Easy and Healthy Low WW Point and Calorie Snack Idea

We were just in a Whole Foods with the kids, and we met a woman who was giving out samples of a new line of almond butter and peanut butter called Justin's Nut Butter. It is a new company started by someone named Justin. As it turned out, his mom was the woman giving out the samples. Nice mom!

There are a lot of makers of various nut butters, and we buy the Whole Foods brand cashew butter regularly. It tastes great and it is cheap. But what struck us about Justin's Nut Butter is that they make 100 calorie squeeze packs that are flavored with things like organic maple sugar and organic honey. So they taste really good, and it is sometimes hard to get peanut butter to taste good without a ton of jelly.

The Maple Almond Butter was particularly good. (Almond butter is relatively high in calcium, so for people who are allergic to dairy and are looking for added sources of calcium, Almonds and almond butter are something to always keep in mind.)

I always tell people to always have healthy snacks handy, to prepare ahead of time for emergencies. These little packs seem like a great idea to keep in your desk or purse or glove compartment. If you can get your hands on an apple or a banana, squeeze one of these packs on the apple or banana and you have a great healthy snack. It will give you energy, you know exactly what the portion is, you get the benefit of an organic product, you get a piece of fruit in.

I think Justin's mom mentioned that each pack was about .59 cents. Add that to the cost of a banana or an apple and you have a pretty cheap snack as well. People always want to know how to eat healthy for cheap and eat organic for cheap. If you know where to look you can always find things that fit this requirement.

Getting a portion controlled product that tastes great and is super healthy can be one of those nice small wins I always talk about. So next time you are in Whole Foods or near one, get some of Justin's squeeze packs and add them to your emergency food stash. It is also a way to support a small business owner and kudos to the people at Whole Foods who brought Justin and his products in.

I also broke out my copy of Joel Fuhrman's Eat For Health to look up what he thinks about nut products. He pointed out that you don't want to overeat them, but that there are studies that show an inverse relationship between nut consumption and body weight, and that nuts and seeds help suppress the appetite. 

Making sure to add an apple or a banana to the mix in the snack makes it taste great. Fruit in the morning for energy and then fruit with a little nut butter in the afternoon to help keep you full and energized is a great strategy. The squeeze packs themselves are 2 Weight Watchers points even with the added oil and fruit is minimal points impact. So this could be one of those things that you incorporate on a regular basis.

I'll keep an eye out for things like this, and if you see something, let me know in the comments section or email me if you are getting the Tip Of The Day newsletter

Comments

[Bluelass]

For the fans of the China Study
I would highly recommend you read the following article by Dr Mercola:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/08/china-study.aspx

In short "it’s important to realize two things:

1.The China study was an observational study. Correlations deduced from an observational study do not – in fact, cannot -- prove causation. As Dr. Eade points out, all you can really do with data from an observational study is to form a hypothesis, which must then be tested in randomized, controlled trials, to ferret out the truth about whether or not x actually causes y.
2.In many cases, the data (presented in arduous detail in the book Diet, Life-Style and Mortality in China) do not show statistically significant correlations between animal protein consumption and disease such as cancer at all. On the contrary. It would seem that sugar and carbohydrates are correlated with cancer – not animal protein. In addition, the data indicate that fat is negatively correlated with cancer mortality, which again contradicts the claim that meat is harmful."

Dr Mercola is a proponent of Nutritional Typing, and though I do not follow his recommendations, the logic behind it makes sense to me: we are all different, so it makes sense we cannot all eat the exact same thing to be healthy, so for some people Veganism/ Vegeterianism will work, others will need high amounts of meat and little vegetable carbs to thrive. And what I like most about his approach is that he advocates listening to YOUR body, how YOU feel tells you whether what you are eating is good for you or not.

I suspect Dr Furhman may have backed out from advocating veganism because (as he himself mentions in Eat to Live) it does not work for everybody, and as he wants most people to benefit as much as possible from his recommendations he made them more flexible, so individuals can taylor them to tehir own body chemistry. And I respct Dr Furhman even more for that.
PS: I work in banking risk management, and I can confirm correlations are useful but not causative in any way and cannot be taken to be so.

[Kandace]

Our local health food store just started carrying these packets and I buy them in bulk! My daughter takes them to school with her. Love them. Although the Almond Butter is $1.19...still a chaep snack.

[sabrina]

Yes Meagan , I felt the same way when I read the positive spin on moving away from a vegan/veg diet. However, I do understand the pressure. I'm vegetarian almost 20 years and in business almost as long. I appreciate this website so much and know that although I try and model and talk about a veg diet and it's benefits to others, I have more luck when I can empathize with their perspective as well. Unfortunately, for some people vegetarianism (and especially veganism) is not just foreign....it's absent. So....thanks for your post! It made me stop and think this morning :-)

[Meagan]

Jackie-

i receive your tips of the day and have been a member of Per Trainer for quite some time. I also have been vegan for almost a year now and am a huge fan of Dr. Fuhrman's approach to eating. I am a little disappointed that you would praise him from backing away from the important notion that animal products are not healthy for you. I'm sure the pressure was so great that he had to back away, which doesn't surprise me given that so much big money is involved. It seems to me that in order to push a book, you should also believe in it, the message as well as the facts.

He makes direct correlations with animal fat and cancer...and the China Study echoes that as well.

It's time that people make some serious adjustments to "food"...it will be best for ourselves and the planet.

Just my two cents.