Welcome to episode two of Sneaky Nutrition! Watch the video and/or read below for the whole transcript.
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TRANSCRIPT
Hey, everyone, and the biggest, biggest welcome, to Sneaky Nutrition, episode two. I am going to tick off one of the subjects, that I think is going to really make you happy, because so many of you asked about this and it was, healthy snacking. What are some of my go to fast, no thinking snacks that I use, since I've become a mama, and even just in a busy life in general, and these are going to be snacks today that are no cooking, no thinking, whip it together or grab it and go. Now, before we start, please remember, I'm not actually a nutritionist at all. I am a decade plus PT, who's worked with lots and lots of busy women, and I'm a busy mom and business owner myself, who is simply passing it on as some of the little hacks and tricks that I use, to make life easier and healthier effortlessly.
Now, I'm going to go down lots of paths with these snacking topics. Today's is a no cook, quick grab and go healthy snacking podcast and video, but it's also going to be based around little outcomes, so snacks that help you feel full, snacks that help your muscles repair, snacks that help give your brain a boost, all that kind of stuff. Okay? In other episodes to come, I'll talk about all my favourite packaged snacks. I'll also talk about my favourite recipes, easy recipes that you can make, bulk snacks and things to take on the go, grab and go foods. Okay? I've actually reached out to some of my coolest little recipe creators to get some new ones of these, so it won't all be stuff from my book, in case you've already got that. Okay?
Now I have been writing down this week, a list. Every time that I have a little snack, that's really healthy, easy snack, I've written it down on my list here and I've written down why I've had it, so hopefully that will be really helpful for you guys. I'm literally just going to run through them. Some of them are simple, like one food things that you just might be like, "Oh yeah, Libby, okay, I could do that, but I can't be bothered being that healthy." But some of you might go, "Yes, that's a good reminder." And then there are other snacks on here that are three ingredient recipes, that I just live by when I want naughty treats. Okay? So let's start at the top, with the simplest of the simple. Stamp out hunger. My favourite stamp out hunger snack is literally just boiled eggs. And this is like a little tricky hack thing that, it's such a good one to have up your sleeve.
Look, if you're vegan, I will give you some options here. Okay? So as we walk through these things, but this is general eating. So I'm not going for allergies and vegan, vegetarianism, right now, but I will give you swaps and I'll do a separate post just on that. So, stamp out hunger, boiled eggs. Literally what I do, put however many eggs, say it's eight, or 10, or 12, in a saucepan in cold water, about this much over the top of the eggs, boil it with the lid off, so boil it until the water becomes boiling rapidly. Then I'd take it off the heat, put the lid on, leave it there for 10 minutes. Done and dusted. Rinse it under cold water, put them in the fridge. And when I literally get hungry, I just peel two of them and I eat them with a bit of salt and pepper, all with simpleness and honestly, there's something about the boiling of the egg too. More so than a poached egg, a scrambled egg. Boiled eggs just seemed to really stamp out hunger for me and for a lot of my clients.
So if you can eat eggs, that is an awesome solution. I also find that, for the vegans out there, Tempeh, which is spelt T-E-M-P-E-H, and you can get it at any shopping centre or health food store. It's the unprocessed version of tofu. So it doesn't taste anything like it. It's a lot more earthy tasting, I guess. It's not as pretty and white as tofu, kind of like the version of grainy bread, not white bread. But Tempeh, if you just slice it and just grill it, I mean, sorry, pan fry it, or you could grill it, or pan fried in a little bit of butter. Okay, you're vegan, so maybe not that. A little bit of olive oil and that also is really, really satisfying. Okay? You could dip it in hummus even, to make it a little bit extra extra. So that's my stamp out hunger and it's just simple.
The other thing that's really simple that I know you've all heard a thousand times before, but I'm going to put it in a different way for you, is what I call my visual pleasure plate. That sounds delicious. But basically all it is, is a mix of chopped veggies, a little bit of fruit and then some cheese and hummus, or cheese and avocado dip, and I put it all on one plate. The reason I do that is because then [Izzy 00:04:29] can come and pick at it too, and kind of chew on things, stuck on things, whatever. But also it just looks really pretty and I'm a very visual eater, so I like to look and see, okay, there's some pretty orange from the carrots, and some green from the zucchini or the celery or whatever it might be, and there's a little bit of red from the grape, the nice antioxidants there, or some sliced apple, whatever it might be. And then just enough sliced cheese to be about the size of a matchbox. So a few slices, not a whole lot. Okay? And then a bit of hummus or avocado dip, just spooned on.
