Drop the kids off at school, drive to work, pick the kids up, drive to soccer practice, drive home, sleep and repeat. Sometimes life can be hectic, and when hunger strikes it's easy to grab the first thing you see in the cupboard or fridge. Unfortunately, today's prepackaged food, while convenient, is often high in fat and low in nutrients -- far from a healthy snack.
Junk food doesn't have to be your only option when you're eating on the go. Take some time at the beginning of the week to plan and prepare your healthy snacks and you can ensure that you and your family will eat well, even if it is while you're on the run.
Here are five healthy snacks that you can prepare in advance, so all you need to do is grab and go.
1. Trail mix
For a great midmorning or afternoon energy boost, toss a bag of homemade trail mix into your bag before you leave home. Combine a variety of dry cold cereal with dried fruit and nuts in single-serving-size containers. To get the most nutrition you can from this snack, registered dietitian Fran Berkoff suggests choosing cereal that's high in fibre or whole grains. It's also important to remember that while nuts can be good for you, you should take notice of the calorie count.
2. Raw veggies and fresh fruit
These old standbys may be common-sense choices, but often they are passed up for easy-access convenience snacks. To ensure fruits and vegetables are always at the top of your snack list, clean and prepare a day or two's worth of produce when you get home from the store. Keep snack-size containers or bags of carrot sticks, celery sticks, red pepper slices and broccoli florets in your fridge, ready for the grabbing.
When it comes to fruit, apples and pears are great grab-and-go options. But if you'd like a little more variety, Berkoff suggests making a fruit salad with interesting fruits like mango, papaya and berries that you can eat while in the car or at work or school.
Add a medium-size low-fat skim or soy latté, as Leslie Beck suggests in her book 10 Steps to Healthy Eating (Viking Canada, 2002), and you'll get a nice dose of calcium to go with your nutrient-rich snack. It's an excellent replacement for the usual coffee and doughnut, which provide little more than empty carbs.
Page 1 of 2 - more great snack ideas on page 2.
