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]

oh yeah, David just reminded me that early post-partum, I pretty much lived on a mixture of cereal, yogurt, and fruit mixed together. Lots of calories, protein, and nutrients, and pretty easy. Though chopping the fruit isn't that fast -- we often used grapes or berries because they don't need chopping. :-)

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Gosh. That sounds really good.

Conveniently we have filled the freezer with All Kinds of Stuff, but...gosh that sounds good.

(Of course I was just not allowed to eat for the better part of a day, and then only allowed clear liquids for much of another day, so it's entirely possible that essentially everything sounds good right now...)

[kimdons.livejournal.com]

Aaaargh! Not eating for part of the days after giving birth! Woah, that sounds super hard. One of the things I remember most about that period was David shoveling food into me... Plus the cute baby... Congrats sooo much!

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

I think ukelele is referring to the days she spent in the hospital, in labor. I imagine that it would take a few days of recovery and food-shoveling to get over that. I certainly *hope* that they let the food shoveling recovery process commence immediately.

[kimdons.livejournal.com]

oh, yeah, duh. :-) I guess it didn't register with me that way because I was encouraged to eat during labor, and after deciding to go to the hospital I had given up on eating.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I ended up with a Caesarian -- they wouldn't let me have anything other than ice chips once the epidural was in because anesthesiologists are like that, which means from ~1pm (lunch on Friday) until 4 in the morning on Saturday (c-section) no food, and then post-C-section you only get clear liquids (post-surgery + morphine = badly functioning digestive system). And the morphine pretty much made me throw up everything anyway. Mind you I was hardly awake long enough to eat yesterday, either...

Let me tell you, being given toast around 2am this morning when I said I was hungry (and after the morphine withdrawal), and successfully eating it, was like a Hallelujah chorus.

C section, ouch!

[beth_leonard]

It sounds like things could have been better :-( I hope that you are all doing well now and will recover quickly. I do have an IM account, but I've only got the software enabled on my PC which I use rarely. I'll turn the PC on tonight and leave it on. Right now Peter just (finally) went down for his nap and I need mine.

Are you home from the hospital already? I thought C-section was 4 days, but it may be that you have a great hospital with internet access.

--Beth

[kimdons.livejournal.com]

I rejoice with you on being able to eat! And I wish you a speedy recovery.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

OK, beth_leonard just pointed to this thread elsewhere, and yup, that still sounds tasty, and I am not starving right now ;). Actually I have been eating granola + yogurt + raisins pretty frequently for breakfast these days.