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Healthy Diet Plans >>  Healthy snacks >>  Low carb snacks

Low Carb Snacks


It is not uncommon to feel hungry even after a full, healthy meal. When you are at work, or at home, hunger usually bothers you between meals and all you can think then, is how good a pick-me-up snack would be for you. More often than not, the foods we turn to between our meals, are not really healthy. How many of us would really want to eat a piece of fruit instead of a muffin or a piece of chocolate as a snack? Unfortunately, when we gorge on unhealthy snacks, our children learn from us and teeter towards junk food and other finger food which is not always healthy.

Flavored popcorns, cakes, candied cereals, and cookies are not the best choice for snacking.
However, one can’t always turn to fruits too. Low carb or low calorie snacks are in fact perfect for mid meal snacks. There are a lot of ways to have delicious snacks and still cut down on the calorie content. So the next time you feel like grabbing a bag of chips or getting yourself a tin of cookies, think of how many calories you will be putting on unnecessarily.

Most low carb snack recipes contain protein, fiber, and a small dose of healthy fat in it. For instance, eggs along with a few vegetables are ideal for a snack. If you prefer beef jerky, you can add some vegetables to it and you have yourself a healthy snack.

Some of the other healthy low carb snacks include tuna salad and celery, cheddar cheese with pickles, grilled cottage cheese, pumpkin or sunflower seeds, cottage cheese sticks, low carb shakes, berries and cheese, sugar free yogurt served with fruits, low sugar beef jerkies, sugar free jellies, egg sandwiches with lettuce and hard boiled eggs, cereal bars, low fat cheese spread and mushrooms, fruits and seeds with ricotta cheese, lettuce or celery with peanut butter or bean dip, and hard boiled eggs. You can also use some of these food items to come up with interesting low carb breakfast ideas. For instance, whole grain bread, toasted and served with a spread of hung curd and mint sauce, is an ideal low carb, high fiber breakfast.

Cereal bars are usually the most convenient low carb fast foods. These can be carried with you wherever you go. They can be slipped into your bag and purse and you can also keep a small stash in your desk drawer at work. However, be sure that you choose a low sugar, low fat cereal bar which does not pile on additional calories. Some cereal bars may also contain alcohol sugars. These not only make the cereal bars difficult to digest, but also cause the buildup of gas in the stomach.

You can also make low carb cookies at home, using a low carb cookie recipe of the low carb cookie ready mixes available commercially. These do not taste exactly like your average Nestle or Oreo cookies, but at least they contain lesser calories. Low carb chocolate chip cookies and low carb peanut butter cookies are some cookies that you can make at home. The sugar content in the cookies can be balanced out with the help of butter and eggs.

Even when you are planning to buy some low carb products, you can check the carbohydrate amount and percentage by checking the labels at the back. Apart from the total carbohydrate content and the carbohydrate content per serving, also check the glycemic index of the food to make sure it is healthy. You can also prepare some low carb shakes to drink whenever you are hungry. These delicious shakes can help satiate you for a longer period of time.
Submitted on January 16, 2014