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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 Idea: Peeled Single-Serving Nut Packs

Category: Healthy Snack Ideas

almonds

In my post on the health benefit of nuts, I mentioned how the snack-sized bags of nuts you get at a deli always contain around three portions, more than you need. So sometimes I’d by big bags of nuts and divvy them out into single servings in ziplok bags.

Well, I don’t have to waste my time doing that anymore now that I’ve discovered the company Peeled. They make exactly what I’d been looking for—single-serving, one-ounce bags of nuts.

The dry-roasted cashews, cleverly called Cashew Later, have 180 calories, 14 grams of fat (good fat), 4 grams of protein, 120 mg of sodium, and 8 percent of your daily iron. The natural almonds, called Almond-daze, have 170 calories, 16 grams of fat, 6 grams of protein, 230 mg of sodium, 6 percent of your daily iron, and 8 percent of your daily calcium. I love the almonds. The cashews are a bit too salty for my taste, but I do like the dry-roasted flavor. The portion sizes are just right.

 

bananas

Peeled also has single-serving dried fruits. I particularly like the dried bananas (Banan-a-peel), because they’re chewy dried bananas rather than the banana chips you usually find in trail mixes. I don’t like the crunchy, fake taste of banana chips; the Peeled chewy dried bananas taste more like real bananas to me, and are great in a bowl of granola with soy milk or by themselves on the go. (My husband’s first thought was, “Why wouldn’t you just buy real bananas?” Yes, I usually do prefer real bananas, but they get smashed and brown pretty easily and take up a lot of room in your bag; these dried ones are sometimes more convenient to take on-the-go, especially if you’re going hiking, etc.)

I also like Peeled’s dried cherries (Cherry-go-round) and dried apples (Apple-2-the-core). They also make single-serving bags of dried mango and pineapple, which I don’t like as much; they’re a little too chewy. But I’ve never liked those two fruits dried for some reason, only fresh.

To find Peeled snacks near you, check out their store locator.

Enjoy!

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