Beach season is officially upon us. To commemorate the early start of summer, beauty and fitness magazines are coming out with their bikini articles, their five-minute, three-week muscle toning workout tips and tanning advice. With that in mind, here are a few healthy snack alternatives that will help satisfy your sweet tooth that won’t sacrifice your waistline:
Strawberries and (Fat-Free) Cool Whip: You can opt for the fat-free version, but the difference in calories is so minimal it really doesn’t make a difference. To prepare, you will need: a knife, a cutting board, a small bowl, a noodle strainer, however many strawberries of your choice and a container of Cool Whip. Wash all the strawberries you plan on cutting up in a noodle strainer. When finished, start cutting up the strawberries. Cut the top off first, followed by the pointed end. Proceed to cut the strawberries in half. Put the strawberries in a bowl and dip into the Cool Whip to your heart’s content. This is also a good snack idea for kids, as it gives them the impression they are getting something sugary, even though most brands of Cool Whip contain less than two grams of sugar per serving.
Apples Dipped in Lime Juice: All you need for this one is an apple corer, a knife, some of your favorite apples and a couple of limes. Pink Lady apples are the best kind of apples to use in my opinion, since they have a tendency to stay crunchy longer and they don’t have that gritty texture some others have but if you are partial to Honeycrisp or Red Delicious, by all means use those instead. Use your apple corer to cut up the apple of your choice and pick out any seeds if necessary. Set the apple slices on a plate. Then cut up one of your limes (I find it’s easier to squeeze the juice out of a lime when it’s been cut into four pieces) and squeeze the lime juice on top of your apple slices. You can also put the apples in plastic baggies, squeeze the juice into the bag and put them in fridge so the apples have a chance to really soak up the lime flavor. This is also another good healthy snack alternative for kids, since the lime makes the apple taste so much sweeter.
Grapefruit sprinkled with Stevia (or Truvia): Most people don’t like grapefruit because it’s got such a bitter flavor but sprinkling Stevia on top of your grapefruit helps to eliminate the bitter taste and brings out the true sweetness of this citrus fruit. Stevia (and its sister product Truvia) is the all natural alternative to sugar and Splenda. It is extracted from the stevia root, which grows naturally in Japan. It has been shown to lower one’s glycemic index, making it a safe alternate sweetner for diabetics and does not contain aspartame, a substance found in all non-sugar sweeteners which is the subject of some controversial debate. Take whatever sort of grapefruit you would like to cry (pink or golden grapefruit works best) and cut it into two pieces. From here, you can either section out the grapefruit with a knife (which can take a long time) or you can cut each half of the fruit into four pieces and sprinkle your Stevia on top. If you really want to eliminate the bitterness of your grapefruit, be sure to eat around the white skin that covers the fruit or peel it off all together (which can take a really long time). The skin is actually what gives the grapefruit the bitter taste it is known to have.