And literally it is, you feel like you're picking and grazing and it looks good and it feels good to eat and you're getting lots of different, like lots of fibre, lots of different vitamins and all the rest of it. So the visual pleasure plate isn't one of my faves and it takes two seconds to knock up. One thing that one of my favourite naturopaths, Belinda Kirkpatrick, said to me to do, was just to chop a whole bunch of carrots and cucumbers and celery or whatever, on a Sunday. It takes you 10 minutes to chop them up and just put them all in one Tupperware container. So, it becomes as easy as opening a box of crackers or chips. Speaking of which, you can add some crackers to your visual pleasure plate as well. So I like rice crackers with a bit of seaweed in them. Those ones that are made salty by seaweed, not by added salt. But you know, you could also just use a Vita-weat, or whatever it is.
I would say, steer clear of things like Jatz, and things that have added oils to them. Things like sunflower oils, canola oils, et cetera. They're in my opinion, the things that you want to steer clear of as much as you can. Okay? As much as you can. So, yes, happy days. That's that. Few healthy crackers, bit of hummus or avocado dip, some chopped veggies and some fruits, some cheese. Just like it's the best afternoon thing. Okay. If you're in, I've just done a hardcore gym session, I need a snack that's going to repair my muscles and also make me feel, I don't know, just filled up after a gym session, one of the things I really like to do is get half a cup of either cottage cheese or quark, which is Q-U-A-R-K. It's like a high protein cottagey cheese thing. So cottage cheese or quark, or half to three quarters of a cup of just a plain Greek yogurt, or a coconut yogurt if you don't have dairy. And I'll just do that and then put on top berries.
Now the darker the berries, the better for me, so raspberries and blueberries, pitted cherries, any of that kind of stuff. Chuck some of those on. Chuck a few seeds on if you can. Otherwise just the fruit is enough. Just really delicious way to both repair your muscles, okay, and also make you full. If you're choosing Greek yogurt or coconut yogurt, also got some prebiotics in there, but just a really good way to also get a little of something sweet, because after you've worked out, your body is asking for that little something sweet and it's just a really good way to get that, without going for something that's going to undo all the good work you just did. So that's a good one. My repair/bruised muscles, half a cup of cottage cheese or quark or Greek yogurt or coconut yogurt, dark berries, because they're full of antioxidants that help your body repair, and a sprinkle of nuts or seeds but you can go without that too.
All right. My salty, sweet treat. I wrote this down a few times last week when I was really wanting something satisfying, both salty and sweet. So there are a couple of options here. Okay. One of them is either a banana or an apple. Ideally a green Granny Smith apple because it's just not as sweet, but it goes really well with this recipe, or a banana, because bananas are really great for so many things. Don't believe anyone that says you shouldn't eat bananas. Okay, so sliced apple or sliced banana, and then you get a big heaped tablespoon of nut butter. I don't really care what it is. Almond butter, ABC butter, cashew butter, macadamia. Peanut butter's fine too. As long as you don't get like, I'm not going to say their brands, but the brands that have added sunflower oil, canola oil, all that kind of stuff. You want just the nut, maybe a little bit of salt done.
So you just literally have the slices of apple or the chunks of banana, and you just put a bit of that nut butter on it, and eat it. Amazing. It's like a salty, sweet craving boost. The banana one I found is really good, either in the morning to bring your energy up or in the evening to, I guess, make you feel satiated, so you've had something that's filling. You can also freeze your banana slices first and it's like a frozen nutty treat. So good. And the apple I find is a really good afternoon pick me up. So that's how I used this this week. I had one banana and nut snack in the morning, before I taught. Another time I had a frozen sliced banana with some nut butter in the evening for dessert and one or twice other, maybe twice, I had a, I think it was almond butter on my sliced apple. So good. So good.
