Snack ideas?

[raquel]

Hi all,

I am studying for my first PhD comp exam as well as starting the road/trail racing season, and I need some snack ideas. I am currently defaulting to either fruit, or rice cakes with nut butters, or crackers with hummus, but I'm totally overdoing the nut butters. I am celiac so cannot eat gluten at all, and too many beans messes up my running. I am also SUPER time crunched (I have a toddler, in addition to the PhD madness), so any time-consuming snacks are out of the question right now, even though normally I love to cook. I am not 100% vegan - I still eat the occasional egg - but I'd like to be as vegan-as-possible.

What are your favourite snacks? I need some vegan fuel for studying, and I really need some variety!

Thanks!!
R

[E-P]

Hey, sounds like a very busy life there

I usually take with me to library (or now during the internship to work) fruits and sandwiches, what you are doing already, but also in an old plastic hummus box mixtures of different seeds and nuts. Especially sunflower seeds are excellent to be mixed with nuts as they are extremely healthy, according to my belief (well ok too much everything is bad for you) but taste pretty bad and boring on their own.

Apart from that I don't really have any snack ideas but would really appreciate to hear some too!

Edit: Ou yes, and mix some pumpkin seeds with the nuts and sunflower seeds as well!

[jonathanL]

if you can get organic dehydrated fruits like dates, figs, apricots and prunes, you just need to eat them along with wallnuts, pecans, peanuts or brazil nuts, and you have a great snack with lots of energy and minerals.

I buy loads of them, keep in the fridge, and carry little mix boxes in my bag. The problem here is to get a decent supplier with sane prices. Also, you always need a toothbrush around, because it sticks to your gums like crazy.

As for the rice cakes, can you also eat corn cakes? they taste better, and I think they're also gluten-free. You can switch the hummus with tehina, it's made of sesame so it's easier on your digestion. Best thing about tehina is that if you buy it raw and mix it yourself you can add parsley or coriander to get a different flavor every time (and if you want a sweet treat you can mix raw tehina with a little honey). You can mix a large amount once a week, and if you keep it in an airtight container it won't go bad.

[CaliforniaLinz]

I just came across a great snack idea, taken from Alicia Silverstone's book "The Kind Diet". Basically, you make a sushi hand roll - take a sheet of nori, put in a little rice (or you could use any grain, like quinoa, or rice noodles, couscous etc), then strips of veggies and/or fruit, and strips of plain or baked tofu. Last night, I put in a layer of rice, some carrots, bell peppers, and tofu. I added some soy sauce and a little hot sauce, then rolled the whole thing up, wetting the edge of one side so it would overlap the other side of the nori roll and stick. It was like a raw nori burrito. Very quick, convenient, AND you could pretty much throw in whatever you have lying around. Two rolls were a little less than 300 calories, but it filled me up.

[JonQ]

I'm not celiac, but try to eat gluten-free most of the time. Gluten (or possibly wheat) gives my tummy such a hard time...

My biggest headache as a vegan is that so many of the snacks available in shops are sweet. I'm not too fond of sweet things and sometimes I just so crave salty and savoury stuff. Gluten-free store bought bread is expensive (and most of the time rather bad) so I bake for myself. Once every two weeks is enough (or less often if you have a big freezer ); I make lots of bread rolls and then I just grab one or two when I need to bring something to eat. Rice cakes are nice but not that nutritious. Carrots are also nice (and healthy) with peanut butter. There are plenty of spreads that you can have in place of nut butters - google for recipes or check what they have in the grocery shops in your area. Or just mash some avocado with a pinch of salt.

Soya yoghurts are handy and keep quite well even if not refrigerated. Have you tried adding hemp protein (or rice protein, eg) in place of too many beans for protein? I sometimes drink half a litre of flavoured soya milk for a snack - choc soy, eg.

When I eat nuts, I like to eat them with something - sundried tomatoes, eg, or peppers/tomatoes/lettuce/olives... gives a bit of moist and makes the snacks more varied. Chocolate is superb, too .

You could get gluten-free sausages - eg. the kind that is packed so it keeps out of the fridge. They make great snacks, but are expensive.

Even if I don't have a lot of time to cook, I usually make large batches to have for several days. That increases food options a whole lot.

[xrodolfox]

I bring a bag of apples where ever I go. Or a bunch of bananas. I'll easily eat 5 bananas a day as snacks. They are cheap, accessible, and always good. And gluten free.

[Konstantin]

Fruit and raw veg is a great snack. The Thrive diet has the recovery pudding type foods which I'm finding useful. Until recently I worked somewhere that had a microwave, now the boss where I work is a tight arsehole who refuses to buy one or spend any money on the staff. So cold/raw snacks are all I get.

If you chuck soaked dates, cooked rice (or quinoa, or probly any other grain) ground sunflower seeds, and raisins into a food processor and press go you get a brown mess that looks disgusting but is fairly tasty, filling and nutritious. I take it in an old marg tub with a spoon.

[BlueRose]

Here's one I'm newly addicted to: roasted kale.

Break in half to remove the tough stem, chop leaves into pieces, get some olive oil on them (I used some that had rosemary and other yumyums marinating in it), then bake for 5 min, remove and toss around, then bake for another 7-10 min until the leaves are crispy and brittle.

Remove, add sea salt...and eat.

[flatbushvegan]

You have my sympathy--Ph.D. comps time is one of the worst times of your life. At least it was in my experience.

A classic southern "country" snack is a cold sweet potato. This may sound bad, but if you sweeten it slightly and pair it with some sunflower seeds for crunch and dietary fat to help absorb the massive amount of vitamin a (plus the vitamin e in the seeds), it's actually a great, healthy snack if you want something a bit starchier. If you can keep it cold, it can taste like sweet potato/pumpkin pie.

[BlueRose]

(and if you want a sweet treat you can mix raw tehina with a little honey). You can mix a large amount once a week, and if you keep it in an airtight container it won't go bad.

Agave nectar would probably be better.

[alexander]

I have fruits and eat every break hours in the office, apples, bananas.