Favorite healthy snack food

[socca]

As far as the soy debate goes, my MIL used to be a hardcore vegan for 20 years and as such her diet depended heavily on soy proteins (soy meat, soy milk, soy ice-cream, soy everything). In the past year she has reverted back to eating fish, dairy products and eggs to reduce her dependency on soy protein after reading that eating too much soy could have adverse effects on her health (can't remember the details). So the "science" must have been compelling enough to make her change her diet after 20 years. Eating a few soy beans here and there is probably just fine though .

No, all this shows is something well known to cognitive scientists: it is often much harder to dislodge a meme complex from a human host than a single meme. If we oversimplify the nutrition-related meme complex to just two memes:
1) It is necessary for humans to consume meat & dairy products to enjoy optimal health, and
2) Humans who consume a sufficiently varied plant-based diet (and sufficient calories) are nevertheless at risk for protein deficiency.

Your MIL rejected the first meme, but not the second. Her failure to reject the second meme led her to re-accept the first meme. This is a textbook example of a meme complex in action.

Thomas Jefferson famously predicted that within 50 years of his time of writing everyone in the U.S. would be Unitarian. He failed to properly gauge how difficult it is to dislodge religious meme complexes from the minds of humans - there are so many memes that need to be rejected at once that many people are simply incapable of making the leap.

 

[socca]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention a recent snack food discovery: do-it-yourself roasted peanuts. I decided to try roasting myself after purchasing a bag of funny-tasting roasted peanuts.

If you search the web, you'll find the recommended approach is 350F for around 20 minutes. This didn't work for me. However, 250F for an hour worked great! Just spread the raw peanuts (in shells) on a baking tray, and stick it in the oven.

 

[FinanceDude]

I can think of one other thing, but I won't mention it here.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

This is one of the main tenets of Gay Taubes' book I mentioned earlier. I am in a campground south of Amarillo, Texas right now so don't have my research available to give exact quotes. In any event, it echos what you cite.

I recently read the book (tedious to read, but interesting). I find most of his hypothesis to be plausible based on my experience in various research institutions. That is, the current national dietary recommendations and the processes by which these recommendations are made are seriously flawed. The low carb diets and hypotheses need further study, but for now they have a supportive body of research which makes them at least as credible as the standard low fat, low calorie strategies.

But back to snacks: frozen sliced bananas are great, and you can use slightly over-ripe bananas without ruining them -- better than throwing the over-ripe ones out.

 

[Dawg52]

I usually have an apple at night for a snack. For a snack on the golf course, I usually have one of these or something similar.

Product: Oat Snacks - Quaker Chewy 90 Calorie Granola Bars, Chocolate Chunk | QuakerOats.com

 

[harley]

I didn't know those came in a can.

 

[rocketdog]

A favorite healthy snack: Lots of air-popped popcorn, sprinkled with tamari (or soy sauce) and dusted with nutritional yeast. It doesn't look so great, but I think it tastes yummy.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

We have a Japanese friend who comes to visit every once in awhile. One time they brought us this snack food that comes in little balls. I looked it up they are seaweed fish crackers. Lol..they taste like fish alright. The most horrible things Ive ever eaten. Kinda funny they eat them up with a big smile.

 

[Dawg52]

I didn't know those came in a can.

Med's baby. Not a snack. Meds.

 

[CoolChange]

Salted & roasted sunflower seeds or raw almonds seem to pair well with my favorite hops flavored beverages in the evening. (I have had trouble finding other good food sources of Vitamin E in my diet. The beer has a fair share of B's.)

I have recently started eating raw radishes again. I get out of the habit and forget how much I enjoy those little spicy, crunchy globes.

 

[Khan]

Salted & roasted sunflower seeds or raw almonds seem to pair well with my favorite hops flavored beverages in the evening. (I have had trouble finding other good food sources of Vitamin E in my diet. The beer has a fair share of B's.)

I have recently started eating raw radishes again. I get out of the habit and forget how much I enjoy those little spicy, crunchy globes.

Mother used to make radish sandwiches: french bread or rye, thin layer of butter, thin layer of sliced radishes.