Do you find you’re eating too many sweets? Learn about some wonderful and healthy snack alternatives that will satisfy that sweet tooth in a better way!
“Eat less sugar!” It’s been shouted from the rooftops for years, am I right? Health advocates will often tout the classic options we’ve all heard before: Eat more fruit instead of sugary snacks. Distract yourself with another activity when you have a sweet craving. Etc. We’ve all heard them. But what about when you just want something sweet, gosh darn it, and you don’t want fruit? It’s easy to say, “I’ll have…just one cookie,” and before you know it, you’ve eaten six because they’re just so tempting. (Exhibit A: me going through half a box of Milano’s.)
So what can you do instead? Well, here are a few delectable alternatives, that are still delightfully sweet (naturally – no artificial sweeteners!) but not quite so bad for you. (And this comes from someone who *loves* sugar, so trust me when I say these are actually tasty!)
(Note: for this post, I’ll be referencing grams of added sugar rather than grams of total sugar. Added sugar refers to sweeteners like cane sugar, honey, corn syrup, things like that. Some ingredients, like milk, have their own natural sugars, which are included in grams of total sugar. This post also does not include foods that use artificial sweeteners, stevia, or allulose to lower sugar content.)
Snack: Yogurt. Substitute: Skyr
Many common brands of yogurt can contain high amounts of sugar. Yoplait’s Original varieties have on average 12-14 grams (g) of added sugar per 6-ounce (oz) serving (some are even higher). (For reference, the recommended maximum amount of added sugar per day is 36 g for men, 25 g for women.)
Greek yogurt can be better than regular yogurt due to higher protein, but sometimes it can also have high sugar content (depending on the brand). Chobani original varieties contain about 9 g of added sugars per 5.3-oz serving. The Chobani Less Sugar varieties have 4-5 g, without any of the artificial or allulose sweeteners, so this may be a good option. (Yoplait Greek 100, Chobani Zero Sugar, and Dannon Light & Fit all include artificial sweeteners or the newcomer, allulose, considered a natural low-calorie, zero-sugar sweetener by the FDA.) If you plain just don’t like the taste of Greek yogurt, though (*raises hand*), try this alternative:
Skyr is similar to an Icelandic version of yogurt and is thicker and creamier. It can have significantly more protein than Greek yogurt. (Icelandic Provisions and Siggi’s skyr both have 15-16 g of protein per 5.3-oz serving vs. Chobani’s 11-12 g.) You can easily find low-sugar versions of skyr – Icelandic Provisions and Siggi’s both have 6-7 g of added sugar per serving. Personally, I love Icelandic Provisions for its perfect amount of sweetness and creaminess – plus it’s kosher-certified!
Snack: Cookies. Substitute: Biscotti
Most of the well-known snack brands can be quite high in sugar (pretty much everything in the cookie aisle – if it’s a cookie, it’s likely made with plenty of sugar – sigh). One serving of Chips A’Hoy, Oreo’s, and Tate’s cookies has 11, 11, and 14 g of added sugar, respectively. Wafers can possibly be a good alternative, but the ones I’ve seen have artificial sweeteners, just not my thing.
I recently found a lightly sweet option, also found in the same aisle: biscotti! Nonni’s Biscotti in particular has a perfect hint of sweetness, with 7 g of added sugar in the Originali flavor, and is crunchy to boot. (The other flavors have on average 9-11 g of added sugar but are half the fat of the famous brands above, so still a better choice!) Dipping it in a cup of hot tea is just the ticket! And it’s another kosher-certified alternative!
Snack: Chocolate Candy Bar. Substitute: Vegan Chocolate Bar.
Similar to cookies, most of the popular candy options are also loaded with sugar. Reese’s Cups (my guilty favorite), for example, have 22 g of added sugar, or 14.5 g per oz. A 1.5-oz Hershey bar has 24 g of added sugar, or 16 g per oz. So if you eat a whole bar, that’s almost your entire day’s worth of added sugar!
For a healthy snack alternative, try chocolate vegan bars from brands like Taza or Evolved. These vegan varieties are made with fewer ingredients and oftentimes less sugar.
Evolved Chocolate bars are organic and contain only 6-8 g of added sugar per 1-oz serving. With coconut sugar and minimal, simple ingredients, they taste wonderfully sweet, even without the high sugar content. Taza chocolate bars are also organic with 6-11 g of added sugar per 1.5-oz serving (about 5-9 g per oz), depending on the variety. (Their Wicked Dark 95% Cacao bar even has 2 g per serving, if you can handle that level of darkness!) Taza is also kosher-certified parve.
Snack: Cheerios. Substitute: Cinnamon Harvest Kashi cereal
There are so many flavors of Cheerios available now, and it’s a classic! However, varieties range from 10-15 g of added sugar per 1-cup serving (with the exception of Multi-Grain Cheerios at 8 g and Original Cheerios at 1 g). Personally, I’ve never really enjoyed the Original flavor, hence my search for something new!
How about trying Kashi instead, specifically the Cinnamon Harvest variety? Some of the Kashi blends might taste like cardboard (at least to my little taste buds), but there are certainly some tasty flavors, this one being my favorite. It’s a little lower in sugar (9 grams), and the strong cinnamon flavor makes up for the low sugar, making it a tasty treat.
Takeaway
It’s important to fully evaluate the options available to us. Checking out nutrition labels can really give us a good overall picture and give us some insights into how healthy a food really is. I hope you enjoyed reading about my favorite healthy snack alternatives to some common sugary foods, and I hope this helps you on your health journey!
You might also enjoy these articles:
Cover image photo credit: IStockPhoto.com/Suze777
