I love popcorn, but I never really make it or buy it as a snack because I eat too much of it! (Yes, it’s low in calories for a single serving, but one of those microwave bag has three servings, and I usually eat the whole thing…) That’s why I was glad to hear that SmartFood started coming out with single-serving Popcorn Clusters, in three different flavors.
In my post on the health benefit of nuts, I mentioned how the snack-sized bags of nuts you get at a deli always contain around three portions, more than you need. So sometimes I’d by big bags of nuts and divvy them out into single servings in ziplok bags.
Well, I don’t have to waste my time doing that anymore now that I’ve discovered the company Peeled. They make exactly what I’d been looking for—single-serving, one-ounce bags of nuts.
My husband used to laugh at me for buying healthy cookies. “The whole point of eating cookies is to indulge,” he’d say. “They’re supposed to be rich and buttery.”
Then he tried a Nana’s chocolate chip cookie.
I shouldn’t say he tried one. He ate the whole cookie—my cookie, the one that I was just about to put in my mouth. I wasn’t very pleased.
“I thought you don’t like healthy cookies,” I said.
“These are good!” he replied. “Wow, I can’t believe how healthy these are for you,” he said over and over, reading the back panel.
What to Eat to Help You Sleep Better
Bedtime snacks can help you sleep better? Conventional wisdom says you’re not supposed to eat right before you go to bed. That’s supposed to be the worst time to eat, the time it all goes to your waistline.
But lately I’ve been hearing that it can be good to snack before bed, especially if you have insomnia. My cousin tells me that Cream of Wheat before bed helps her child fall asleep. And a Tylenol PM commercial claims that adults should have a bowl of cereal before bed to improve their sleep.
I decided to look into this a bit more, and I found two good articles on the topic. One is a WebMD article that explains why bedtime snacks can indeed help you sleep. It has to do with your metabolic hormones. If you don’t have enough leptin, the hormone that signals satiety, your body could wake you up. However, the article says that you can’t snack on just anything; you have to choose your snacks wisely. Light dairy and carbohydrate-rich snacks are the way to go. The second article I found, from MedicineNet, also talks about the benefits of snacking before bed, but this one gets into more detail about what to eat and what to avoid.
Here’s a brief summary of the best and worst bedtime snacks, based on the two articles.
New, Flavorful Crackers You Can Munch on Without Guilt
Kellogg’s health-focused Special K brand has been expanding beyond breakfast foods lately. First, they came out with meal bars and protein water. Now, they’re moving into the savory snacks category with the launch of their new crackers, in two varieties, Multi-Grain and Italian Tomato & Herb. I like Special K products (I often eat the plain cereal or the bars), so I was excited to give these crackers a try.
Many of us have been coupon-collecting lately in an effort to reduce our grocery bills. I recently learned about an excellent Web site that makes it easy to find coupons for your favorite products and stores. It’s called Coupon Cabin, and you should definitely check it out! Go to the site and click on “grocery coupons.” You’ll find coupons from a variety of healthy-snack makers, including Cascadian Farms, Nature Valley (which makes my favorite granola bars—I always eat one before a long run or race), Organic Valley, Quaker, SoyJoy, Stoneyfield Farm, and more.
Healthy snacks, especially organic ones, are often more expensive than processed snacks and junk food. And I know everyone is trying to save money these days. But hopefully these coupons will be helpful, and you won’t have to give up some of your favorite good-for-you treats.
(Thanks to DailyCandy, the e-mail newsletter I subscribe to, for tipping me off about Coupon Cabin!)
–Lauren
It may not feel like it yet, but this Friday, March 20th is technically the first day of spring. Rita’s Ices is celebrating with an Italian Ice giveaway! Stop by one of their stores from noon until 10 p.m. on Friday and receive a free 10-oz ice. Yum! (Note to all you healthy snackers: Rita’s has seven sugar-free flavors of ice. And the store has other guilt-free treats like Slenderita, fat-free frozen custard.) To find a store near you, go to their Web site and enter your zip code.
-Lauren
PS My favorite flavor of ice is chocolate (big surprise). What’s yours? Vote below! If you pick "other," write a comment and tell me what it is.
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I’ll admit that I get chocolate cravings a lot. Sometimes I want a simple piece of dark chocolate. Once in a while, I have a hankering for fudgey ice cream. And often, I crave a gooey brownie.
Since my craving for brownies strikes pretty regularly, I can’t always satisfy it with a real, delicious, fattening brownie, or I’d surely pack on the pounds. I try to stick with healthier brownies during the week, and then have a more indulgent kind on weekends (and sometimes Thursdays end up counting as part of the weekend!) and special occasions.
Here’s a roundup of four of the healthiest chocolate brownies I’ve tried—a ready-to-eat one, two frozen varieties, and an easy baking mix.
Type: Ready-to-eat 100-calorie brownies.
Quick Facts: One brownie has 100 calories, 4 grams fat, 7 grams of fiber, 4 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Contains mostly organic, recognizable, and natural-sounding ingredients, such as organic cocoa, organic soy flour, organic butter, organic whole eggs, organic milk chocolate chips, and organic evaporated cane juice.
Tastes Like: Slightly drier version of those thin Entenmann’s single fudge brownies.
What I Liked: These are easy to eat on the go. And since one brownie has only 100 calories, you can have one anytime without feeling guilty.
What I Wasn’t Crazy About: They’re kind of thin. I generally like thicker, gooey-er, chunkier brownies. I finished it really quickly and wasn’t fully satisfied. They do taste pretty chocolately, though.
I sprinkle these nuts in my cereal, oatmeal, and granola, I use them in homemade trail mixes, and I eat them plain by the handful!
Why I like them:
In my post on maple walnuts, I promised that I would eventually write about chocolate, almonds, and sea salt, which go marvelously well together. So, voilà: a recipe for chocolate, almond, and sea salt crostini. The recipe is mostly Amanda Hesser’s, from her book Cooking for Mr. Latte, but I’ve added the slivered almonds. These crostini are deliciously sweet, salty, crunchy, and healthy! Make a slice for yourself if you have extra baguette lying around, or buy a whole baguette and make the full recipe for company! Your guests will be impressed—these crostini seem unique and are so flavorful, yet they’re really quite simple to put together.
Recipe: Chocolate, Almond, and Sea Salt Crostini
By the way, Oprah’s Magazine has a variation on these crostini, with chocolate, dried cherries, and pistachios. These are also a healthy treat. The pistachios and dried cherries have plenty of nutrients. Use dark chocolate, which is better for you than milk. I also love how colorful these ones are; they make a great presentation.
For more of a splurge…
Try Vosges’s Barcelona Bar and Lake Champlain’s Organic Milk Sea Salt and Almonds Chocolate Bar. These are amazing (and no kitchen work required), but they use “dark milk chocolate” (around 40% cacao), which isn’t as healthy as a dark chocolate (which has a higher percentage of cacao content, usually around 70%). I’m normally not a milk chocolate fan, but the milkier chocolate does work great with the salt and nuts. (Note that there are lots of other chocolate bars out there with almonds in them, but I’m talking specifically about ones with sea salt. These are the only two brands I’ve found with chocolate, almonds, and sea salt–sweet and salty perfection.)
-Lauren
Glenny’s 100-Calorie Brownies
