Healthy Snack Ideas

fresh fruit

Eating healthier is always something that can be improved upon. For many people, selecting a healthier meal plan is almost never any trouble with the exception of snacks. Anyone can cut down on excessively fatty foods, replace bad starches with good starches, etc. However, it is a little more difficult to do the same thing with snacks. It is even more of a burden if we fall into the mindset of thinking that since our main meals are healthy, why not splurge a little on snacks?

Thankfully, there is a surprisingly simple solution that can make snacking as healthy as ever. All you need is a creative approach and some basic skills around the kitchen. You read that last line correctly, healthy snacks are simple and easy to prepare in the comfort of your own home. As an added benefit, they will save you money and will allow you to customize your snacks exactly as you prefer to enjoy them.

Recipes for these snacks abound left and right on the Internet. Do not worry if you feel that you are not the greatest chef in the world, these snacks literally take minutes to prepare and are mistake-proof. Below you will find three of my favorite snacks to prepare. I recommend trying out the recipes as they are during your first time preparing them, and then mix them up and make them your own after that. Either way, you will have great tasting snacks that you can feel proud about for being healthy and homemade.

Please note that the format of these recipes are slightly different than what you would expect a recipe to look like. Because they are so basic, I chose to not list out ingredients, steps, etc. They are so simple to prepare that they can be explained in a few sentences, so read through them and enjoy .

Natural Fruit Leather
Odds are that you are familiar with the various types of name brand and generic fruit leathers. Those that are sold in stores are extremely sugary and possess very little actual nutritional value. Like anything else that is mass produced, you can expect them to be made from the cheapest ingredients, and that is never good if you are interested in snacking healthy.

All you need to make your own healthy fruit leather is a bottle of your favorite type of organic fruit preserves and a food dehydrator or oven. Begin by cutting some playing card sized rectangles of wax paper, about ten or twelve should be fine. Using a spoon, take a dollop of the preserves, place it on one of the wax paper rectangles, and smear it all over until you have an even layer. Repeat until all your wax paper pieces are coated.

Now for the "hard" part . Place the coated pieces of wax paper inside the food dehydrator and turn it on at the lowest setting possible. Within five to seven hours you will have a great tasting sweet and slightly tart fruit leather to enjoy. All that is being done is that the moisture from the preserves is being drawn out via the low heat and air circulating around it. Just peel and enjoy when done.

Low Sodium/Sugar Beef Jerky
Do you love beef jerky? If so, then rest assured knowing that you can enjoy it without all the extra sodium, sugars, and preservatives that go into the kind produced and sold in retail stores. Any type of lean thin meat will work, for simplicity we will just use eye of round. Cut the meat into thin strips according your taste, and place the strips into a bowl. Add a small amount of reduced sodium soy sauce, some crushed red pepper flakes for heat, and some chopped up garlic and onion for flavor. Allow it to marinade overnight.

As with the fruit leather, we will be using a food dehydrator to draw out the moisture in the meat to turn it into jerky. Remove the strips of meat from the bowl and be sure to avoid any excess liquid, patting down as necessary with a paper towel. Lay the strips inside the dehydrator being sure to avoid them touching one another. Use the lowest setting on your dehydrator and within a few hours you will have perfect jerky. Store it in a plastic bag in the refrigerator and you are good to go for your next camping trip.

Simple Granola Mix
The stereotypical healthy snack food has to be granola mix. Making it on your own is extremely fast, easy, and money saving. Start by purchasing some unsweetened granola in bulk. After that, choose some type of dried fruit such as banana chips or mango that have a natural sweetness to them. Finally, choose another type of fruit that has the tart flavor to counteract the sweet, such as dried cranberries or raisins. Mix them all together and you have instant homemade granola mix. Portion it into plastic bags and keep it in the refrigerator or a cool dry place in your kitchen.

That is as simple, and delicious, as it gets. You now have three great tasting and easy to make snacks. Make them in bulk on the weekend and enjoy them during the week. Have your own easy to prepare healthy snack or would like to comment on how to make different versions of those described above? Leave your thoughts in the comment box below. Thanks for reading.

Sabas Chapa is a freelance writer and food critic. His current project is creating an online resource for people interested in electric knife sharpener.