Now my other sweet and salty treat that is pretty healthy and easy to grab and go, if you're feeling like you need some chocolate and I am not against chocolate, please bring it on, as long as it's good quality chocolate. Now if you're going to have shit chocolate from time to time, that's fine. But if you're having it often, as I do, you want it to be good quality, low sugar. So I like to go for chocolates that have single digit grams of sugar per 100 grams. Now that's quite hard to find. So if you really can't go that dark to start with, just go single grams per serve and stick to the serve. But if you're going to do it per 100 grams, things like, I'll go through a whole episode of healthy chocolates by the way, but then an easy one you can find in your supermarket is like a Lindt 85, 90 or 95%, they all have that. I know they've got 95% now. How good. 70, yeah, they're pushing it.
Okay. That, either by itself, two or three squares, or if you want the sweet plus salty, add a handful of dry roasted or natural almonds to that. Even better, break bits of the chocolate off, have it with the almond. So good. They're rich in iron as well. Okay? You could also do a nut butter on your pieces of dark chocolate. Sometimes I do this when I'm feeling extra naughty and I don't want to eat three squares. I want to eat one square of chocolate and I just put a bit of nut butter on and it. It makes it just feel so much, I don't know, more filling. So that's my salty, sweet treat. Either fruit with nut butter or actual dark chocolate with some actual nuts.
Okay, let's move on to a mini meal and I hope you're writing some of these down as we go through them, guys. A mini meal, if you're like, I need a mini meal, I'm bloody starving. Sorry. It keeps wearing on these recordings, anyway. I'm not an anti-toast person. Okay? I really love it. I don't believe you need it at every meal of the day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. But once a day, if you're going to have some toast, there's nothing wrong with it, or one slice twice a day. Fine. So one mini meal that I really love is just to cut a nice thick slice of a really grainy sourdough bread, or any grainy or dark bread. And then have on top of that either hummus. Hummus is just great for so many reasons, it's full of protein, it's really healthy, it's full of fiber. So hummus on top is really good. Or you could do avocado, like guacamole on top. Just smash your guac, bit of guacamole and lime.
Fun fact adding lime juice to any meal reduces the glycemic index, which is the rate that the meal will spike your blood sugar levels, by 25%, so it's a really good thing. Guacamole, lime, hummus, lime, whatever on the toast. Another thing I love on toast, if you feel like you need something sweet in your mini meal, is tahini spread, with a little bit of honey or rice malt syrup. So yummy. I prefer honey, but if you're trying to cut down on sugar, rice malt syrup's great. Okay, so that's another one. If you want a mini meal. And again this is simple stuff, guys, but it's like no prep. Just grab and go and you'll already have in your kitchen.
Favourite Netflix snacks. Yes, I do watch Netflix. Currently we have been watching... What have we been watching? We've been watching See, actually on Amazon, and we've been watching Spartacus, and I've just finished watching Chia. Amazing. So there you go. But let's get back to the snacks. The Netflix snacks. So half a cup, three quarters of a cup of a crispy chickpea. Yum. Now there are some brands that do crispy chickpeas or fava beans in the supermarket. So yes, you can grab those or you can make them yourself. Literally just chuck them on a baking tray with some baking paper and roast them for, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes. Pull them out. That's all I do. Some people add a little bit of oil, a little bit of salt, but I just roast them. Maybe put a little bit of Himalayan salt on, or sea salt at the end. But yeah, it's yum. And the other thing in my best Netflix snacks awards goes to popcorn. Now, if you're just going for one cup of popcorn, you can buy the supermarket ones. That's fine.
Not the crappy salty one... I mean sweet whatever ones, but like Cobs or whatever. You can either go the little packets or you go just a cupful. But even better, if you can air pop it at home and, okay, one of my favourite things from childhood was you pop it, and then you add just a little tiny bit, like a little knob of butter, that melts through it, and a tiny drizzle of honey. You don't need much at all. Amazing, but that's if you're being a bit naughty. Okay. Otherwise, air pop it. Bit of salt, or get those ones from the supermarket that are savoury. Okay, so half cup to three quarters of cooked crispy chickpeas or one cup of popcorn. That was my Netflix snacks award, along with the dark chocolate, which keeps recurring.
