Dried fruits are much tastier without this preservative, even if they don't look all perfect and plastic with their original color.

Also, a good reason to steer clear of microwaved foods - They are altered at the molecular level. Most of us are frightened of GMO. But this is at the level of the molecules! What a way to kill a food.

Read here:
http://www.thehealthierlife.co.uk/article/3568/microwave-ovens.html

Those lovely photographs seemed so much more appealing than what's usually on offer in a vending machine--to us.

But I doubt we're typical. I'm afraid the majority of customers that a vending machine company depends on would just wonder "where the hell did you put my Snickers and my Doritos?"

My guess is that this would work better in environments where the healthy stuff could be subsidized by an employer or school district or something.

gosh.not when i'm hungry and all i have are crackers.:-(
the bean salad's good but what about the fart factor??
got a south indian bean salad recipe.
Ingredients: a cup of beans or sprouted legumes, peanuts, mixed nuts (preferably soaked); 1/2 a green chilli; 1/2 a teaspoon of olive/mustard oil;salt.
Method: steam or boil the beans with a pinch of salt.
for seasoning-heat oil and add mustard.after mustard crackles, add the cut green chilly and toss in the beans.stir for a minute and garnish with coriander and curry leaves.
Bean salad is ready to eat.

I'm a stay-at-home-mom now, but when I was working, I used to keep a container of Dove Promises (DARK chocolate... mmmmmmm) on my desk. In fact, I still have that container full on my counter. Sometimes NOTHING will do except real chocolate to satisfy a craving (ladies will get it). Those Dove Dark Chocolate promises are low in calories, they're one-bite, and rich enough to satisfy so you aren't gorging yourself.

Not that fruits and nuts aren't great snacks - I do them all the time - but sometimes you just need that chocolate.

I'd personally pass on the popcorn and baby carrots (processing, high glycemic index). But these are great snacks (and nice pics!). I think it's also good to be aware of more protein and fat-rich snacks (such as the tuna and nuts depicted) that provide sustained energy and tissue repair: avocado slices, a slice of organic cheese, a small piece of grilled chicken. Although, I will say it is funny that we snack to begin with. I suppose it's more natural to graze throughout the day, but the vending-machine fare of our workaday society leaves something to be desired. :)

I take time on Sunday evenings to hard-boil a batch of eggs for the upcoming week. Personally, I love hard-boiled eggs whites and find them to be an incredibly satisfying snack during the day. As long as you prepare them the night before and have a place to refrigerate them at work/school, I find they are an quick and delightfuly way to curb hunger before I get home for a real meal (most often, I enjoy them with some carrots or a piece of fruit mid-afternoon).

Laura said:

In fact, I still have that container full on my counter. Sometimes NOTHING will do except real chocolate to satisfy a craving (ladies will get it).

This is great!

Just posted it to my blog

http://mypetfat.typepad.com/mypetfat

Thanks,

Jay

We've got nothing but garbage here. I bring bananas and apples to work. Some nuts might not be a bad idea, too. The added protein would certainly be nice given my current workout regimen.

Kailash said:
Also, a good reason to steer clear of microwaved foods - They are altered at the molecular level. Most of us are frightened of GMO. But this is at the level of the molecules! What a way to kill a food.[...]

Once again, you have no idea what you're talking about. The only guess I can make is that you're confusing non-iodizing radiation with iodizing radiation. But I honestly don't even know if you have that much of an understanding of the topic. It sounds more like you're repeating something you read somewhere else and didn't completely understand.

Every comment I've read of yours is scientifically illiterate and scare-mongering. You remind me of a car mechanic I once had who thought he could throw out technical terms and I would be too intimidated to question him. Unfortunately for him, I know how cars work. And unfortunately for you, I have at least a modicum of scientific knowledge.

Microwaving does not "kill a food" (whatever that means). I concede you're correct that it "alters food on a molecular level." But so does everything else that you can do with food including baking it, freezing it, and eating it. Perhaps the only thing you can do with food and not alter it on a molecular level is look at it, which is sadly not very satisfying.

Maria said:
Avoid microwave popcorn? WHY?[...]

I will edit to make more clearer :-)

my local dollar store sells the best tasting light microwave popcorn that contains no transfats.

The Faddist said:

Once again, you have no idea what you're talking about. The only guess I can make is that you're confusing non-iodizing radiation with iodizing radiation.

