Snacks without the GUILT!
From nuts s that taste like chocolate tart to gummy bears with vitamins
WheTher you’re concerned about your ‘bikini body’ or not, wearing fewer and lighter clothes in summer makes us all hesitate before we eat a chocolate bar or packet of crisps.
That doesn’t stop us feeling hungry, though — and often the more you try to avoid tempting snacks, the more you want them.
Now supermarkets have realised we all want to snack occasionally without ruining our best intentions. In typical style they’ve even given it a name — ‘guilt-free snacking’, apparently — and devised arrays of delicious nibbles for us to enjoy without the usual attendant guilt.
Kim Salmon, the Co- op’s healthy snacking buyer, says: ‘Guilt-free snacking or “permissible indulgence” is a big trend for 2015, since the average Brit snacks up to four times a day.
‘We’ve designed some innovative products to appeal to the growing number of shoppers looking for nutritious or lower-calorie products — and we can’t believe how well they’ve gone down. So far sales are up 53 pc on our forecasts.’
Key trends include high-protein snacks, which keep you feeling fuller for longer and appeal to the carb-avoiders, and non-potato crisps made of fruit, veg or pulses. Simpler snacks such as nuts, popcorn and even fruit nicely presented in small tubs are also going down a storm. here’s my round-up of the most interesting snacks — with all of the taste and no regrets … Fruit & Veg Snack Pack
£2 for 330g, Tesco QuITe a few of the supermarkets do these ready prepared snack packs now, but this is the first I’ve seen combining fruit and veg. Prepared and ready to eat slices of pineapple, cucumber, melon and red pepper, plus a little pot of Sour Cream & Chive Dip. Counts as three of your five-a-day. Mrs Crimble’s Glutenfree Cereal Bars 89p per bar, delis, health food shops, farm shops, or MrsCrimbles.com ThIS new range of cereal bars (which will go into holland & Barrett at the end of the month) comes in three flavours: Cherries & Berries, Sultana & Apricot, and Banana. They have no artificial additives, 150 calories max, and lots of fruit, oats, fibre and honey. Crunchy Crudite Selection
£3 per pot, M&S you can’t get much healthier than this: a pot filled with trimmed and ready-to-eat radishes, carrots and sugar snap peas. The very definition of dietary virtue! Graze Good to Go snack packs From 99p, Sainsbury’s, Boots, WH Smith Travel and independents for the past seven years, graze snacks have been subscription only — delivering boxes of healthy nuts, seeds, dried fruits and other treats. They’ve now branched out into shops with a 12strong range, each designed to have ‘ positive nutritional benefits’ such as high protein or fruit levels. Sate your chocolate craving with their deconstructed Dark Chocolate Cherry Tart, which contains cherries, dark chocolates and nuts, or feast on 9g of protein in their Punchy Protein Nuts. Crunchy Beetroot Slices
£1 for 30g bag, Tesco They look like (purple) crisps, they crunch like crisps, but they’re pure veg — slices of oven- dried beetroot that will keep you going until lunch. one of your five-a- day, they also look rather gorgeous, too. Put them out at a party with a pot of tzatziki for a double whammy of healthy treats. BeautySweeties Fruit Jelly Bears £2.99 for 125g bag, Superdrug WheN the urge for sweets strikes, there’s often no stopping it, but at least these are good for you, too. These gummy bear treats are free from gluten, lactose and fat, but rich in Coenzyme Q10, which can help combat signs of ageing, aloe vera, which helps soothe skin, and collagen which helps keep the skin elastic.
Meridian Peanut Bars
£1.19 each, Holland & Barrett
GoING into stores this week, these
new flavoured peanut bars are made with palm oil-free peanut butter, plus cocoa, sun-dried banana, or cranberries and raspberries. They come in Peanut & Cocoa, Peanut & Banana, or Peanut & Berry flavours — and with 7g of protein, they will keep you feeling full for ages.
Tasty Little Numbers 100 Calories Multi-Cubes
£3.49-£33.99 for a box containing five snack bags. From selected Boots stores or tastylittlenumbers.com DON'T let the name put you off — this firm actually makes very good, calorie-counted snacks, ranging from fruit-flavoured jelly beans or chocolate- coated peanuts to Bombay mix and toasted corn kernels. Each little bag has 100 calories.
Falafel & Houmous Snack Box
£2.75 for 210g, M&S This looks so attractive, which is half the battle, with its orangey- red spicy red pepper houmous, and assortment of falafel, tomatoes, carrots and sugar snap peas to dip in it.
Burts Chips Lentil Waves
£1.99 for a multipack of 6, Waitrose if CRISPS rather than chocolate are your downfall, it’s hard to do without something savoury to nibble on when you sit down at night. That’s where these ‘crisps’ come in. Made with lentil flour, they have 40 per cent less fat than Burts Potato crisps, a low glycaemic index, and fewer than 99 cals per bag. Available in three flavours — Lightly salted, Thai sweet chilli and sour cream & chive — they’re also satisfyingly crunchy.
Banana Fruity Fingers
60p per bag, Tesco TRYING to get fruit and veg into your children is one of the more boring aspects of parenthood, but these brightly decorated little bags of strips made from fruit purees and fruit juice really seem to appeal to them. Designed for toddlers, my primary school aged fruit- dodgers fell upon them ravenously.
Watermelon Fingers
£1 for 90g, Tesco PREPARING watermelon at home can be fiddly and messy — and that’s once you’ve manhandled the thing back from the supermarket in the first place. This little pack of ready- cut slices is great. The pink colour makes it attractive for even the fussiest child.
Sweet Blackberries
£1 for 100g, Tesco if you’re looking to up your fruit intake, these snack packs of fresh British blackberries offer an easy way to do it. And they’re no ordinary blackberries, either — but twice the size and twice as sweet. The new varieties include Driscoll’s Victoria, Karaka Black and Black Magic.
Tesco fruit expert simon Mandelbaum says: ‘Blackberries have never been as popular as other berries because they have not been as sweet. We think these new varieties could revolutionise the UK blackberry industry and see the fruit eventually become as popular as blueberries — and maybe, one day, even strawberries.’