So, okay, let's get onto something you can easily buy in any of your supermarkets, that just makes a good snack. Instead of eating away at chips or whatever, which is freeze dried produce. So things like, companies are doing these little bags of freeze dried strawberries, raspberries, broccoli, all this great stuff that you can literally, it's just been freeze dried with usually no other ingredients. It's just snap, dried, done, and you just eat out of a packet and it's crispy, like a chip, but it's full of fibre and full of good stuff. Amazing. It doesn't lose a lot of the nutrients. So, look for freeze dried produce, usually in the snacking aisle or it could be in the health food area. Okay. Now what else did I have on here?
Oh, okay. Something that is in the comfort food bracket, and this is something you do have to prepare, but it's really easy prep. Okay? You just chop up a bunch of veggies. I like to do sweet potato, bit of regular potato, I do parsnip sometimes and then I just do big chunks of broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and I chuck it on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil, tiniest bit of salt, bake it. And then when it comes out, I put it in a big Tupperware container and if I'm hungry I just grab a bit out, heat it up for 30 seconds in the microwave, and drizzle with tahini, tahini, tahini, tahini, the hulled version. Yes. It's my fave. It's so amazing. Makes everything taste great. So you could do that or you could add a tiny bit of butter or a bit of extra olive oil and just eat it, and it's a really good comfort food snack, without you having to do something naughty. Okay? So, I know. Food shouldn't be naughty or nice, but you know what I mean? You feel good when you eat veggies, right?
And you know what? We should actually be eating five serves of veggies a day, in order for our guts to be super healthy. Veggies and salad. Not five cups, five serves. So a serve is half a cup of cooked veggies or one cup of salad ingredients. Yeah? So five serves a day. That's the goal. So the steamed veggies, winning on both fronts. Now, something else that's really good, and I've said this under the boost your brain bracket. So when I'm like, my brain is dead. I'm hungry. I need something that's going to switch me on, I then go to the tins. Not just any odd tin, but a tin of literally, so tin of salmon, all sustainably fished, guys. I really believe in that. Tin of sustainably fished salmon or tuna or sardines, if you can bear it. They're the best.
And I have that with either, so sometimes I'll crush up some walnuts, which are really good for brain boost as well, and just put it over the top, or I'll just put some avocado slices on top, which is really good for the brain boost too, or another good snack, if you need a brain boost, is actually just cut half an avocado, put a scoop of mustard in it and just eat a little bit of mustard with scoops of avocado. It is amazing. It's actually great. Dijon mustard. I wouldn't say hot. Oh God. The other good thing that's great for a brain boost is actually blueberries with Brazil nuts or blueberries with walnuts or blueberries with a spoon of ABC nut butter mushed in. So good, so good. If you're feeling a bit naughty, you could even put a teaspoon of cream in. Just saying. Okay, so that's that.
Now, there's only two more things I want to say to you. One is instacred. Instacred is a smoothie. Clearly, guys. I mean, hello. I've got a Vitamix. If you've got a good blender, this is super easy. You literally chuck one to two serves of frozen fruit in, so a handful of frozen blueberries and half a frozen banana is always mine, or a frozen banana, whatever. I always put in at least a quarter of a avocado because it just adds thickness. And then two to three serves of just veggies. So I love, whether it's spinach or kale or whether it is, I often do zucchini, chopped up zucchini, chopped up broccoli. I promise you don't even taste it in there. Chopped up cauliflower. They're my faves. Or just iceberg lettuce, is really good in there too. Okay. And then you just literally put water, or an unsweetened nut milk, like an unsweetened almond, unsweetened cashew nut, whatever you want. Milk. Or you could do skim milk, I suppose, if you wanted to and you just blend it up. Easy done.
If you want extra cred, add a scoop of super greens. I use Nuzest Good Green Stuff. So I like to add some of that. And if I feel like I need a little fibre boost, I haven't got enough through the day, then I'll also chuck in a bit of the unflavoured Metamucil. I've just started using this stuff and it's actually amazing. I've never had gut health issues, but it's just taken away any bloating ever, which is awesome. So, you can chuck that in as well. Makes it nice and thick and delicious. So that is that.
