Healthy Snacking Kit to Stay Fit

As is generally said, “have breakfast like a king, lunch like a common man, and dinner like a pauper”. We understand the importance of having a heavy breakfast, medium lunch and light dinner. And then when we crave for something to munch between meals, very often we grab food which may be high in fat, cholesterol and carbohydrates, as such snacks are easily available over the counters. While it is essential to snack 3 to 4 times a day, albeit in small quantities, one must try to eat snacks as healthy as possible to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and also if one is trying to manage weight.

Try these quick snacking ideas and satiate your mid-meal hunger without any guilt.

10 Healthy Snacking Tips:

1.       Sweet corn/ Popcorn - Boil sweet corn pellets for 3-4 minutes, drain off the water and prepare your own spicy sweet corn snack. You can use butter-salt-pepper, lime juice-salt-chaat masala or any other creative spice combination you feel like…the result is always a healthy bowl of sweet corn.

Popcorn is a guiltless snack, which is tasty as well as filling, needless to say healthy as well. Popcorn packets available in stores or instant popcorn prepared in the microwave/pressure cooker are all good to satiate your mid-meal craving.

2.       Fruits/ Fruit Yoghurt – Whole fruits or fruit salads give instant energy, lots of fibre and loads of vitamins and minerals to keep you active and alert through the day. A gap of at least 1 hour must be given when having 2 servings of fruit snacks consecutively.

For fruit yoghurt, use hung curd (made by wrapping curd in a muslin cloth and keeping it hung for some time, by which the water from the curd drains off and the curd comes off the cloth as a thick lump), mix it with cut fruits of the season to make a healthy snack. You can add some spice to it by adding chaat masala, with salt/sugar to taste.

3.       Sprouts – Whole green lentils (moong dal) sprouts can be made by soaking the whole dal/lentils overnight, draining the water and leaving the wet lentils covered for half a day. You can make a healthy sprout salad by tossing in chopped onion, tomatoes, cucumber, coriander (dhania) leaves, boiled sweet corns and pomegranate seeds (optional) to add yellow and bright red colours. For the dressing, you can use either olive oil base or lime juice base, with salt, pepper, chopped green chillies and chaat masala.

4.       Nuts – Almond, pistachios, walnut, peanuts/groundnuts in small portions (2-3 of each when eating a mix of nuts, or 8-10 if you are eating just 1 type of nut)

5.       Brown/whole wheat bread sandwich – with fillings like paneer/cottage cheese, vegetables (tomato, cucumber, spinach, lettuce, bell peppers/capsicum, grated cabbage), boiled spinach and corn pellets, or a simple scrambled egg (with hung curd instead of mayonnaise if you like).  

6.       Vegetable tikkis/cutlets – Boil vegetables (diced carrots, green pea pellets, sweet corn pellets, diced potatoes) with a pinch of salt. When boiled, mash them completely and mix chopped green chillies and salt to taste. Divide the boiled vegetable mix into small round balls, and flatten them by pressing each ball between your palms. Shallow fry in a flat bottomed pan with a little oil. Turn the sides and cook well. Serve with onion slices and chopped coriander leaves…yummy and healthy snacks ready in no time!

7.       Milk shake – Make healthy and delicious milk shakes, and satisfy your mid-meal hunger. In a blender, mix milk, fruit slices (banana, strawberry, mango, kiwi, melon, papaya, pomegranate – but use only 1 fruit type for the shake, do not mix different fruits), sugar and blend for 2 minutes. Your lip-smacking milk shake is ready…enjoy J

8.      Multi grain biscuits/crackers - with a dash of honey (or a small spoonful of chocolate syrup)….quick, healthy and filling!

9.       Puffed rice (Bhel) – Make fat-free snack with puffed rice (bhel), roasted (or lightly fried) peanuts, chopped onion-green chillies-coriander leaves and a few drops of Indian pickle gravy (optional). Yummy magic in a jiffy!

10.   Dried Green Peas Chaat – Soak dried greenpeas (readily available in stores in the dal/lentils section) overnight. Boil the soaked peas (which would now look swollen) with a pinch of salt. Drain off excess water and let it cool. In a pan, crackle a pinch of cumin seeds (jeera) and grated ginger in a dash of oil. Add in the boiled peas and salt (to taste). The chaat base is ready. Serve in plates with chopped onion, tomatoes, coriander leaves, curd/yoghurt, a tsp of sweet/tamarind chutney (optional) and sprinkle some sev/bhujiya (optional) on top. Try it and you will know how tasty yet healthy it is!

I'm Feeling Nutty

Me and my 2 siblings have been eternally fond of anything sweet, and so it was no surprise what  Dad would get for us when he returned from any of his official trips to different cities in India – sweets of course! It was on one of these trips that Dad decided to bring home 2 large bags of salted and roasted nuts instead – cashews and pistachios! He had tasted them himself and had also learned about their immense nutrition and health benefits, so the divine nuts had found their way to our home, and since then, to our hearts.

I remember my elder sister sharing the cashews and pistachios  - equal number of each for the 3 of us – after we returned from school and had finished our lunch. It became a daily habit, and later on, a few more nuts were added to this routine – there were almonds, walnuts and the quintessential peanuts. While my siblings are not so regular with nuts now, my romance with nuts continues….

While nuts are good for health – heart, skin, hair, they are extremely simple to add in our diet as they do not require cooking. They are not perishable and easy to carry as well. Here is how I like my nuts, though I eat them in moderation (given their high amount of fat and calories):

·         A handful of roasted and salted nuts is a tasty teatime snack (between lunch and dinner). I carry to office a mixture of nuts (peanuts, cashew, pistachio, walnut, almond) in an airtight container so that the nuts retain their crunch, and munch a handful with my afternoon tea.

·         I add a few nuts to my bowl of cereals which I have for breakfast

·         Sometimes I sprinkle a few nuts to my green salad to add that crunch

·         My desserts (kheer, halwa and icecreams) always go with a garnish of chopped roasted nuts, for colour, taste as well as nutrition

·         Nuts find their way into my baked food – cookies and cakes alike

I also like my banana split with nuts and choco-nut bar, the recipes of which I am sharing below.

·         Banana Split with Nuts and Honey

Ingredients – 1 ripe banana, 1 tsp butter, 2 tsp honey, a handful of finely chopped roasted nuts (almonds, cashew, pistachios) and raisins

Method – Heat butter in a pan. Peel the banana and split it lengthwise into 2, and cook it in the butter till the banana turns golden brown. Put the cooked banana on a plate and drizzle with honey. Add the chopped nuts and raisins and your treat is ready!

You can add a pinch of ground cinnamon powder to the banana split, or add a dollop of whipped cream/scoop of icecream as a variation. However, the cream/icecream adds calories to the banana split which is otherwise a healthy snack

·         Chocolate  & Nut Bar

Ingredients – 1 bar of chocolate (milk or dark), 2 tsp butter, a handful of whole roasted nuts (almonds, peanuts, cashew, walnuts)

Method – Melt the chocolate bar in a pan with the butter. Once it starts thickening, add the roasted nuts and mix well. Remove from heat and let it cool off completely. Line a baking dish with an aluminium foil and pour the cool mixture into the foil. Keep in the fridge for 4-5 hours. Once the bar is set, take it out of the fridge, place it on a plate (the bar comes off the foil easily) and cut into small pieces. Store these choco-nut bars in an airtight container in the fridge and enjoy whenever you feel like a crunchy munchy bite!