Monday, June 11, 2007

Healthy Snacks for a Healthy Diet

Have you ever been out driving, maybe for a doctor appointment or other long errand, and needed a snack? Since I have a tendency to low blood sugar, there have been times in my life when I knew I better eat something before I drove much further...for the safety of everyone around me. So I would stop into a grocery store. Now, when blood sugar is dropping, it's a little hard sometimes to figure out what to eat. You only want one. You can't cook it. You don't want too much sugar.

In case there is anyone who ever has a similar puzzle...or just wants to have a pick-me-up that's not too high in fat, sugar and calories, I wanted to share with you three recent ideas that I found, when I wasn't "under the blood sugar", that would provide a good snack any time, but especially when I am out and about and feel that fuzzy-headed feeling.

The first one is Special K Bars. They are cereal bars and come with a slight flavor of chocolate, strawberry or chocolate. I think I figured the cost per bar at around 5o cents. Total fat is 1.5 grams, saturated fat 1 gram, sugar 9 grams, protein 1 gram, calories 90.

Another is YoCrunch flavored yogurt with toppings in a little cup attached to the top, which costs about 99 cents where I live. Too expensive for a daily food item but great for something to pick up the blood sugar when one finds a need. (It's a good idea to keep plastic spoons in the car.) The strawberry yogurt with granola has: fat 2 grams, saturated fat 1 gram, sugar 27 grams, protein 6 grams, calories 190. The blueberry yogurt with Grapenuts (TM) has: fat 1.5 grams, saturated fat 1 gram, sugars 25 grams, calories 190. I don't know if this particular yogurt is available everywhere, but other yogurts can usually be found in individual sizes, too.

When I'm feeling like eating chips, I try to talk myself into a little bag of pretzels. The small bag controls serving size and the pretzels are lower in just about everything than the chips...although pretty high in salt. Utz brand 1 oz. bag (for 25 cents at our local supermarket) has: fat 1 gram, saturated fat 0 grams, sugar 1 gram, protein 2 grams, calories 110.
Hope someone may find something here helpful.

1 comment:

Alexandra said...

I always get a bag of mixed nuts, some cheese and maybe some fruit, like an apple or a banana. Carbs make me worse when my blood sugar is low. 7-11s always seem to have some healthy stuff like this.