Healthy Snacks - What’s in your kitchen?
The influence of what types of food are in your home is one of the secrets of overall fitness. What you choose to eat is based on what is available. I know this sounds silly, but you can’t eat what isn’t there. There is a way to develop nutritious eating habits. By removing the easy to grab items such as chips, cookies and other such products from your environment you can help your family to choose healthy snacks. Ultimately, eating healthy snacks instead of high calorie items is an important link not only to overall nutrition, but also adds up hundreds of unneeded calories.
Here’s where to begin, take an inventory of your kitchen. Replace high-calorie sweetened foods with fresh fruit such as bananas, or grapes. We can stock our kitchen to be “programmed” to support the goal of good nutrition. As parents, whether we provide healthy snacks for our children, and ourselves, is not as limited as you may think. The bad choices we make in our “down times“, depends on what is in the refrigerator. If there are healthy snacks readily available, it can quickly add up to additional weight loss.
Eating three meals a day, with healthy snacks in between, will help control our blood sugar level, which in turn helps us not to be as hungry, and ultimately keeps your metabolism running smoothly. So healthy snacks, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, is the background for you and your families nutrition. The purpose of healthy snacks, such as fat-free milk with a tablespoon or two of sugar-free chocolate syrup, is not only to supplement your diet, but also to affect your overall health.
In America, we eat more popcorn than any other snack, although low in fat, and high in fiber, these healthy snacks are usually drenched in butter. For something different, try some air-popped popcorn topped with a butter-flavored spray and spices. Another favorite food is pizza. A fantastic alternative would be creating mini pizzas on Triscuit crackers with shredded fat-free cheese. These healthy snacks can satisfy even your kids’ cravings. Serving low-fat, a sugar-free yogurt with fresh fruit is not only easy to throw together but top this with fat-free granola or walnuts and you have a great breakfast.
We are blessed to live in a time when manufactures are creating some many varieties of whole grain products and sugar-free, fat-free alternatives to our favorite munchies. When we design our kitchens to support the goal of good health, even during times when willpower fades, you have set up your environment that supports your goal of healthier eating.