Need Snickers Alternative

[beth_leonard]

Tonight was a two-Snickers bar night.

I hate doing taxes, and the sales taxes for my business were particularly tricky this year.

I think I need to find a healthier alternative to Snickers bars that is just as convienient for my late-night snacks however. Of the things I looked at this evening, Snickers had 4 g protein for 14 g fat. Compared to icecream's 2 g protein for 12 g fat. Getting enough protein while pregnant is always a challenge for me, although I usually do ok on the other requirements/suggestions**.

My late-night snacks must be:

* Instant -- If I can't just pop it in my mouth, possibly stopping to unwrap and/or serve, it doesn't count. The snickers bar ends up playing interference and saying "I'm here, I'm easy, you can just eat me" If I didn't want instant, I'd probably make a hot chocolate (8 g protein, or a cup of Ramen)

* Mess-free -- I'm eating by my computer and granola and associated dry foods are frequently too messy and jam up my keyboard/attract ants.

* Yummy. My mother tried to feed me a choco-protein bar last summer and I nearly puked.

* Of equal or greater nutritional value to a snickers bar.

* Non-spoiling -- fresh fruits tend to go bad unless refrigerated, and if they go straight from the refrigerator to my mouth, they frequently fail the "yummy" criteria. My teeth don't like the cold unless it's ice cream.

* Non-constipating -- Bananas fail this criteria, sadly.

Despite drinking more than the recommended amount of fluid, and frequently at or above the recommend amount of fiber/fruit, constipation remains a problem for me, particularly in late pregnancy. [sigh]

Maybe this is just my way of trying to justify to myself eating Snickers even though it's technically "candy". Or maybe I'm stuck in a food rut and my friends have good ideas for other things I can eat. We're nearly out of dried apricots, those are good too, but I don't think they have much protein.

--Beth

Comments

[kimdons.livejournal.com]

-If you like cold hard boiled eggs, you could do a bunch up and keep them in the fridge

- Nuts come in many different types of roasting and flavorings, maybe trader joes or whole foods or something like that would have tamari cashews or lime almonds or stuff like that. David and I also adore the mixture of nuts and dried fruit, especially walnuts (good omega-3's) and raisins. Date nut rolls are also yummy -- chopped dates, shredded coconut, and slivered almonds -- you can buy them pre-made

- If you're eating dairy, I second the yogurt-plus-yummystuff idea from ukelele. I used to make huge batches of pumpkin bread with added whey protein powder (makes it super easy to get some pregnancy protein) then when I got hungry I'd microwave a some bread and dollop yogurt on top

- If you're not eating dairy, you can still make protein shakes with fruit, coconut milk, and powdered egg whites (+ I add some ginger, gelatin, vanilla, and stevia). If you make up some "base" ahead of time, all you have to do is add some fruit in a blender

- I agree with the no cold fruit sentiment. We keep some of the fruit in the fridge so it doesn't go bad, but then keep a handful out (enough for a day or so) in the cupboard to warm up for eating.

- if you dry your own meat it can be pretty much salt-free and taste however you want it, and it's an easy super-protein snack

- One of my current favorite snacks is a spicy winter squash with apples and carrots. You have to make it yourself, though you could make a lot and then each portion would be no-work.

- Note that 2g or 4g of protein is not that much, especially given the yuckies you get with processed sugars and junk they put in candy. For example, one cup of butternut squash gives you 2g of protein, 1g fat, 18g carb and squash isn't known for its protein, whereas one snickers bar has 3.6g protein, 12g fat, 22.8g carb. (Got my numbers from websites, so I don't know if they're exactly right.) And in a pregnancy, you're probably aiming for around 100g protein, right? I guess my point is that "equal or greater nutritional value than a snickers bar" should be fairly easy

- I hear trader joes has lots of pre-made healthy snacks and looking around can help with snack ideas. I try to avoid places like Albertsons or Safeway because most of their snacks aren't very healthy and it's just depressing. I'm sure there are other good stores too, maybe something local (like Berkeley Bowl was for us for a while.)

