Spring and summer bring seasonal cravings. Many of these cravings are often for sweet and spicy foods. The first thing you want to lay hands on is junk food. However, most of us do not necessarily want to eat junk, our cravings just land there. There are healthier snacking options for junk food. Here are our picks for what to do when –
# You are craving salty and spicy
# You are craving sweet
# You are craving fast food
# You just feel like munching
Healthier snacking options when you are craving salty and spicy
Replace potato chips with banana or kale chips
While kale chips have less fat, banana chips have more nutritional value compared to potato chips. Get your hands on a bag of banana chips from your nearest Kerala bakery or make kale chips at home. Here’s the recipe.
Replace French Fries with baked veggies for a healthier snacking options
Roasted veggie fries with tastier topping sauces will satisfy your cravings as good as the French Fries. Just toss your carrots, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, in the pan or pop them in the oven, garnish them with seasoning, and you are good to go. Another alternative is oven roasted sweet potato fries.
Replace cheese balls/wafers with salted peanuts
The salt content is probably the same in both the cheese balls/wafers and the peanuts, but peanuts still offer more nutrition. There are many organic brands that offer mildly salted peanut jars, or you can simply roast the peanuts at home and add salt and pepper.
Replace spicy savories with nuts
Nuts such as almonds, walnuts, pistachios in regular form or roasted form are a better alternative to spicy savories. They provide much needed vitamins, minerals and replace hunger pangs.
Healthier snacking options when you are craving sweet
Ditch milkshakes for homemade smoothies
We are not talking about the store-bought smoothies here. Mango, strawberry or banana smoothies made at home provide healthier satiation to your sweet cravings than milkshakes – that are often processed and contain artificial sweeteners. You can control the amount of sugar in your homemade smoothie.
Choose oats powerballs over donuts
There’s a new healthy snack fad that’s been doing the rounds for quite some time now. It’s called energy balls. They are mainly balls made of healthy ingredients such as cashews, oats or raisins. Here’s a complete guide to your powerballs or energy balls instead of binging on donuts.
Get Yogurt fruit pops over ice cream
Instead of ice cream, mix diced fruits into your yogurt and freeze it for a few hours to get the yogurt ice cream. If you are craving chocolate, dip bananas in 80% melted dark chocolate and freeze it for a few hours to get a healthier version of your chocolate snack.
Eat sweet nuts and dry fruits instead of candy
Melt dark chocolate and dip your favorite nuts and dry fruits like cashews, raisins, apricots, anjeer, walnuts etc and freeze them for a few hours. Raisins and dates alone are sweet enough to handle your craving.
Healthier snacking options when you are craving for fast food
Ditch pizza delivery with crust-free homemade pizza
Make pizza without the dough. Take a zucchini and stuff it with your usual pizza toppings. But if you are craving for the crust, you may consider baking your own flatbread at home or making the dough at home with multi grains.
Replace usual burgers with bunless burgers
Use lean meat (turkey, chicken or salmon) or a veggie patty and stuff them inside a sweet potato patty.
Try baked chicken wings over fried chicken wings
Instead of frying chicken wings, bake them and top them up with your favorite seasoning or homemade low-carb mayo. For more such fun healthy snacking options, sign up for our newsletter below. We only send 4 emails a month, that too filled with healthy recipes, ideas and health information.
