It’s 3 p.m., and you’re face-to-face with the vending machine, desperately mulling over how you’ll spend those quarters. Some of the snacks on display are healthy, low-cal no-brainers: baked chips, pretzels, granola bars. Or are they?
We’ve read all the labels and consulted the experts to discover the best snacks for waist watchers—and some of our picks might surprise you. Each is calorie-conscious and combines fiber, protein, and healthy unsaturated fats. Ask yourself what you’re craving (something sweet, chewy, salty, or chocolaty) and check out these Health-approved choices.
Sweet
• Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Treats
• Snackwell’s Creme Sandwich Cookies
• Crunch ’n Munch Buttery Toffee Popcorn With Peanuts
The best pick: Crunch ’n Munch Buttery Toffee Popcorn With Peanuts
This candied-popcorn treat has the same amount of fiber and protein as the other two with 80 fewer calories.
Chewy
• Craisins Cranberry Fruit & Nuts Trail Mix
• Nature Valley Chewy Trail Mix Fruit & Nut Granola Bar
• Kellogg’s Strawberry Frosted Pop-Tarts
The best pick: Nature Valley Chewy Trail Mix Fruit & Nut Granola Bar
You might think the trail mix is a healthier choice, but it actually has as much total fat as the Pop-Tarts and 90 more calories than the granola bar.
Salty
• Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Baked Snack Crackers
• Original SunChips
• Frito-Lay Smartfood White Cheddar Cheese Flavored Popcorn
The best pick: Smartfood White Cheddar Cheese Flavored Popcorn
Smartfood has 20 more calories than the SunChips, but more protein to keep you feeling fuller longer. The Goldfish have half the fiber and 50 more calories than the popcorn.
Chocolaty
• 3 Musketeers
• Snickers
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
The best pick: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Surprise! You can have two Reese’s for 50 fewer calories than the Snickers and the same amount of protein and fiber. The 3 Musketeers bar actually has 30 more calories than our pick and half as much protein. The Reese’s will set you back 230 calories, though, so count them as two snacks.
Comments (10)
Are you kidding? These snacks are generally all unhealthy and filled with artificial products that don’t get digested in the proper way and lay in your liver! If Health magazine doesn’t take a healthier stance, who will?????
They are also processed foods. How about SWEET – fruit, CHEWY / SALTY – dried fruits & nuts or olives, Choclaty – Hot cocoa, no sugar and warmed milk – milk gets sweeter as it warms.
Better choices would be soup (lots of volume with fewer calories) – chopped veggies and dip (hummus, olive tapenade,low fat cream cheese dip)
If you are looking at supplements – the PGX product is a natural fiber that turns into a viscous gel in you belly to create a sensation of fullness – good product with no bad side effects.
Here is some info on how apples (a great snack) also help prevent metabolic syndrome – http://healthhabits.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/apples-lower-metabolic-syndrome-risk/
I can see the marketing plan now – Apples, a great snack that keeps you from dying – okay, it needs a little work, but you get the point.
I believe the reason they posted this wasn’t for people who had the choice of (admittedly much healthier) snacks that you’ve mentioned. They posted it for the people who are standing in front of the vending machine full of unhealthy stuff, looking for the least of all evils. Though I would have preferred that they made that clearer!
Siggy and DR you completely missed the point. All they’re saying is you’re better off with a 150 calorie rice krispie treat than you are with a giant 500 calorie chocolate chip cookie. Some people are just never going to eat soup, fruit, or low fat cream cheese dip because they don’t taste as good as the more fatty/sugar-filled options. One doesn’t have to be perfect to make a beneficial improvement in their diet.
Yeah, we missed the point.
Kraft, Nestle and the 47 MILLION Americans with metabolic syndrome got it right.
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/ms/ms_whatis.html
So how many people in this country are allergic to peanuts?
How fat are they?
I Agree with sigy’s point and would appreciate his time.
Ya know i fund it quite interesting that such a “snack” could be seen as healthy for a snack no less but i guess that is 1 of the uppers of being an adult!!
Quit stressing and enjoy life. I agree that none of these are good options, but suppose you truly are staring at the vending machine -then choose one that sounds good and that you feel comfortable putting in your body. Besides that, this BS about saving “50 calories” by eating something that wasn’t exactly what you wanted is not only a ridiculous way to give people another meaningless issue to worry about, it will completely backfire when later on you compensate. So those 50 calories that you “saved” are completely lost when the popcorn doesn’t cut it and, gosh darn it, you wanted the goldfish and go back and get the fish. I feel I’m an authority to say this because all I do is eat whatever I want, as long as there are no artificial sweetners, processed sugars, non-whole grains, etc. -which is surprisingly easy if you just look- AND I have a great figure that gets both verbal and non-verbal compliments. Clearly I’m doing something right, and I’ll tell you it surely isn’t worrying about “50 calories”. Maybe it’s because I spend that energy and effort actually DOING something and not worrying about Snackwells versus Crunch and Munch, and that actually burns calories. Who knows?!!!
How about healthy snacks for kids after school. Hummus, which has many different flavors, with carrot sticks or celery sticks, yogurt with fresh grainola, air popped pop corn.Hard boiled eggs.
Kids and adults are way to heavey, they need better alternatives than all those processed foods, yuk!
And of coarse if you saw what they serve in the cafiteria’s in middle school you’d vomit! discusting.