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A snack is a portion of food, often smaller than a regular meal, generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at home.

Traditionally, snacks are prepared from ingredients commonly available in the home. Often cold cuts, fruit, leftovers, nuts, sandwiches, and the like are used as snacks. The Dagwood sandwich was originally the humorous result of a cartoon character's desire for large snacks. With the spread of convenience stores, packaged snack foods became a significant business. Snack foods are typically designed to be portable, quick, and satisfying. Processed snack foods, as one form of convenience food, are designed to be less perishable, more durable, and more portable than prepared foods. They often contain substantial amounts of sweeteners, preservatives, and appealing ingredients such as chocolate, peanuts, and specially-designed flavors (such as flavored potato chips).

Beverages, such as coffee, are not generally considered snacks though they may be consumed along with or in lieu of snack foods.

A snack eaten shortly before going to bed or during the night may be called a midnight snack.

Snack Review: Sabra’s Single-Serve Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Sabra makes great hummus. In fact, Sabra makes my favorite hummus. Their hummus has a creamy texture that others don’t, and its flavor is fantastic – just the way I like it. Now, when I say those things, I am referring to their “classic” hummus, which is just your basic chickpeas, tahini, oil, and spices, no other special flavors added.

This review concerns their Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, and in this case the hummus comes in a single-serving container with a bunch of pretzel crackers to dip into the hummus.

Couple of nutrish stats first:

  • calories/ounce – 70
  • % of total calories that come from fat – 71.4%

PROS:

  1. I was surprised by how much I liked the pretzel crackers, especially given how they look. To me, they didn’t look too appealing – kind of flat and lifeless. But, they were good. They were crunchy, light and just the right amount of salt. I actually liked them better than the hummus (which isn’t a good thing).
  2. Easy. Super easy. Buy it at the store, stick it in the fridge. Take it out, peel the label and enjoy. Couldn’t be easier. Small enough to fit in probably any bag. Take it to work, take it wherever you go. Very easy – ‘nuff said.
  3. Good nutritional profile.  No cholesterol, no sugar, very low carbs and very low sodium
  4. Most of the ingredients are pronounceable and natural with the exception of these: "Citric Acid, Potassium Sorbate And Sodium Benzoate To Preserve Freshness."


CONS
:

  1. Didn’t like the taste of the hummus. It had a too-intense hummus, nutty flavor that I didn’t like. And, the roasted red pepper flavor was either lost or didn’t mix well with the hummus flavor.
  2. I ate the whole snack and it made me feel too full. I like to feel about 75% full after eating a snack, like I could eat a little more, but I am definitely satisfied. This made me feel 125% full – too much. I don’t want to have to limit myself to eating only a portion of a snack that is supposed to be single-serve. We are psychologically programmed to eat what is in front of us, so it makes it less likely for us to overeat if the portion in front of us is a small or a reasonable size. (For more psychology of eating type stuff visit Dr. Brian Wansink’s Mindless Eating site).
  3. A few too many calories. This had 245 calories in total. That’s not that bad, but I’d rather keep it around 200 if I can.
  4. The nutritional label confused me for a second. The nutritional label shows 70 calories. Upon closer inspection this snack contains 3.5 servings (not one single-serving!). So, we need to multiply the 70 by the 3.5 to arrive at the total calories of 245 for this container. This is sold as a single-serve snack, so (I think) the nutritional label should show the calories for one serving.

CONCLUSION:

  • I wouldn’t eat this snack again because I didn’t like the taste of the hummus and that is the primary reason I bought this snack. I love roasted red peppers and I love hummus, and I love Sabra’s hummus, so I was surprised that I didn’t love this. I also would not buy it/eat it again because if I am going to buy a single-serving snack, I want to be able to eat the whole thing without feeling too full, and that’s how I felt after eating all of this one.
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