- We're currently using a personal chef while I try to finish my thesis and raise Aria :-) A personal chef might not be for you, but the model might be interesting. He makes a bunch of food all at once and then puts it in the fridge in pyrex. Then getting a healthy snack or meal is very fast in the microwave or pretty fast in the oven.

Good luck! When I was pregnant (and pretty much barfed up every vegetable I ate) I took heart in knowing that a lot of my baby's nutrition was coming from my healthy nutrient stores that I had built up before pregnancy.

[geofizzgirl.livejournal.com]

More on actual protein content:

If you eat whole grains, you might be suprised at how much you actually get. Keep track in a diet tracker for a few days to see: fitday.com and sparkpeople.com are two that I've found. (I think sparkpeople has babyfit or something like that now?). Anyways, I eat granola with milk for breakfast, and it turns out to be 20g of protein right there.

The other thing about aiming for 100g of protein per day comes from various studies that looked at women's diets after the fact. Those with lower blood pressure tended to consume 100g + protein per day. However, it appears that the source was often dairy, which mean that the women were also getting more Ca/Mg/K per day. I've now seen a few studies that tried to separate out those effects, and indeed the Ca/Mg/K seem to be a more dominant factor in getting to 40-42 weeks healthy. Let me see if I can dig up the reference. It's been a few years...

I tried both high protein and high Ca/Mg/K (nuts!) to hedge my bets. I still only made it to 38w/2d.

[beth_leonard]

This is good to know. I drink 1/3 to 1/2 gallon of nonfat milk daily. Except for the days when we're out of milk because I drank it all again. Our fridge is small and only fits 2 gal if we want anything else in there.

I'll have to give the diet trackers a try. I do try to eat fresh fruits/veggies during the day, but they don't have "nutrition information" on the outside of the skins. Generally I count fruits/veggies as 0 g protein, but they probably have some.

--Beth

[beth_leonard]

I'll check out Trader Joes, there's one right down the block. The last time I went in was years ago. At the time I wanted to buy OJ with vitamin D and Calcium and one other item that I would consider "normal" for a food store. Not only could I not find what I was looking for, I couldn't find anything I wanted to buy there. Lots of people like it though, so I should give it another try.

The nuts are a very good idea as long as I limit the servings. When we do buy a thing of peanuts it tends to get eaten entirely within a day or two which is not good -- fat wise or allergy wise. I'm not allergic to anything, but Jon was/is and one of the coorelated ways of reducing childhood allergies is for the mother to reduce/avoid common allergens during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

I eat peanut butter sandwiches because the PB does add to my protein, but I try to limit it to no more than 1 a day plus 1 snickers bar. (Some days I fail, as noted :-)

Almonds aren't implicated nearly as often in allergy problems though, so I should give them a try. I also like them.

We haven't started Peter on nuts yet, we're waiting until he's 3 if possible, but I also don't freak out if I use the same knife for my sandwich as for his. He hasn't shown any reactions so far to that level of exposure, so we're hoping he's fine. We're just being extra cautious.

--Beth

[kimdons.livejournal.com]

Peanuts aren't actually nuts, they're legumes, and people are usually less allergic to non-peanuts, like you said. There are lots of kinds of nuts and even people with allergies are usually not allergic to all nuts. Maybe you could try lots of different kinds and then you wouldn't be overdoing any particular potential allergen. BTW, David's allergic to almonds. We eat lots of walnuts. Other suggestions we like are pecans, pistachios, and macadamias (though watch out for the salt on the pistachios and macadamias). Also seeds are in a different allergy category than nuts too -- sunflower and pumpkin are often readily available, but again watch out for the salt. Oh, and if you're watching out for peanuts, careful of mixed nuts even without peanuts -- I hear they are often contaminated with peanuts or processed on the same equipment. Bulk isles in alternative grocery stores are sometimes good for finding unusual nuts.

On TJs, I've been there about as often as you :-), but people keep suggesting it for healthy, interesting premade foods. Maybe you could go with somebody who usually shops there to show you the good stuff. :-)