healthy snack ideas

Soda is the worst thing on the planet

my new favs are zing bars - the choc/pb, hazelnut/choc, choc/cashew/coconut, are all really good and of all the protein/energy bars i've tried, they're the most candy bar-tasting (extremely important to me) while still containing nutritious ingredients.

I need to give up soda. I'm a caffeine junkie who doesn't like coffee so it's going to be hard.

I need to give up soda. The good news is I'm making some progress with coffee enjoyment. In the form of lattes.

i bought a cup of coffee yesterday from an italian place and it struck me that i probably shouldn't ask for 'a latte' given that it just means milk to an italian and in italy itself you would get exactly that

I just snacked on some peaches and avocados w/lime juice, hot sauce & olive oil. Recommended.

ok that sounds dope as hell.

Except avocados scare me. I still can't strike a balance between, "oh, I've got to let these ripen up" and "fuck, I have a rotten avocado."

avocados are amazing. i just eat them with a spoon with nothing added.

even the skimmingest readers of ilx food posts would not have expected anything more elaborate.

Yeah, a not-perfect avocado is an abomination. But the preparation I mentioned is forgiving of slightly over-and under-ripies.

nice, I'll try it out.

still mostly off the sugar

http://i.imgur.com/yTI3Baa.jpg

ugh. I've been sneaking it here and there, but my intake is way, way down. I stopped drinking a couple weeks ago and I think that I had been compensating for "quitting sugar" over the last few months by steadily increasing my sugar consumption via alcohol.

i've been having some sugar lately and i am going to try this weekend to stop

[imagemacro-sugar]

'Healthy' is a bit of a tricky word.

I try to maintain a pretty even glycemic index level and only let around 20ish% of my daily caloric intake consist of (good) fats. So most of my diet is made up of (good) carbs (and only eat starchy carbs when I'm lifting or running) and protein. I recently lowered my protein intake, so roughly I'm at a daily intake of 50-60% carbs, 20-30% protein, 20% fats. I used to have 'off days' when I can eat whatever, but I stopped that about a year ago, I think. Now I just cheat on around two meals a week, but still, not by much. I never eat fast food or processed foods. I never eat chocolate/candies, pop, processed/bottled fruit juices, etc.

Most of my sugar intake comes from fruits (not counting the carbs that spike my glycemic index levels, as this is more recovery from lifting/running). I eat about 8 pieces of fruits and two multivitamin gummies every day. It can take you much more to get the same amount of sugar intake if you eat a fruit than if you eat a chocolate bar or something.

My fruits (some are starchy/high in sugar but, as all things in diets, it is due to my active lifestyle, meaning this doesn't mean it translates well to another person):

2 bananas
4 oranges
2 apples
1 pear

Sometimes I'll have blueberries and/or raspberries and/or blackberries.

I snack on them during the day, but the starchy (banana, e.g.,) I eat in the morning and one at night (usually after exercising). I also have about 15 raw almonds -- pretty high in fat and calories (if you're calorie counting, which you shouldn't be really). Baby carrots are good to snack on, as well. Any nut is good to snack on but remember they are high in calories and (good) fat, so don't overindulge. I counter this overindulging by having them with fruits, because that will 'deceive' my body into thinking I'm full faster.

Yogurts are healthy snacks, as well (unless you're lactose-intolerant!), just check the nutrition facts label.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment.

googled sugar content in apples and apparently, because of modern production techniques, there's more sugar in apples than there used to be, and eating too many can actually damage your teeth. anyone know how accurate that is?

i eat pear slices with havarti cheese sometimes.

I should have said, I eat green apples. There is a difference (sugar content).

I've heard citric stuff like oranges also damages your enamel. My dentists have never mentioned anything, and the only people I've heard being worried about it or being criticised for it are fruitarians. This is purely anecdotal, anyway, so you're better off waiting for someone who is knowledgeable on the subject or doing some research.

Apples are recommended for those with high cholesterol. Do green apples and red apples have the same amount of pectin, the ingredient that is useful in keeping cholesterol in check?

I found 2 online sites saying green apples were better than red if one has cholesterol issues; and one that said red was better.

You need to consult with a specialist or nutritionist.

But Googling yields this: http://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/The_Forager/pectin.htm

"Ripe apples contain less pectin, but the level varies greatly from one tree to the next; some varieties are suitable when ripe, while some have virtually no pectin by that time. Over-ripe apples are the worst."

Maybe inquire about taking pectin supplement the next time you're at your doctor's?

I am a bit paranoid about sugar and my diet in general at the moment. I don't have sugar in my tea anymore (in fact I hardly drink tea at all now), and I've replaced chocolate and crisps at lunch with a banana/apple. I'm eating more pasta, eggs, salad and vegetables at lunch now too.

