May  2007

Pack a Smart Snack Bag

This article continues the series from the New You: Health for Every Body class.

A Smart Snack Bag is a helpful tool for making peace with food and being able to respond to your body’s hunger signals. By keeping foods you enjoy on hand, you can honor your hunger and respond appropriately to it. This prevents you from getting too hungry if food is not available and then overeating at the next meal. Putting together your own snacks helps you avoid raiding vending machines or grabbing fast food when you are starving. It can even help you meet nutritional needs.

In fact, smart snacks are good for everyone. Children have small tummies and need to eat four to six times a day to get the nutrients and energy they need. Teens have high energy needs which can be better met with smart snacks. And snacks provide busy adults with the energy they need to get through late afternoon fatigue and handle pre-dinner chores.

Smart Snack Bags can be any kind of bag or even a box. Keep it anywhere hunger is likely to strike—in the office, the car, your child’s backpack. By keeping the bag or box out of sight, it will be available but not tempt you to eat just because you are bored.

Include foods that satisfy you. For snack bags away from home, choose foods that do not require refrigeration. Individual containers or packages make it easy to keep a variety
of foods in your bag. Buy large containers of your favorites and divide into individual snack-size plastic bags. Wash fresh fruit before adding to your bag so it is ready to eat.

Here is a list of some nonperishable foods you might want to keep in your Smart Snack Bag:

• Animal or graham crackers

• Dried fruit

• Small cans of tuna or chicken

• Nuts

• Peanut butter

• Bagel chips, crackers of any kind

• Popcorn

• Pudding cups and fruit cups

• Pretzels

• Hot cocoa or instant coffee mixes

• Instant soups

• Instant oatmeal

• Ready to eat cereals

• Trail mix

• Vegetable and fruit juice

• Granola bars

• Bottled water

• Napkins, plastic flatware