Couscous or quinoa keep pretty well - chilled straight outta the fridge early in the day, either one will still be fine a few hours later. Mix with chopped grilled veggies or other yummy things to make a salad. (Quinoa is pretty high in protein for being a “grain” so that helps with satiety, too.)
I vote for edamame. Just heat it up the night before in the microwave, sprinkle with a little salt, throw it in a ziploc bag and it’s ready for the next day. Lots of protein.
I willingly ate spinach from the moment I was able to process real foods. Whether a 3 year old will or won’t eat it is not sufficient evidence for a food’s nutritional content. (Not that you don’t have a point, but you made it, at least in part, fallaciously)
Not to be glib, but try water. Obviously, it’s not a snack food, but my personal experience is that upping your water intake by a liter or two in the day drastically reduces between meal munchies.
Also, you mentioned that you don’t like nuts, but I would seriously recommend giving toasted walnuts a try if you never had.
If you’re craving a donut, you’re craving sugar and white flour. Sadly, you’re not going to find anything truly healthy that’s going to hit that nail right on the head. You could try a portion control approach – buy a donut, eat half, and toss the other half (or cut 'em in half at home ad only take one half). If you leave the other half in reach, you’ll likely eat it
If I worked out of my car, I would not be drinking extra water.
I don’t have the munchies, I’m hungry. I don’t crave a donut specifically, I crave something that will not make me hungry any more. I’m underweight, not overweight. I think I need the opposite of portion control-- I need to eat more, but I want to do it in a nutritious way.
So I tried StuffLikeThatThere’s idea today since I happened to have hard-boiled eggs on hand. The problem is, I’m an egg-peeling retarded person. Next time, I’m peeling the thing at home so I won’t make such a mess. Unfortunately, my last client of the day stuffed me with some pizza, so I didn’t get to see if the egg filled me up until my normal dinner time.
Yeah, peel them under the faucet, which is easier and gets rid of stray shell bits. And if one doesn’t fill you – bring two or three. A single jumbo egg has 90 cals. and 8 g. protein – a nice nutritious but fairly tiny snack. Large or medium eggs are even smaller bits of energy.
They have pre-peeled, pre-boiled eggs at the grocery store. Which is a godsend for those of us who have some kind of weird problem boiling eggs.
Or, you know, you could buy a big Jar of Red Beet Pickled Eggs, a few bags of Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzels, a flask of Limburger, and some Firecracker Pickled sausages and put them in the trunk witha case of Vernors and pray you never get rearended. Might not be the best for a hot climate.
Obligatory hinty: eggs that have been sitting in your fridge a week or two (in addition to however long they sit in storage and at the grocery store) are easier to peel than freshly-bought eggs. As they age, the little air pocket gets bigger and the membrane separates a bit.
Freshly-laid eggs are im-fucking-possible to peel. They come out looking like aliens.
Sorry, the OP didn’t answer my questions. I had the same experience, and depending on the answers to my questions, the answer to the OP’s questions are different.
Or if you have to interact with any human beings. Like, ever. Or if your car windows don’t roll down and you like to breathe oxygen.
Edamame: I buy the kind in the pod, boil in lightly salted water and shell the night before. It’s a little bit more work but I don’t like the pre-shelled kind at all. So so good-I buy mine at Trader Joe’s.
Boiled egg is a good one, but I’m not a fan since I don’t like yolk.
Yogurt or Kefir/Drinkable yogurt: I recommend learning how to eat it plain with just fresh fruit. There is nothing tastier than than plain greek yogurt (I eat 0% but 2% is even tastier) mixed with good quality squashed strawberries. I just wish Fage sold in smaller quantities but I think the Trader Joe’s house brand and Oikos are sold in smaller amounts. I weaned myself off premixed yogurts in 2007 and I can’t imagine going back-just the taste of artificial sweetners makes me retch.
Same for kefir. My regular breakfast is unsweetned plain kefir mixed in the blender with 3 strawberries. I’m teaching myself how to drink the plain kefir they package in portable quantities-when I was at my thinnest in 2005 I was regularly drinking plain lowfat buttermilk and I think it’s kind of the same.
A glass of lowfat milk. It has protein.
Small salad with a tablespoon of balsamic vinaigrette.
Whole wheat toast with a tablespoon of non-sugared peanut/cashew/almond butter.
Ah, yes, kefir. I love kefir with mango chunks in it.
TruCelt, where do you find these instant soups from Amy’s? Are they in regular stores or in Whole Foods? Near the other canned soups? I assume you mean they’re in packets like Cup-a-soup. I love most of Amy’s canned soups (except the Tom Kha Phak - I wouldn’t serve that to an axe murderer).
If you can carry a little cooler with you, hummus is good, especially if it is the olive or garlic or red pepper kind. Dunk some pretzels or cheese sticks into it for extra carbs and protein.
I hate nuts too, but have recently discovered blanched almonds aka naked almonds. They’re soft and have a non-nutty taste. I mix them with dried cherries and dark chocolate morsels.
My personal ‘‘can’t do without’’ snack is the Cliff Builder Bar. 20g of protein, Low Glycemic, 270 calories (sometimes I just eat half.) The best ones are Lemon IMO.
A frittata can be a great choice- filling, pizzaish, healthy and easy to make ahead of time and carry around with you. The NY Times has published a bunch of frittata recipes in the last few days- my fave is most similar to this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/health/nutrition/25recipehealth.html?ref=recipesforhealth