Morning tea / afternoon snack ideas:

The great thing about snacks is they keep your blood sugar levels steady through long periods of time between main meals. This means you are less likely to want a large meal so you can decrease portion sizes. Snacks should be small and nutritious to keep enery levels constant (less likely to grab the choc bar or Redbull in the afternoon). Snacks also keep your digestive system working so you can burn more calories throughout the day through digestion! BUT- important to have wholesome snacks that will promote a good metabolism, health and energy.

Snack sizes and amounts will vary depending on your age, weight, sex and activity level. Send us an enquiry if you would like to know what would suit you best.

• Piece of fruit/ Annies fruit or vege bars/ tinned fruit

• Prunes or dried apricots or dates with small amount of almonds or mixed nuts

• Eta Apricot and Almond packs or make up your own snack packs with a variety of seeds, nuts and dried fruit.

• Vitaweat crackers are great with a range of toppings, my favourites include: vegemite, peanut butter and honey, thin slice of edam cheese with tomato, avocado, hummus or lite cottage cheese.
• Ryvita crackers are great too with honey and sliced banana or hummus and sundried tomatoes or pickles.

• Pottle of low fat yoghurt or container with a few tablespoons. Make this more exciting by adding some fruit salad or a piece of fruit to the yoghurt. OR for abit of a choc fix, miz 1 tsp cocoa powder and 1tsp honey together to form a paste, then add few tablespoons of plain or vanilla yoghurt to the mix and blend well. A healthy chocolate mousse!

• Roasted chickpeas- either you can roast them yourself (this is on the blog page) or buy them at most grocery stores or fruit &vegetables stores. Fantastic as a snack being high in fibre, low fat and high in protein. Just watch the portion sizes! Keep to a handful

• Home made baking like banana loafs, fruit or savoury muffins or oat based biscuits. Much better to make these yourself than buy commercial items.

• Homemade oat balls: Add 1.5 cups of rolled oats to a mixing bowl. Add ¼ cup of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and sultanas, cranberries or sliced dates to mixture. Add 2 tablespoons of soft honey and about 1/2 a cup of water and combine altogether. Add 2T peanut butter to help the mixture bind together. The mixture should be neither too wet or dry, just sticky. With hands, role tablespoon size of mixture into a balls and place on plate. Should make around 12 depending on size.  If you have a food processor you don’t need the peanut butter as it will dice the ingredients up and naturally stick them together when the oils from seeds and juices from dried fruit combine together. Place in fridge for 30mins to set. You can also flatten balls to make cookies and bake at 180 degrees for 15mins for  healthy chewy biscuits.

• Carrot sticks, slice capsicum, celery or cucumber and hummus or light cream cheese

• 2x corn and zucchini fritters (see recipe page)

• Cup of low fat milk (rice milk or soymilk can be used instead) and small amount of milo
• Smoothies are also great- 200ml trim milk or rice milk plus 1/2 cup frozen berries, banana, tsp cinnamon, 2 Tblp of mixed seeds.
• No Bake Yum bar- see recipe page (at the bottom)

Think about what you are eating and its health benefits! If it isn’t going to benefit your body, don’t eat it! E.g donuts, commercial biscuits or pastries, chips etc. High in fat and calories, low in nutrients and easily broken down so won’t burn as much through digestion. Always go for high fibre foods like wholegrain crackers or fruit.

Try these out for a healthy high fibre snack!

Flaxseed, Wheat, and Bran Muffins

INGREDIENTS
1 C.flaxseed ground
1 C whole wheat flour
1 C. Oat Bran
1 C. Brown sugar
2 tsp. Baking soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp. Cinnamon
1 1/2 C. shredded Carrots
2-3 Apples, cored and chopped up or shredded
1/2 C. Chopped nuts (optional)
1/2 c. Raisins (optional)
3/4 C. 2 % milk
2 Eggs, beaten
1 tsp. Vanilla

DIRECTIONS
Mix flour, flaxseed, bran, sugar and dry ingredients together. Shred carrots and apples and add these along with optional raisins and nuts to dry ingredients. Mix well. Stir together milk eggs and vanilla and stir this into batter until well moistened. Fill cupcake or muffin tray until 3/4 full and bake at 180 for 20 to 25 minutes.
Makes 24 med muffins.
( freeze them in ziplock bag, then just pull one out each morning and will be ready to eat 20 minutes later on the way to work! )

Number of Servings: 24