4 easy ways to snack healthily

If you’re keeping your eyes on your weight or just trying to eat more healthily, you need to know the facts about snacking. These tips will give you a great rundown on dealing with the munchies without harming your health.

Overeating is often a problem when you simply don’t eat enough between meals. You come to dinner starving and eat more than you really need.

• The answer to avoiding overeating might be as simple as eating more often during the day. Snacks can help you meet your daily nutritional recommendations and well-timed, low calorie snacks can take the edge off hunger.
• If you’re already a snacker, you need to pick and choose carefully. It’s important to keep in mind how your regular snacks fit into your overall nutrition plan.

The great thing about snacks is that you can use your imagination in order to satisfy your taste buds and your stomach. Check out these suggestion for healthy and fillings snacks:

• A sandwich, a bowl of hearty vegetable soup, cheese and crackers, yogurt with fruit or a low-fat muffin all make the nutritional grade.
• If you are looking for salty, crunchy taste, choose pretzels, bread sticks, low-fat pita crisps or air-popped popcorn. Combine them with a low-fat yogurt-based dip or a bean dip to up the nutritional ante.
• Other healthy snacks include a bowl of cereal with low-fat milk and fresh fruit, or mini-pizzas made from English muffins or pitas topped with pizza sauce and part-skim mozzarella cheese.

Is your mouth watering yet?

Snacks can provide several of the recommended daily servings of starchy foods or the five to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables. Take a look at these ideas:

• Half a bagel with an apple, or a pita pocket filled with chopped raw vegetables, makes a filling, nutritious snack that can be worked into the day's meal plan.
• Bags of fresh raw vegetables and dips such as hummus or other bean dips, or a mixture of low-fat yogurt or sour cream blended with herbs are delicious snacks.
• Who says you can’t drink snacks? For a satisfying beverage, make a latte out of half regular or soy milk and half decaffeinated coffee or a smoothie out of yogurt, fruit and juice.

One thing to note is that you should read the labels of packages of snacks to make sure they’re good for you. You’d be surprised at how the most innocent-looking snack can be packed with fats or sugar.

The old motto, ‘be prepared’ fits the bill here. Have snacks on hand so when the hunger pangs strike, you don’t head for the nearest candy bar. Try these ideas:

• Pack low-calorie foods that require little preparation.
• Take snacks to work or buy them when you buy lunch.
• Any number of simple and speedy solutions can fill in the gaps after school, work or play. Canned, juice-packed mandarin orange slices, for example, mixed with a sliced banana, chopped apple and a few frozen blueberries or other fruit make an instant fruit salad.
• For a quick dessert, cut a banana lengthwise, add non-fat frozen yogurt and top with berries.
• On cold days soup is a warming snack. Many canned and dried soups contain high levels of sodium, however, and may not be suitable for people on low-salt diets.
• Another hearty cold-weather snack is half a baked potato topped with low-fat cottage cheese and a sprinkling of chives.

Eating less more frequently is good for health – just make sure your snacks are nutritious. These snacks facts will help you make the best health decisions.