I'm not going to title this until I see what it ends up being about.
Do you guys ever walk around composing blog posts in your head? I feel confident that my friend, Nancy does. She has good blog posts.
Anyway, here's the one I was working on in the kitchen while I was making myself some popcorn just now. Please know the views expressed are my opinions and do not have to be yours. Your opinions are welcome too. I just ask that no one compare yourself. I would read a blog post like this and judge the writer or myself. I try not to, but I do. I don't want to mess with anyone's mental health - just saying what I do and wondering what you do. Deal?
What do you all eat for snacks at your house? Do you snack? I am reading a book that suggests snacking isn't the way to go, but even if that's true I am not interested in that right now. I am a snacker, and being at home all day lends itself to snacking a lot. I try sometimes to resist, particularly the less healthy but... And Amy too. I swear the first thing she says when she comes out of quiet time is, "Can I have a snack?"
In my desire to eat healthier, I have been buying doritos a lot less. I am a sucker too for salty snacks. I love popcorn and chips. But I would love to love some other things that are really great for my body. When we were first married I wouldn't really buy fruit thinking that it was too expensive and not absolutely needed to feed our family three meals a day. (OK, now that just sounds bad - I'd buy doritos but not fruit? I really didn't buy doritos that much then either. Still, it's easy to splurge on things you LOVE and forget about the things that are great for you. Let's be honest.) Anyway, I buy fruit now. My girls LOVE oranges. I eat grapefruits at breakfast a lot these days. (I'm kind of in an oatmeal/ grapefruit/ toast phase with my breakfasts. I feel good about that.) We always eat a lot of apples and bananas and sometimes grapes and strawberries. We're crazy about fruit smoothies and have them at least every couple weeks - not regularly but not uncommon. We have fruit with meals and as snacks.
So fruit is a snack I feel great about. But somehow it's not what we will grab EVERYTIME we want a snack. I also often have tortilla chips - I just can't seem to give those up - and crackers on hand. Occasionally granola bars and fruit snacks. Those are pretty typical kids snacks (and Matt and I like them too.) Popcorn - especially at night - is not uncommon for me. You should see my parents. It's like daily for them. I feel ok about those.
But I need more ideas. I really like the idea of healthy foods, but they also have to be easily accessible and appealing. Otherwise we won't eat them, and what's the point of that. I'm not one to make funny faces out of food to try to get kids to eat them. So when I want kid friendly snacks, I want things kids will eat, not things kids will laugh at. Maybe that helps, but it's just not my thing. I would LOVE if my family would eat raw veggies - like celery or carrots for snacks, but that doesn't happen much. When we do eat veggies - which is not nearly as much as I think would be good - they usually are a part of a meal. Plenty of times Matt or I will want a snack and will go to the fridge and/or pantry, look in, and close the door with nothing in hand because we don't have ready appealing snacks on hand. This is due to factors I've already said - wanting healthy stuff, budget, lack of creativity.
So what do you all think? What do you eat for snacks? Please share if you want. (And don't be offended if I don't do what you suggest. We'll all do our own thing.)
So there was my stream of consciousness blog post. Thanks for reading.
Ryan says he snacks on cereal and peanut butter, which is true. We used to buy crackers, but then I listened to some ladies in my ward talk about how bad it is for you to eat crackers all the time and I stopped buying hardly any at all. Vidalia had fruit snacks for a while, but they are gone now. Maybe I will buy more someday. We try to have fruits and vegetables on hand, some we will eat for snacks and some we will not. Occasionally we'll have chips and salsa or popcorn.
ReplyDeleteIn other words...we got nothin'! If you come up with good ideas, please share. I've thought about this before. I bought carrots last time I thought about it. The carrots are in our fridge. Sometimes I pull them out with a meal and make us eat some (not that we don't like carrots). Mostly we want snacks and just don't have any.
String cheese, apples with peanut butter, yogurt, edamame (soy beans which you can buy in a large bag in the freezer section which then has small microwaveable portions inside and guess what, they're salty, full of protein, fiber and other vegetable goodness), cereal, clementines (when in season), crackers and cheese. That's what I can think of off the topp of my head. We of course have fruit snacks and granola bars, but they just don't fill me or the kids up. They will just keep asking if that's what I give them.
ReplyDeletei like to have string cheese on hand, cheese and crackers, chips and salsa (salsa counts as a veggie, right?) :) also i've found we're more likely to eat veggies as a snack if we go beyond your normal carrot sticks. my boys love grape tomatoes and bell pepper strips, and my husband would eat sugar snap peas and nothing else all day if allowed. :) it also helps if you have a good ranch dip or other dip that you really like. another good healthy snack option is nuts. i love to munch on raw almonds, peanuts, cashews, etc. and yogurt! i can't get enough yogurt. even better with fresh or frozen berries mixed in, and maybe a little granola on top. and grapes are delicious when frozen, too! ok, i think now we have finally come to the end of my super-long comment. hopefully i gave you some ideas. :)
ReplyDeleteMatt makes yummy smoothies! I really like "mash ups" It is just mushed up fruit in a pouch thingy. I put them in the fridge and call it a smoothy. (great for on the go)
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