Working in a 9 to 5 job can be very stressful, and as such, making sure that you eat healthy becomes all the more important. While breakfast and lunch are the two major meals that you will have for any given work day, it’s also crucial to be aware of what you put into your mouth in between.
Snacks are great for staving off hunger, but only when you eat nutritious, filling food items that don’t cause your sugar levels to spike or leave you even hungrier before your next full meal. For the purpose of helping you come up with a healthy office snacks list, here are a few suggestions that we offer for inclusion.
Healthy Beverages – Plant Based Milks and Smoothies
Snacks don’t always have to be solid food. Sometimes, you can enjoy healthy beverages that are also chock-full of nutrients. For instance, plant-based milk products made from nuts are a great source of nutrients and healthy, unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats are great because they won’t cause your bad cholesterol levels to rise.
If you want, you can even blend your favorite nut or grain milk with fruits and veggies to make a wholesome smoothie at work. Now you have all the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants from the added veggies and fruits, plus you get a healthy serving of fibers as well.
Greek Yogurt of Flavored Yogurt
These days, consumers will find a sea of options when they go to the yogurt section of their local supermarkets, and that’s a very good thing. Yogurts are among the healthiest snacks you can eat since they are rich in minerals like calcium, potassium, and magnesium, as well as vitamins like vitamin B2 and vitamin B12.
Yogurts also usually come with live and active probiotic cultures. These probiotics are typically beneficial bacteria like those from the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. They not only help with the digestive, but they also fight bad bacteria in the gut, promoting better overall health as a result.
Eating unflavored Greek yogurt is probably the best way to eat yogurt, but you can also enjoy your yogurt by flavoring it with honey or mixing it with your favorite fresh fruits.
Nut Butters
Nut butters are so convenient and versatile that they should be included in the list of office snack hall-of-famers if ever there was one. You can enjoy your favorite nut butter on top of a whole-grain toast, or you can have it as a dip for slices of apple, pears, bananas, and other fruits.
Nut butters also come in different varieties—from almond, hazelnut, and walnut to pecan, peanut, and macadamia. Just make sure that you’re getting the low-sugar and low-sodium variant.
Trail Mix with Nuts, Seeds, Dried Fruits and Dark Chocolate
While trail mixes were originally invented to be eaten during exhausting treks and hikes, they can now be enjoyed anytime and anywhere, whether you’re watching the television, commuting by train or bus, and yes, even when you’re working at the office.
Trail mixes combine several healthy snack food items in one pack, including dried fruits, nuts, seeds, and even chocolate. To make sure that you’re eating the healthiest trail mix possible, consider mixing your own at home. Also use dark chocolate chips or dragées instead of standard milk chocolate ones to make the chocolate component of the mix healthier.
Air-Popped Popcorn
Last but not the least, you can also trust on good ol’ popcorn to be a good pick-me-upper when you really need the energy at work. When prepared the healthy way, popcorn is an ideal substitute to fatty, commercially prepared chips that are also full of artificial colors, artificial flavors, and preservatives.
To make sure your popcorn is healthy, you should avoid commercially sold variants that are saturated with butter, oil, salt, and flavorings. Ideally, the corn kernels should be popped “naked” using a hot air popper or a microwave oven. If you want your popcorn flavored, then simply light-spray the popped kernels with olive oil before sprinkling them with pepper, sea salt, and herbs.
The next time you go to work, you don’t have to worry about worry about getting hungry between meals anymore. Simply bring along a pack of healthy snacks, and eat those hunger pangs away!