Great post! It makes portion sizing so much simpler, when you can visualize them in your mind.

Another good way is to think of them in terms of everyday items, such as a deck of cards = serving of meat.

Quito said:
Is this the radiation that Morton uses on its salt?

haha. good point. I only made the mistake to prove I wasn't cut and pasting my information, you see. Of course what I meant was non-ionizing. I wish I could say I don't make that mistake all the time, but I do.

I love me some oil-popped stovetop popcorn with garlic. Yum! But fruits and veggies rock, too. I'd be bummed if I had to live on vending machine snacks and take-out.

The Faddist said:
haha. good point. I only made the mistake to prove I wasn't cut and pasting my information, you see. Of course what I meant was non-ionizing. I wish I could say I don't make that mistake all the time, but I do.[...]

Well, while we're on the subject of character attacks... Nah, you're pathetic enough already.

The food seems to me killed when the vitamin B-12 is destroyed and anti-oxidants destroyed. Wouldn't you say so? Here's the link I posted earlier, again, in case you might decide to read it this time:

http://www.thehealthierlife.co.uk/article/3568/microwave-ovens.html

HI Kailash,

I agree with you about avoiding sulfered fruit. Even worse than that, a lot of the "dried" fruit out there (pineapple, mango, strawberry, ...) is actually more accurately "candied" with all the sugar that's added. Yuck!

Kailash said:

The food seems to me killed when the vitamin B-12 is destroyed and anti-oxidants destroyed. Wouldn't you say so? Here's the link I posted earlier, again, in case you might decide to read it this time:

The web page you pointed to is a bit disingenuous; it's selective on what it reports. Plus, it doesn't give references, and so you have to work to find the original sources.

• Here is the article that presents the result on the loss of anti-oxidants from microwaving. It's true that microwaving has the largest reduction (97%), but boiling isn't so great either (66% of one of them). The authors recommend steaming as the best way to cook broccoli if you are trying to keep the loss of these anti-oxidants small. My guess - I can't read the article until I go to work tomorrow - is microwaving has the largest reduction because it heats the broccoli past the boiling point more evenly (as compared to the other techniques in which the heat is trasnsferred from the surface of the broccoli)..
• Here is the article on the loss of vitamin B12. Again, I can't read this until tomorrow. The abstract doesn't say anything about the breakdown of B12 with other forms of cooking.
• I couldn't find any article about microwaving and protein structure, but any form of heating changes protein structure (consider what heat does to egg white)
• I wouldn't be surprised if some of the heat transfer elements in microwave-ready packaging had some bad side effects - but, so does heating teflon using conventional heat.
• In some cases, microwaving seems to do a better job of preserving nutrients: For example, see this article.

Those are nice selections for a snack, although I'll more likely stick with the fruits. Not that I am a fruit person, but I think they're more appropriate compared to some.

Quito said:
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the heat transfer elements in microwave-ready packaging had some bad side effects - but, so does heating teflon using conventional heat. [...]

Right on both accounts. I've stopped using teflon, and only use glass to microwave. The plastics, when heated, release a pseudoestrogen. I figure with the plastic in water and soda bottles releasing pseudoestrogen already, and with millions of women all over the world using the birth control pill and peeing estrogen that gets in our food supply, the last thing we need is more estrogen.

Everytime we eat something it is already laced with estrogen, antibiotics, and probably antidepressants too. Oh and thyroid hormones, since Synthroid is the #1 prescription in the world.

Lara said:
Just because there was a recent news story on the problems with the health of people who make the stuff (despite whether or not there was a true correlation between that) the best advice for microwave popcorn is to truly keep the bag away from your face when opening it... but I'm sorry, I've been eating it for decades without any problems[...]

THANK YOU!!!! I'm getting soooooo sick of people reading ONE book, or ONE article and adopting a whole dietary dogma based on ONE study that came out within the past year. Whatever you choose to eat, there is a f***ing study to back you up.

Fat is bad, fat is good, whole grains are good, whole grains are bad, vegetarian is good, you need meat, drink milk, avoid dairy, eat fruit, fruit has too much sugar and should be avoided, and my favorite...eat all your foods raw because cooking kills your food...etc...I think you get my point.

