Low/No sugar snacks

FreddieFrugal

I had appealing habit of snacking on cookies from the cookie jar. Especially while I was cooking as cooking makes me hungry.

Anyway that's over now, we've got a healthy eating menu and we're sticking to it religiously. Feeling all the better for it.

Now parts of this are easy: 5+ a day - easy peasy, added fruit to breakfast cereal, two fruits with lunch, extra salad in sandwiches, extra portions of egg with main meal.

EDIT: egg?! I meant veg

Cutting out salt and sugar from meals is easy as we make everything from scratch and don't add any, and choose low salt and sugar versions of things we bought before.

However: one area that is tricky is when it comes to other snacks. Particularly packed lunches.

We always used to have a flapjack, cereal bar or KitKat or similar in with our lunch. But they are so unhealthy! High in all the bad stuff especially sugar. 7 teaspoons the recommended limit for an adult per day, just one KitKat has nearly 3 teaspoons.

after hours of searching the aisles of supermarkets I have struggled to find any low sugar alternatives in the 'wrapped snack' category.
I want something LIKE a flapjack, or cereal bar but WITHOUT huge amounts of sugar, or needing a lot of preparation. Ease of just throwing in a bar of something into lunchbox.


Do you know of any?

HelenKA_2

Try adapting your tried and tested cake recipes to be lower sugar and try using low fat spread as the fat (trial and error though). Then cut into smallish portions and freeze. Take one for lunch, it will be nice and fresh when you come to lunch, not so available for instant snacking at home, is better for you and also for your budget.

allybee101

Sadly most flapjacks and cereal bars are chock-full of sugar. They boast about being low fat as they use sugar to add flavour. Or they're replaced with sweeteners.
I think you'd need to go down the line of trialling your own low sugar versions or how about trying some savoury foods - i.e some small chunks of cheese and cherry toms, some hummus and crudites, a boiled egg, scottish oatcakes and hummus/cottage cheese, chunks of chicken?
I find that avoiding sugar stops the mid afternoon slump.

JulieM

If I remember rightly. the Soreen mini loaves are quite low in sugar, though they're not very big, also some of the Mr Kipling cake bars or supermarkets own, but they still have around 10 g which is equivalent to 2 teaspoons of sugar. Maybe you could make a batch of scones and freeze them (as they soon go stale) and take one out every day. For 1 lb of flour, which makes about 15 scones, you could use as little as 1 tablespoon of sugar which is only a small amount per scone.

Nada666

If your savoury dishes are as balanced as you claim then simply have a sensible portion of full-sugar normal deserts. (And a sensible number.) There is no need for a bar with every lunch.

Have half of one. Or bake your own in portions you choose. And don't have them every day.

maman

Alpen Lights (5 in a pack and available in many £ shops) are 3.4g of sugar per bar. Not very big but if you must have something sweet with your packed lunch they're better than many.

asajj

Oatcakes are my favorite. I like them too.
Almonds are good but you should limit it to 10-12 piece as they are calorific. Carrots are good. You can also buy them sliced which is convenient. Alternatively you can make your own with Splenda instead of sugar but there will be flour and butter in them so not a big difference.

Cornucopia

You can easily make things like Flapjacks or Banana Bread yourself, and control the type and amount of sweet ingredients in them. I make Banana Bread with about 2 tablespoons of honey, a handful of sultanas and no other sweetener (apart from the bananas, obviously).

I've also found Sugar-free biscuits in the 99p Store. These use bulk sweeteners, but they aren't bad VFM (the larger packs) and taste quite nice with a cup of tea. The Shortbread type are small round biscuits, that are 29 cals each, and zero sugar (5g of other carbs).

Sharon87

How about dark chocolate? I have 85% cocoa chocolate and per 6 pieces there is only 2.7g of sugar in (13.5% sugar). I use this for my sweet/chocolate cravings, I also can't eat too much of it at once!

Daveswife

I recently stopped stocking the cupboards with crisps and sugary snacks. It is difficult trying to find alternatives but on the plus side I don't feel the need to rush out everytime someone posts a grabbit about cheap chocolate

jon81uk

If your main meal is nice and heathy then a small treat wouldn't be the end of the world. Just be sensible, Have a two-finger Kit Kat instead of a four finger one. Buy wrapped flapjacks so you aren't tempted to eat the whole box all in one go.

Or try Graze boxes for slightly healthier snacking, some are moderately high in sugar (such as Flapjacks or dried fruit) but they are nicely portioned. I'm not suggesting this just for the referral link (I genuinely like graze boxes), but you can get first box free with my code http://www.graze.com/uk/p/JONM355ZU