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Day’?s Verse:
Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him — for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work — this is a gift of God.
Ecclesiastes 5:18-19
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Today — well, actually yesterday — finishes off my week of keeping track of what I eat and when. The last week has only confirmed what I already suspected, namely that I eat fairly healthy with the exception of an overweening passion for cookies, and that I eat basically the same foods every day. I hear diets that incorporate a wider variety of foods tend to be healthier, but somehow I end up eating the same old things over and over. Look at yesterday, for example:

6:15 — Milk and vitamin
8:50 – 9:05 — Oatmeal
10:25 — String cheese and 1/2 chocolate chip cookie
11:50 — 1/2 chocolate chip cookie (the other half, naturally)
12:30 – 1:00 — Salad
1:55 — Chocolate chip cookie
3:35 — Banana
7:00 – 7:30 — Licks of cheese sauce, then cheesy noodles
8:00 — Carrots (too many. Ugh)

Dinners I sometimes mix things up a little bit, but honestly, how uncreative is cheesy noodles and carrots? Surely even I, who arrived home dripping wet and bone-tired at like 6:30, could do better than that. But by the evening my creativity juices have all dried up, and for earlier meals I find that routine works well — I know the food fits in my bag and only a minimum of squishing occurs.

So this is my plea to all you creative eaters out there: What are quick, easy, meatless, portable creative meals that I could try out? I also like being able to spread my eating out over the day rather than having three huge meals a day, so what I really need is a wider variety of interesting nibbly foods. Clarification: My goal is to find munchy foods that I can eat over the course of the day in small portions, rather than as one big meal. Ideas??

To inspire you, I offer this reward: When I try your suggestion, if I like it, I will send you a batch of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies.

8 thoughts on “Munchy Conclusions

  1. An easy meatless meal I’ve made is…and bear with me because this will sound gross until you try it… macaroni and cheese with butternut squash (and spinach and shrimp or chicken but obviously that’s removable). There’s a recipe on food.com from Rachael Ray but i substitute all of the cream and cheese with fat free half and half and low fat cheese. and you can use frozen squash you don’t have the time to cook fresh. it’s delicious and it gets the veggies into you! and you can make it in a big batch to portion out and reheat.

    Let’s see. what else. I’m always a big fan of hommus and pita chips. or carrots and hommus.

    hmm…well this does have meat but it’s really easy- get a rotisserie chicken from the market, pull the meat off of it, mix it with spaghetti sauce and a dash of half and haf to make the sauce kind of creamy, sprinkle some parmesan and fresh (or dried) basil and mix with noodles. chicken spaghetti, tada!

    refried bean, salsa and cheese quesadillas are good too. just pop them in the microwave and it’s super quick. and you can add lettuce afterward to keep the thick mouthfeel at bay.

    apples and peanut butter. mmm.

  2. Hmm, those do sound good. But they’re all big “sit down at one time and eat all this food”-type meals, and I’m looking more for small, spread-out type meals.

  3. falafel!
    ok maybe not quick but definitely one of those things you could make a bunch of and then eat for a while. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. plus you eat it on pita bread, which is squish free.

    i only ate 3 lunches throughout grade school. one was peanut butter on pita bread, one was tuna salad on pita bread (the least frequent of the three), and one was 2 pieces of string cheese. they are the comfort foods i revert to.

    i think maybe just change small things. buy some other types of seasonings. use alfala sprouts on a sandwich instead of lettuce. this whole thought process is making me hungry. im going to go eat and then ill come back to this.

  4. I love dried fruit or nuts for munchies! Yogurt-covered raisins are awfully good, as are golden raisins. Dried Berries are sooo tasty, but a little more expensive. Not dried fruits like grapes or sliced apples are pretty desk-able munchie too…

    And yogurt! That’s a great work snack. Vanilla yogurt is awfully good eaten with coffee or strong tea.

    Hard boiled eggs can be a good kick-start breakfast.

    I hear that there are chocolate bars out there with more pure chocolate and less sugar– and straight chocolate without the added sugar and fat is actually good for you. So that’s an idea.

    Smoothies are something I’ve been enjoying lately. My favorite healthy variety is one banana, several frozen strawberries and some milk blended together. Add fruit juices, yogurt, other fruits or ice for more variety, then put it in a nalgene bottle and take it to work.

    One more thing to remember while snacking is that sometimes your body mistakes thirst for hunger. So if I’m trying to avoid unhealthy snacking I’ll pour myself a flavorful tea to keep my mouth and stomach busy for awhile.
    I hear mint gum works well for this too…

    Anyway, can you tell I love snacking? I make an effort to include a little meat in every lunch or dinner, though, so no ideas for you there 🙂

  5. I would love to make a suggestion, but I’m a college student.
    Aside from dining hall and/or student store food, my diet consists of:
    -Annie’s boxed macaroni and cheese. (Still just mac n’ cheese, but very good for boxed, and organic.)
    -Spaghetti with marinara sauce.
    -Shells in tomato juice with oregano and pepper.
    -Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
    -Cheese and crackers.

    Seriously, that’s all. I am not going to be any help.

  6. What a great reward! I don’t think I can sleep until I’ve made at least a decent attempt at this.

    Mom used to send us to school with “homemade lunchables” – usually crackers and pepperoni. But if you found some crackers you really liked (maybe healthy ones) and paired them up with a fun cheese (that you cut in slices and put in a baggie) or some kind of spread, that could be a little snack. The spread gets messier, though. (oh man, I just realized Colleen already said cheese and crackers. and so much more succinctly, to boot!)
    Cheese with apple slices is good, too, if you want to mix up the flavor a little.

    veggies and dip are quick, but can be messy. celery and peanut butter with raisins, since we’re revisiting elementary school days.

    Salsa on a salad isn’t really a different meal, but it also changes up the flavors. Salsa on anything is good, really. So is lemon.

    If you rolled up vegetables (with maybe a dip or spread) in a tortilla, it would take more prep time, but would be more finger friendly (you could cut it into pinwheels for snacking, or leave as a wrap). Any vegetables you like the flavor of would work. I had a sandwich with balsamic onions recently and the sweetness really added a lot to the experience.

    You can make an egg mcmuffin in the microwave – crack an egg on the bread, cook 30 seconds, add cheese and other side of muffin, cook another 30-60 seconds. But I don’t really recommend it. It’s just a warm meal that doesn’t need an stove or oven.

    My very favorite is an avocado and a spoon…and maybe a little salt. or lemon.

  7. Oooo you know what would be ideal? A chocolate chip cookie-flavored beverage. Maybe if you made a milkshake out of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream…?

  8. my brother has made that before! it’s actually pretty good. the chocolate flakes that get shredded up in the blender sink to the bottom, too, so when you’re done you get a cascading pile of chocolate bits pouring into your mouth. mmmm.

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