I got an email this week from a reader who wanted gluten free snack ideas, so I thought I’d share our current favorites =) I really wish we weren’t driving today because I could get some hilarious pictures of the kids digging into any three of these options. Maybe later =)
1. Raw Jicama with Sabra Red Pepper Hummus
Jicama is a roughly cylindrical root/tuber type vegetable that may be unfamiliar to you unless you’ve enjoyed some authentic Latin American cooking. The outside peel is a tan color and you peel that off. The inside is white, crunchy, and and somewhat similar to a watermelon in texture, just crisper. I slice the jicama into long sticks and then we dip it in the Sabra Hummus.
Sabra Hummus carries a gluten free label, and it’s one of my favorite foods right now. Many grocery stores carry it, but the price is usually best at Walmart. Walmart also usually has jicama in the produce section, so we generally get this snack when we’re shopping at Walmart.
2. 2% Plain Greek Yogurt with Honey
Our kids seem to be able to handle Greek yogurt pretty well, so I like to get this for them as a special treat or when they’ve had a stomach upset from accidentally eating gluten. We use the 2% varieties because I want the kids to get fat in their diet. We use the plain because we’re reading through Winnie the Pooh at bedtime and my kids get super excited about eating honey =)
So, for this snack we scoop some yogurt into a bowl, drizzle it with honey (the kids prefer raw honey) and dig in. If it’s a super special treat then we’ll also add almonds or dried fruit on top.
3. Melon, melons and more melons
Watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew….if it’s a melon my kids will eat immense quantities. Melons are in-season right now so it’s a great, and usually affordable, snack choice.
The only difficulty with melons is determining if they are ripe. A ripe cantaloupe should smell like cantaloupe when you hold it close to your face and sniff. The rind of a cantaloupe looks like a green or yellow ball with heavy tan webbing on top. A ripe cantaloupe is more yellow than green underneath the webbing.
I still haven’t figured out how to pick a good honeydew, so we generally get the pre-sliced selections for that. I do sniff the package to see if I can smell honeydew, and if not we keep looking.
The best way to pick a good watermelon is to get an honest farmer whose grown a lot of watermelons to pick it for you. If you don’t have one of those handy, then I do as my grandmother taught me and look for the ground spot. The ground spot is the area where the watermelon lay on the ground. It should be more yellow than white when the watermelon is ripe.
I also look over the rind, making sure that there are no squishy parts. I also pick up a few melons that look good and see if any of them seem heavier for their size than others. A good watermelon should have plenty of water in it, and that will make it heavier.
Why Do You Keep Mentioning Snacks for the Kids and Not For Yourself?
I noticed as I was writing this that I kept referring to the kids. These snacks are not just for kids! I enjoy all of them myself. But, our kids need snacks a lot more often than John and I do, so when I fix these snacks it’s generally for the kids.
One thing that John and I have noticed after 18 or so months of eating a mostly grain-free and sugar-free diet, is that we’re just not as hungry. I rarely need a snack between meals. It’s actually more common for me to skip a meal because I’m not hungry, than to get hungry between meals. I mention this only because some people believe that it’s necessary to snack between meals, especially if you want to lose weight, and I thought it would be useful to state that this has not been our experience when we’re eating grain-free and sugar-free.
What’s your favorite summer snack? It looks like we’ll be dealing with heat for a few more months. Is there anything in particular that we should try while it’s hot and there are lots of fresh fruits and vegetables in season?
Another good way to check watermelons is to thump them. Look for one that sounds hollow.
For snacking lately, I’ve loved eating apples, grapes or pears with cheese. Generally a cheddar but also with Laughing Cow swiss cheese.
Nuts (cashews and pistachios are my favorite) rice cakes (Lundberg are my favorite-much less like eating “air” than other brands), and seasonal fresh fruit and veggies.
LOL I also LOVE Sabra! Roasted Garlic Hummus is my new best friend! 🙂 I love carrots so that’s how we eat it but I will have to try the Jicama, if I can find it in small town Iowa.
A few other standard snacks for our household are strawberries, blueberries, apples and bananas. We also like Lara bars, cheese sticks, yogurts, nuts of all kinds, and the biggest is natural peanut butter. The kids especially like it when I stir in some honey…and I love it too!
Thanks for the great post! I learned something new about how to pick watermelons.
Amy » We’ve recently started seeing Kind bars at the checkout counters at Walmarts. They are GF and have nuts and dark chocolate, so it’s a bit hit with all of us. You just have to watch out for the chocolatey hands and mouths if you’re eating them in the car =)
We eat a lot of natural peanut butter too. My kids like for me to split a banana in half and then smear peanut butter over the cut edges. It’s a good option for breakfast or snacks.
Honeydew is the only melon I DO know how to pick! 🙂 I slide my hand over each one at the store (I’m sure people think I’m nuts!) because it has to be tacky (or slightly sticky) on the outside. If it’s slick and your hand slides right over the outside, it’s not ripe; don’t buy it. In my experience, it won’t even GET ripe (they pick them way too soon). If it’s tacky, you can’t go wrong! (Well, unless it’s actually too ripe, which isn’t usually the case if they’ve been kept fairly cool.) Happy picking! 🙂
Nancy Dragoun » Thanks for this wonderful tip! My daughter’s favorite board book right now has a reference to honeydew and she gets so excited when I buy it for their snack. It will make her happy that I’ll be able to pick good honeydew now =)