Now I just wanted to give you a couple of really, really easy recipes that I love and this is the bit to hold on for. Okay? So, three ingredient cookie recipes that are amazing. Oh, you're going to love me so much for these guys. I've got two for you. One is an oaty bananary yumness and the other one is a chocolatey peanut buttery goodness. Oh, yes, so good. So, what you do. For either of these, you start with three ripe bananas mashed up. So mash up three ripe bananas. These are all vegan by the way too. Okay. Now, for recipe one, you take those three bananas, you add one cup of oats to it, you mix it around, you shape it into cookies and you bake it at about 180, 200 degrees, for about 10 to 15 minutes. Just keep an eye on it. Biccies done. You can add extras to this if you want, like coconut shreds or chunks of nuts or you can add dark choc chips to it, whatever you like. I sometimes break up the 95% Lindt and chuck it in or just go straight up. It tastes like banana bread.
You can add cinnamon to it, which is really good for your blood sugar levels as well. Happy days. If you want to go for the chocolate peanut buttery goodness, here's how you change that up. So you start with your three mashed bananas and you add, hang on, is it half a cup? I've got to remind myself. I always get this one wrong and I did write it down to remember. Oh, yeah, so, three mashed bananas, half a cup. I always get that bit confused. I don't know why. Half a cup of smooth peanut butter, half a cup of cacao or raw cacao. Really mix it up or whatever. Don't blend it. Oh my God, the peanut butter will get stuck. Just mix, mix, mix, mix, mix, and again, shape it into cookies, put it in. Those will feel like they're too sloppy to start, but promise, you cook them for 15 minutes and they're amazing, and just a little fudgey on the inside. So those are my true, awesome little biscuit snacks.
And the very last one guys is icy poles, because if you are in Australia right now, it is hot. Now this can be so simple. You literally grab some yogurt. Some of those squeezy pouch yogurts or just a regular big tub of yogurt or coconut yogurt, and you literally half fill icy pole, if you've got those icy pole molds, you half fill one of those with yogurt, and then you add in chunks of fruit. Then you add a tiny bit more yogurt and you freeze it. Done. You can do it with any yogurt, regular, coconut. You can also do it with coconut cream, coconut milk, or you can do it with a fruit juice, although I'm not the biggest fan of fruit juice, but if you just blended up, for example, some banana or blended up some berries, that would make an awesome fibre packed fruit juice and you could use that as well, and just put chunks of fruit in or do it straight up.
Another thing we've been doing is doing, so this much of the icy pole molds so it's this tall, say doing this much of a coconut yogurt or even a cream, or a coconut cream and then doing the rest like mushy fruit, and that is so good. You feel so naughty. Or you can do the other way round, with the fruit on the base. Yum. You can also add a few little chocolate shards in the bottom. Oh, the sky is the limit, guys. Anyway, so look, I hope those are some good. Let me just check. Oh, yes. One other hack I had, and this is just a Google search and it's particularly good. I mean, these are awesome snacks. I was using these before I even had a kid, for myself. They are so yum, and a great way to get extra veggies in. They're these mini muffins that are made with vegetables. Yay, yay, yay.
So, if you just Google, fruit and veggie muffin recipe for picky eaters, fruit and veggie muffin recipe for picky eaters. It comes up first. Just click on it, open it up. It's an amazing recipe for you and your kids. I am a crap cook, remember, and a crap baker, and I can make these in an instant and they are so yummy. So, good for you, good for your kid, good for your tummy, good for your body, all of that stuff. Guys, I hope that helped. That was a bit of a long spiel. I was originally going to get all the foods and then I just couldn't be bothered, because hashtag mum life, business life, but I figured you guys would listen to that when you're out and about anyway, probably. So hopefully you take a few things out of it.
Now I have actually got some really awesome recipes from one of my favourite food creators coming on up. I might make them for you on camera or I might just actually post them as an Instagram post. So if you want to see them in an Instagram post separate to this, please holler at me, and I will post them as a separate post. Just the pictures and the recipes. They are an amazing zucchini bake and also some salted caramel snacking balls. So, tell me if you want those and I will send them your way and tell you who you can thank for them. And otherwise, please tell me how you go with these snacks and whether this was helpful and whether there's anything else you want to see. I've got a big list of your questions coming up for the next episodes. Stay healthy, stay happy, please stay nourished because it is important.
All of these foods that I've given you today are all nourishing for your body, for your brain, for your health, for your energy levels most importantly, because this world is so busy, sometimes energy can get drained like that. And for me, it's always important to have these things on hand. All right, topic three coming at you in a few days, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry, I work with girls all the time. I just can't separate the two, but humans of the world. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Talk to you soon.