Healthy Snacks: Make small, mindful shifts

Snacking can be a great opportunity to enjoy a quick bite and to meet the USDA MyPlate recommendations for daily intake.

With some many processed convenience foods available nowadays, it’s easy for people to choose snacks that are low in key nutrients and high in added sugars, saturated fats and sodium.

Oftentimes, we think of snacking as a way to eat more sweets or other indulgent foods. But, we should be considering snacking as a way to boost our nutrition.

Foods and beverages consumed as snacks represent an increasing proportion of our total calorie intake. For most age groups, 40-50 percent consume two to three snacks a day and about 1/3 consume four or more snacks a day.

In fact, snacks and sweets provide 31 percent of added sugars for people over the age of two.

Topping the list of contributors to caloric intake from snacks are sugar sweetened beverages, sports drinks and fruit drinks. Grain based snacks like granola bars, cakes, cookies and savory snacks like French fries, candy and ice cream are also contributors.

It is important that we consider making changes to our snacking habits in order to receive more nutrition from the things we eat. Every food choice that we make is an opportunity to move towards a healthy eating pattern.

We need to make small, mindful shifts in our food habits over time. Making these small changes over a period of time increases our odds that we will keep these habits. It is important to remember that living healthy is a marathon, not a sprint. We want to make changes that will be easy to keep throughout our lifetime.

Everyone wants to become a healthier version of themselves and healthy snacking is a great way to get started. We want to choose snacks that are nutrient dense.

Here are a few tips on how to make a healthier choice in snacks:

• Choose one piece of fruit for a snack instead of sweets

• Eat cut up vegetables like mini carrots with low fat dip

• Choose nuts without added salt in place of other salty snacks

• Try low-fat string cheese in place of pizza

• Include a granola bar made with whole grains in place of baked goods

• Drink one extra cup of water or fat free milk in place of a sugar sweetened beverage

It is so important that we all start to make these small changes in our diets in order to become healthy.

I am including a recipe for a healthy and delicious peanut butter and zucchini brownies:

Ingredients

• 1 cup peanut butter

• 1 ½ cups zucchini, grated

• 1 egg

• ⅓ cup honey

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ½ cup chocolate chips

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• ½ cup cocoa

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ½ cup chocolate chips

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°F.

• Combine ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.

• Pour into a greased 9×9 pan.

• Bake for 35-45 minutes (or until baked throughout).

Recipe from — The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina: http://foodbankcenc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Nutrition-Education-Recipes-Desserts-PB-Zucchini-Brownies-PDF.pdf

For more information or good snack recipes, contact Jean Brownfield at (252)789-4370.