I've decided to stop drinking the kool-aid (figuratively speaking), and just do what works for me. I'm not saying I don't try to eat healthfully, but everyone seems to have a different opinion of what that is. We can't see what is happening inside our bodies, and different people react differently to different foods, so PLEASE don't tell me what a certain food is going to do to my body!!!!

jp said:

I'm unsure of what to do, so I won't do much of anything.

How about just eating as close to a historically natural diet as possible, using as close to natural preparation methods as possible? Historically natural, being, the diet that our paleolithic ancestors ate. That's 2.5 million years, including evolution into modern homo sapiens.

In comparison, it's been only 10,000 years since agricultural, and only a couple hundred since the industrial age. During this time period, only 30% of today's adult humans have developed a tolerance to lactose. As compared to 100% of people who can eat cooked foods. Gluten intolerance affects from 5% to anywhere up to 20-30% of the population as well.

Adaptation to dairy and grains are advanced in those genetic groups who began agriculture the earliest (example: Fertile Crescent about 5,000 years ahead of Ireland or Siberia). This goes to show that we are still moving toward adaptation to these foods, which imo, are not yet ready for prime time.

Hence, I will eat mostly meat, vegetables, nuts and fruits and limit my intake of dairy, grains and legumes.

main source:
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview2c.shtml

Kailash said:
jp said:

I'm unsure of what to do, so I won't do much of anything.[...]

Which jp are you talking about? I didn't say that (nor would I ever), and I don't see another JP.

jp said:
Which jp are you talking about? I didn't say that (nor would I ever), and I don't see another JP. [...]

Sorry, I should have removed the entire quote bit, before clicking "post". For the record, you're not that bad.

I looked at the two articles.

• On vitamin B12 degradation: with milk, B12 degrades about 4 to 5 times faster with microwave heating as compared to boiling. The same holds, roughly, for meats. Both are slow: microwaving milk for 3 minutes causes a bit more than 10% of the B12 to break down. They did this research because earlier work had shown other vitamins - B1, B2, B6, C, and folic acid - broke down at the same rate or more slowly than with conventional heating (two papers cited in the paper - will forward to those who are interested).
  
• On broccoli - the micronutrients they examined - vitamin C and anti-oxidants - are notably sensitive to heat, and vitamin C is soluable in water. So the general results aren't all that surprising, but the degree is.
  

Nice list of healthy snacks. I always like eating banana. They're easy to carry and easy to open. And my main concern is that they are not messy unlike other fruits.

I saw no pizza on the list this makes me sad but I know it is the best for me.

Kailash said:
How about just eating as close to a historically natural diet as possible, using as close to natural preparation methods as possible? Historically natural, being, the diet that our paleolithic ancestors ate. That's 2.5 million years, including evolution into modern homo sapiens.[...]

Chew over this article...

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7035

Chimpanzees are true omnivores, just like us. They eat fish, meat, eggs, and insects as well as vegetable and fruits - almost anything they can find, much like our ancestors probably did. Industrialization and agriculture have afforded us the luxury of choosing to be vegetarian or vegan and eating a bowl full of these snacks listed above instead of bugs.

http://www.saburchill.com/chapters/chap0006.html

The omnivore body doesn't extract vitamins and nutrients from raw vegetable matter as well as a true herbivore with 4 stomachs to grind through, soften and extract it. Heating food does change the molecular structure of food (no matter what the source), and does kill some nutrients. However, it also makes it softer to digest in our single track stomachs, which means we gain benefit from it. The idea is to heat the food to soften it, don't overcook it. Steamed vegetables are only better than boiling if you leave them crisp. If they go soggy, they're done for, no matter the cooking method.

Iron is an essential mineral that is more easily absorbed from animal proteins than vegetable matter, however, because we are omnivores, absorption is greatly increased if we eat a food source high in vitamin C.

http://www.providence.org/losangeles/services/blood_donor_center/f03irondiet.htm

Our digestive systems are designed for a variety of food to compliment our vitamin and mineral extraction, rather than specialized herbivore stomachs. We can extract the vitamins from vegetables, but not with the same efficiency as a cow with its 4 stomach chambers.

Microwave pop corn had killed people because the product added as butter, vaporizes at the moment of cooking and serving, so lung related problems had been reported because of consuming microwave pop corn with butter. The name exactly is pop corn syndrome. Usually affects just to employees of pop corn factories, but this year was reported one patient with same condition who was not employee of pop corn factory, but a microwave pop corn consumer.

No Microwave Popcorn, Why?