Organic Honey Crisp
Recently I read a blog post about nine quick and healthy snacks to keep you going until dinner. Animal products made up five of the nine snacks. Not too healthy in my book.
My definition of healthy may be narrower than the average consumer, but it is based on science.* I came up with 12 vegan snacks (not nine but 12 because I love you!) to keep you going anytime of day. All are plant-based, whole foods and simple. Enjoy!
12 Healthy Vegan Snacks
- Raw nuts and seeds: Just a handful.
- Piece of fresh fruit. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Better yet, switch it up. Variety is the spice of life.
- Sliced apple with peanut butter: Make sure the PB is just peanuts and preferably organic.**
- Raw veggies and humus.
- Whole grain crackers with peanut butter or humus.
- Dried fruit
- Smoothie: Make it green for an extra nutritional punch.
- Homemade trail mix: Again, just a handful.
- Half of a peanut butter & banana sandwich. (Try other nut butters such as almond too.)
- Air-popped popcorn with nutritional yeast***
- Toast (whole grain) with Mexican butter, aka avocado.
- Edamame
*Good news! Science supports a compassionate diet. Not only is a vegan diet good for you, it’s also good for the planet and all the creatures that live here. Get the facts on healthy vegan diets from the experts:
- Neal Barnard, M.D.
- T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.
- Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D.
- Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
- Michael Greger, M.D.
- Julieanna Hever, M.S., R.D., C.P.T.
- McDougall, M.D.
- Ginny Messina, R.D.
- Jack Norris, R.D.
- Jeff Novick, M.S., R.D., L.D., L.N.
**See this post for information on my favorite, all-natural peanut butter.
***What the Heck is Nutritional Yeast? from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.
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I love all of your snack ideas, they sound delicious! especially the veggie and hummus, one of my favorites!
I like these snacks much better than the meat and dairy snacks I was reading about last week! Thanks for reading Liz.
I often snack on most of the items on your list. Glad to see I’m not missing any! There all great suggestions!
The one snack missing from the list is olives. I snack on olives all the time. I buy them from the Whole Foods olive bar. If eaten only a couple at a time, they would be healthy too. I can’t believe I forgot about them!
I like olives but they are VERY high in sodium and don’t have much else to offer nutritionally. So I would really think of them as a “treat” food, like potato chips. For ordinary daily snacks, I love the ones on your list!
And of course, for those allergic to peanuts (or just don’t want to eat them), there are a variety of other nut butters and even soynut and sunflower seed butters which are also delicious and high-protein choices.
I agree olives should be “treats”. Unfortunately I treat myself almost everyday! :)
What a great list! We also refer to avocado as Mexican butter. And we keep a small jar of lightly salted olive oil in the fridge and call it Italian butter.
Nina’s favorite snack right now is cinnamon toast made with unrefined coconut oil (we keep a jar in the fridge so that it remains solid), fresh ground cinnamon and a pinch of turbinado sugar. Those medium chain fatty acids are good for my little kiddo!
I like the idea of Italian butter!
I love your snack ideas :) very healthy :)
Thanks!