When you’re following a paleo diet, making healthy meal choices is easy. Perhaps you’ll have a mixed green salad with grilled wild salmon and avocado for lunch, or a grass-fed filet mignon with sautéed garlic spinach for dinner. But when it comes to snacking, options can feel limited.
So many readily available snack foods are highly processed, filled with preservatives and artificial ingredients. The packaging may call out ‘low calorie’ or ‘sugar free,’ but these selling points are often a ploy by product manufacturers, attempting to lure people past lengthy ingredients lists.
A paleo snack strategy
Really, a snack and a meal should contain the same ingredients: fresh, real food and nothing else. One easy strategy that opens up a world of possibilities for healthy eating is to view all meals as one in the same. For example, instead of naming meals breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, think of them as meal number one, two, three and so on. By doing this, you can move away from the limiting notion that certain foods are only suitable at certain times of the day.
When you think about it, there’s really no bad time to eat steamed broccoli, or a chicken and veggie stir-fry dish or a bowl of fresh berries (except, maybe, right before a tough workout!).
If you plan all of your meals to follow the same basic template, with a base of veggies, lean protein and healthy fat, you have the perfect paleo (tem) plate.
What does a day of healthy paleo eating look like?
Breakfast: Veggie omelet with a side of berries
Mid-morning snack: Nori wrap stuffed with wild salmon, avocado and spinach
Lunch: Arugula salad with olive oil and grass fed steak
Afternoon snack: Crisp, green apple and some raw walnuts
Dinner: Oven-baked wild trout with herbs and squash
No matter where or when you snack, always try to aim for the ideal paleo balance of protein, carbohydrates and fat. Following this schematic for between-meal snacks truly can be the deal-maker in sticking with the paleo diet, helping you to maintain healthy blood sugar levels and keep your fat-blasting metabolism on high.
On the go? Whether you’re a busy mom toting kids to soccer and swim practice or someone running errands after a long day of work, a well-balanced smoothie is an ideal snack solution. This one in particular was a hit when it was featured during my second appearance as a paleo expert on the Dr. Oz Show. Enjoy!
Raw Cacao, Banana & Coconut Smoothie
Ingredients
2 ripe bananas
1 large, ripe avocado
16 oz. coconut water
2 Tbsp. raw cacao nibs
1 cup baby spinach leaves
Ginger, turmeric and cinnamon, to taste
Ice
Directions
Combine all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth.