HEALTHY SNACKING

Stop worrying about calories and start looking for real food. Ingredients are the most important thing to consider when we’re talking about food.  Once you swallow that food, your cells will break it down and utilize it to perform biochemical functions in your body. It gets broken down for energy, for nourishment, to grow your hair, even revitalize your skins collagen (the component that keeps your skin nice and elastic) and those are only a few of the amazing functions your cells perform! If you are simply eating for calories with no attention to the ingredients you could be eating fillers, preservatives, artificial dyes, artificial sweeteners, trans fats, GMOs (pesticides) and corn syrup, which are some of the most widely used artificial ingredients found in our food these days. I would argue that “food” with these artificial ingredients is not really food, but it is still labeled as such. For now at least ;)

Keep in mind, most of these ingredients are there so that the food company can get away with making your food as cheap as possible in order to make the most profit from you. A lot of these cheap ingredients also act as preservatives and addictive components (to make an addicted customer out of you- more $). Now take a second to think about your cells trying to use a preservative they don’t recognize as food to perform essential functions in your body just to keep you alive! Some of these ingredients are so far from food that your cells don’t know what else to do with them except throw them into fat cells for storage.

This is why it is so important to read your ingredient labels and know exactly what you are putting in your body.

One of my favorite real food companies is Simple Mills because they live up to their name with simple, real food ingredients. You can read the back of any of their ingredient labels and recognize every single ingredient. No need to break out Google for these ingredient labels! (We’ve all done it. At least all of us health nuts have haha)

Their Almond Flour Crackers are one of my favorite snacks because they are so simple and insanely delicious. They also happen to be a great filling snack (or addition to lunch) thanks to the protein from the nuts and seeds. The ingredients in the Sea Salt ones are:

Nut and Seed Flour Blend (almonds, sunflower seeds, flax)

Tapioca

Cassava

Organic Sunflower Oil

Sea Salt

Organic Onion

Organic Garlic

Rosemary Extract

That is what an ingredient label should look like; real food ingredients. It also helps they are probably the most delicious tasting crackers I’ve ever had and come in awesome flavors like Rosemary & Sea Salt, Cheddar and Sundried Tomato & Basil.

I couldn’t decide on lunch today and just decided to have a dipping party with my crackers.

-Beet Hummus (for a recipe simply look up a traditional hummus recipe and add roasted beets to it when blending)

-Tuna salad made with Avocado Oil Mayo

-Chunky Gucamole (made with garlic, red onion, lime juice, pink salt and avocado)