What to Substitute to Satisfy your Cravings
We all enjoy a good snack and there are times we just have to grab our favorite treat to satisfy that craving. But we can undo a lot of our good work on watching our weight if we let our craving lead to a binge – chips, ice cream and soda all come with a lot of calories to go with their delightful tastes and textures.
What if there was a way to have the treat and keep the worst of the extra calories away from our mouths? With a little shopping planning, this can be done.
While taste is obviously important in driving our cravings, so are textures – and many of our favorite textures can be found in snack food that is simply much better for us than the go-to grabs.
Popcorn is part of the American way of life and sales just keep growing year after year – but if we want to prevent our waistlines from doing the same, we can take control of our popcorn and cut the calories. Popcorn is actually a pretty healthy whole grain in itself, high in fiber which will give you a feeling of being sated and full quickly. The problem with traditional popcorn is the amount of oil used to make it pop, then the choice of flavorings added can take it to the next level. If you do not want to use an air popper with zero fat, just spray a light coating of olive oil on the kernels, pop away and choose seasonings like salt, chili powder, garlic, or paprika for flavor.
If your movie treat of choice is ice cream, bananas are the key to meeting your craving needs. Add a frozen banana into a blender with some vanilla yogurt, maybe a dash more vanilla flavor for your personal taste, and you have a sweet, cold, smooth treat to enjoy with many fewer calories in tow. When you freeze the banana, just wrap it in foil and you are good to go.
Chips are a very quick and easy snack to solve a craving - we are hardwired to like salt and crunchiness is a texture delight. But the carbs in the potato and the calories in the oil used to fry them up are a deadly double dose we can avoid. A good way to stay on the healthier side is mixed nuts – all the salty crunch you want but containing protein rather than pure carbs which also fills you up more quickly.
And if you want a substitute for nuts – especially if you like a large handful of salted peanuts – try chickpeas. Just give them a roast in the oven or try them in an air fryer with a seasoning of your choice and a spritz of oil.
Many of us just love our cheese – and the creamy texture is what does it for us. But cheese – while good for protein - also comes with a lot of fat. A simple avocado can be a great substitution for a chunk of cheese – and while avocados are higher in fats than many fruits and vegetables, they are the better-for-us unsaturated fats compared to the saturated fats found in cheese.
And where would we be without pasta in our lives? The sheer pleasure of a pile of carbs to tuck into is highly tempting – but try switching flour-based pasta out with pasta made from beans. Each mouthful contains much more fiber and protein than regular making it a healthier indulgence.
No snack is complete without a drink with it – but sodas can come highly packed with sugars, and even the diet varieties have sweeteners and all sorts of other chemicals in them. Seltzer water has the same bubbles we are looking for but no added stuff.
