Healthy Snacks Choices

Dr. Ann Kulze, popularly known as "Dr. Ann", talks about how snacking can be a beneficial part of your diet.

Dr. Ann: First of all snacking is a real important thing to do. I’m a big advocate of what I call healthy snacking or sort of strategic snacking and let me give you some reasons why? First of all line yourself get ravenously hungry, you tend to definitely eat more than if you’d had something a little bit of something maybe an hour two before they kind stave that off. The other thing about snacking is nowadays, they’re really are some really tasty, truly healthy snacks available. You know about 20 years ago, many of these snack foods were and they’re start it today though. Many snack foods were pretty much nutritional disasters, very high in bad things, very low in the good things but if you make the right choice and again they’re everywhere I’m going to taste some of the best ones to choose. You have an opportunity to bring in more of these essential nutrients that we need. I mean there’s at least 40 or 42 maybe a lot more than that. Essential nutrients that your body has to have a constant daily supply of so what am I top hits for the most convenient and the most healthy sort of at the desk snacks. Nuts are great. They’re shell stable. You can package them in little one ounce containers. I love these little containers that allow us to sort of build in force and control. If you said to me what is the best mid0-afternoon snack? Hands down, it would be nuts. Most people love them, they’re great for health. They have a little of bit of fat that gives you very quick appetite suppression. They also get protein which gives you longer to get the best of both that was quick and then link for appetite suppression plus they’re so good for you. Another great snack fruit, you know one thing I like about certain fruits is we can take advantage of a natures packaging. You can grab a piece of a whole citrus. You don’t have to stick in a Ziploc or put it in you know tin foil or something like that or banana or an apple or pear. You literally just grab it and you can sit it on your desk. I love soy nuts. Roasted soy nuts are something I always have it in my desk, a handful of those. It’s a great tasty way to get it a real whole soy foods, soy foods are sort of nutritional stars are great for you in lots of different ways. I love dried wasabi peas. Again these are things that have a really long shell like they can sit around. Cheese sticks, mozzarella cheese sticks, part skin mozzarella cheese sticks that even have in their individually wrap and again they’re going to be fine for you know hours at a time sitting it at your desk and they had even I think cheddar now made from 2% milk. I wouldn’t do for that cheese but you get part skin mozzarella cheese sticks or some of these reduce fat cheeses. Other favorites of mine would be lots of really cool whole grain things you can do. What about cereals that are like easy to munch because they’re kind of chunky. I love like Quaker oats square, you can pick up light cereal, you can do cushy going crunch, a great way to bring your whole grains in and if you’re like me my weakness is a salty crunchy thing. So what I like are there a lot of whole grain crackers now available. There’s Acmac, this can cause you TLC. You can do even, they’re more and more sort of healthier chips like stone ground tortilla chips or maybe thrown with some black seeds thrown in and made with healthy oils and one of my most favorite is outdoor chocolate. A little piece or two of dark chocolate, perfect sort of not only is it just so good when you’re hungry. I tell you a cool thing, the hungry you are the better something taste and I some addicted to dark chocolate and I love to eat it. You know some people choose it after a meal or after dessert that’s fine but I love to eat it when I’m really, really hungry. So I frequently do that from my mid–afternoon snack because it taste so good in a little bit of dark chocolate is great for your health and not to different ways. So again lots of things to choose from and all those things you know generally sit around for a long period of time so it’s easy to do.