Chris, don't be too paranoid. I mean, if you have a family history of things like diabetes, etc., for sure, go see a doctor -- that's #1. Doctors keep track of and monitor your health history for a reason. Getting those stats/numbers helps them give you better advice.

Also, know that sugar is in almost every man-made food. So, yes, always check the sugar content. Check out a fruit chart that shows them from highest sugar content to least. Any berries are perfect (have less sugar) -- the more starchy/'carby' stuff has more sugar (banana, pineapple, etc.).

My approach is this: buy non-fruit/non-sweet things with the least amount of sugar. That way I can micromanage and get a more real number of how much sugar I consume (it is still hard). You'll find a few of those low-fat products have more sugar than the regular ones. Always check the label.

For me, it is a little trickier because weightlifting reduces glucose levels (sugar as energy), so I know I need to recover quickly. And things like pasta will spike my sugar levels and that happens to be okay for me after strenuous activity. But it's funny because you wouldn't think pasta would get your 'sugar' levels up.

It was a pain at first to know and monitor your foods, intake, and your body, but once you get the hang of it, it gets easier.

And yah, lay off the crisps! Careful with sodium, too!

Do you like to play any sport?

Thanks for all the advice! I'm going to be getting braces soon (finally!), so it's made me make a real effort to finally try to cut out as much unnecessary sugar as possible and to just eat healthier, both for my health in general and for my teeth.

I used to play football every week, but I haven't for a while now. I have started going out for walks again though, and I'm going to make more of an effort to get out of the house and exercise.

Thanks again!

Reading this thread makes me want to hit the fucking gear again. you can stick those fucking bananas where the sun don't shine.

i've been having some sugar lately and i am going to try this weekend to stop

― markers, Friday, April 26, 2013 12:35 PM

pulled it off. well, not that weekend, but eventually.

clean for over a week

one of the next things i want to focus on is lessening the amount of other bad shit in my system.

there's sugar in beer / I will never be free
but awesome for you boyo

thank you!

markers you are kind of inspiring me right now. I'm not concerned about cutting out sugar per se but I drink way too much Coke, simply because it provides a lot of my calories. (A friend of mine once surreptitiously wrote down everything I ate during a day, figured out how many calories it was, and pointed out that I probably wasn't meeting my basal metabolic rate. That was three years ago.) So I need better habits! What have you been eating?

oh lord, i'm not sure any of this will be helpful to you, but let's see. for dinner, i eat whatever's for dinner, which changes day by day. besides that, things are kind of up in the air. snacks, still. at some point i'd like to be on a more strict sort of deal with those, but for now i just eat what i want. tonight i had five soft pretzels. and regular pretzels. the one meal i've started to wrap my head around is breakfast, even though i don't always eat it as early as i should. the kinds of foods i'm talking about though are, like, milk, yogurt, a vitamin, cheerios, orange juice. idk, i'm not describing what's going on now properly, so maybe disregard this whole post. my basic approach right now, though, is going to be getting to the point we're i'm eating three regular, good meals a day. that's a definite. beyond that, maybe a small amount of snacks, "healthy" and otherwise. we'll see. it's worth doing though. i don't know what kind of effect sugar has on other people here, but it wasn't helping me out really, and now that it's gone it's not really that hard to stay off it.

that's gotta be the longest post i've dumped here in a while

somehow between some period of time during the past four years i managed to lose like twenty pounds

I was underweight until recently if anything. Getting onto actually eating three regular meals in a day is probably what I should aim for. I just need to get systematic about it. Like with everything else.

Do you like nuts, silby? Keeping a bag of mixed nuts/coconut flakes/dried fruits/seeds around is a good calorie-heavy snack.

raisins y'all

i had been eating ak-mak crackers for a while, and thought I'd switch up my game to ryvitas because of nostalgia (that's what I ate as a kid)

ugggh

ryvitas suck wtf

i love ok mak crackers!

yeah they are really good

I like those dense,cardboardy Swedish crackers. Mostly because of the pleasing white paper they are wrapped in.

wasa! They are pretty hard to take after about one.

Steamed broccoli with lemon juice is a pretty solid snack. Less healthy, but more yum with avocado, olive oil & crisped capers.

oh yeah Wasa are good too. ryvita definitely bottom of the sand-cracker ladder

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xbYpeyMeL._SX385_.jpg

I have this in my desk at work. I used to think that almonds were horribly bland, but I'm getting into them. They're just kinda subtle, but they're filling.

I tried soaking almonds

they were tasty when I ate the first handful. but when you take them out of soaking and keep them in the fridge over the next day or so they start shedding their skins when you eat them and the whole enterprise just gets kind of annoying
I tried freezing them to some success, but honestly I think you just have to soak what you're going to eat/use the next day which, I mean cmon I like almonds but I ain't giving them that level of attention

so I'm back to raw, and they're fine

the only cracker you need

http://portcitysmokehouse.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/390x260/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/r/crackers.jpg