SNACKING is one of the few sources of joy we can look forward to each day. Here health obsessive Lauren Hewitt reveals the best foods to make it miserable.
Energy bars
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a bag of KP Fruit & Nut Mix fell into a rubbish compactor? There are now literally hundreds of companies answering this very question. Anyone for dried-out walnuts and bananas compressed into a log denser than a neutron star? Form an orderly queue, food lovers.
Ryvita
Ryvita is one of the few commercially available snacks that, if were to eat them without any form of spread or dip, would make you dangerously dehydrated and requiring hospitalisation. That said, they’re incredibly low on calories, and considering how hard it is to actually burn them off, being put on an emergency saline drip seems a small price to pay.
Celery stick
A rod of chewable water? Sign me up! While some people might be tempted to pair celery sticks with dips like hummus, tzatziki, or some other flavour-based spread, this really only detracts from the joy of celery itself. Eating raw, plain celery allows you to appreciate the vegetable’s unmistakable taste of soil and old grass.
Seaweed crisps
Crisps are perhaps the classic snack and so simple they are surely impossible to ruin. Which is why replacing delicious fried potatoes with brittle shards of ocean vegetable that fish have definitely pissed on is so ingenious. Instead of rich, greasy potato, you get to gnaw on a sort of sheet of dried, aquatic paper. Delicious. Well, I like to pretend so.
Plain rice cake
When you need a little something to tide you over from your lunch of kale soup to your dinner of kale and chickpea soup, why not tuck into a delicious plain rice cake? It packs in all the flavour of lightly-seasoned styrofoam and will make a bowl of tepid kale juice with beans in it feel like a flavour supernova.
Prunes
Prunes are often overlooked in the dried fruit snacking world thanks to their more sexier, more glamorous cousins, raisins and sultanas. But sweet treats like chocolate will be far from your mind after you’ve tucked into desiccated plums. What’s more, they’ll keep your bowel movements as regular and vigorous as a freight train, which health fanatics love to discuss.
