Diabetes Diet: Healthy Snack Ideas

Having a nutritious, appetizing snack on hand is a tremendous help when we’re trying to curb our carb and (or) calorie intake.

Trade-Offs

One way to improve our stash of snacks is making healthy, but still tasty substitutions for the sugary or fat-laden treats we enjoy. For instance, we might:

• Trade-in our store bought cookies for whole grain crackers, and pair them with a bit of fruit or cheese. We can also opt for home-baked cookies made with whole grain (high fiber) flour, and reduced sugar.
• Switch to dark chocolate. When choosing to indulge we can break off one or two squares from the chocolate bar - and put the rest away - before letting the dark decadence melt in our mouth.
• Keep pieces of banana, mango, papaya, peach or other fruit in the freezer. When the urge to eat ice cream strikes, it's easy to process some frozen fruit in a blender for an ice cream-like treat.
• Buy baked veggie chips instead of the fried potato variety. We may have to try a few bags of veggie chips to find a brand or flavor that pleases our taste buds, or we can learn to bake our own veggie slices—just search for “veggie chip recipes” on the Internet.

Another way to snack better is keeping an eye out for easy to make grab-and-go snacks, such as these yummy Raw Energy Blueberry Bites.

Raw Energy Blueberry Bites

You will need:

• 2/3 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup raw almonds
• 2 tablespoons flax seeds
• Pinch of sea salt
• 7 pitted dates
• 2 tablespoons acai or pomegranate powder (if not at your grocers, can be purchased online)
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries (plus more for rolling - optional)
• 1/4 cup chia seeds, plus 1/2 cup more for coating

Preparation:

1. Combine the oats, almonds, flax, and salt in the cup of your food processor. Pulse to finely chop: use about 6, one-second pulses.
2. Add the dates and acai or pomegranate powder; process 3 to 4 seconds to blend.
3. Add the blueberries and 1/4 cup chia seeds; pulse until the mixture is moist but crumbly.
4. Roll teaspoons of the mixture into balls. If desired, insert a whole blueberry into each ball while rolling it. Then, coat the balls with the additional chia seeds.
5. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes to set. Keep the Blueberry Bites in an airtight container in the fridge up to a week, or freeze for several months.

The recipe makes 25 balls/servings; each serving provides: 59 calories, 2.7g total fat (0.1g sat. fat), 6.6g total carbs (1.9g sugars), 3.3g fiber, 2.3g protein, 8mg sodium, and no cholesterol.

Our bodies work ceaselessly to restore or maintain healthy functioning. We can support that by snacking wisely most of the time.

Source: Clean Plates; Medium; Very Well
Photo credit: Graham Holt