One of the tricks to maintaining a healthy, balanced diet is to eat at least five meals a day. This means that two of them are between meals and that’s where the complications begin, isn’t it? Choosing healthy snacks is not as easy as it sounds. Usually when we mention the word snack we think of the vending machines at work or university, but the products they contain are anything but healthy. That’s why today we’re going to put together a list of the healthiest snacks and the options you have for snacking without throwing away your diet.
What is a healthy snack?
A good definition of a healthy snack is “food that is used to temporarily satisfy hunger and is made up of healthy ingredients, which cannot harm our health”.
A healthy snack is one that is high in vitamins, minerals, fibre, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates and vegetable protein. Our advice to make sure you are choosing healthy snack options is to always look for products with raw materials, avoiding ultra-processed products.
You should also steer clear of processed products labelled as “light” as they tend to replace fats with sugars, which is still harmful. In addition, excess sugar produces a greater feeling of hunger, which makes us want to eat more.
To avoid this excessive appetite between meals, it is best to opt for healthier snacks, rich in healthy fats, B vitamins and moisturisers in their natural form. This combined with the suppressing effect of our CCHealth High Impact Fat Burner will help you to eat 5 meals a day correctly, thus avoiding binge eating between meals. You’ll see how this summer there will be no swimming costume that you can’t resist!
Benefits of healthy snacks:
- Helps control daily calories: low-calorie healthy snacks help reduce appetite during main meals, making it easier to control total daily calories.
- Improve your body’s rhythm: by snacking between meals, your body is kept busy digesting these snacks. This helps our bodies stay busy, reducing our appetite and increasing performance.
- They provide healthy nutrients: healthy snacks help to incorporate into our diet the nutrients needed to maintain a healthy and balanced diet.
Healthy snacks to take to the office
We know it’s easy to talk about healthy snacks to take to work, but it’s quite another thing to know how to choose them. That’s why, as we’re more about facts than words, we’ve put together a list of 6 different options of tasty and healthy snacks to take to the office and avoid the temptation of vending machines.
Sandwich
The sandwich is a classic among classics, but with a few small modifications it will become your best ally. Replace the classic sliced bread with German or rye bread and fill it with healthy ingredients such as avocado and natural tomato. This is a very versatile snack with a high nutrient and vitamin content.
Fruit
Fruit is undoubtedly the healthiest and most convenient snack to take to work. It doesn’t require any preparation, you only have to wash it down with water and it’s easy to take with you. What’s more, fruit is perfect for staying hydrated as it has a high percentage of water.
But if you prefer to opt for a more complex fruit snack, there are other options that are just as healthy and delicious. But be careful, we recommend that you opt for eating the whole fruit rather than in juices or smoothies, as chewing helps to generate a greater feeling of satiety.
Fruit kebabs
Perfect for those days when you don’t know which fruit to choose. Simply cut up several pieces of fruit and combine them as you like. And if you want to add an extra touch, you can combine them with a piece of non-fat cheese.
Fruit with peanut butter
In this case, the most important thing is to make sure that the butter is 100% peanut butter, as there are many ultra-processed options on the market that are not healthy. You can vary the fruit according to the season, but a combination that never fails is the sour apple or Granny Smith with the sweet taste of this butter.
Nuts and dried fruit
A handful of nuts and dried fruit is one of the healthiest snacks available, as long as they are raw or uncooked. Avoid roasted or fried nuts, or nuts with honey and sugar, as these are no longer healthy.
The advantage of choosing nuts and dried fruit is that they can be eaten anywhere and there is a wide variety to alternate. They are also a great source of protein, omega acids and minerals.
Hummus with crudités
You can choose to make homemade hummus or you can buy it, as long as you make sure that the ingredients are natural. Accompanied with crudités, it is a healthy snack that will provide you with fibre, vegetable proteins and is a very good way of consuming pulses and vegetables.
An ounce of chocolate
Our healthy snack ideas also include a sweet treat. You can add an ounce or two of chocolate to your mid-morning snack, as long as it is pure, i.e. with at least 80% cocoa and no sweeteners. And savouring it slowly will help to calm your cravings.
Remember that if this is your problem, in this post we leave you some tips on food cravings and how to control them.
Crunchy chickpeas
This is one of our most original healthy snack ideas and it’s super easy to make. All you have to do is cook the chickpeas and season them with different spices such as cumin, sweet paprika, cumin and pepper and add a dash of extra virgin olive oil. Then spread the chickpeas on a tray and bake them in the oven for half an hour.
Now that you know some examples of healthy snacks, you just need to incorporate them into your diet. You won’t regret it!