Snack Renovation

I love snacks! In fact, my entire diet is fairly snack-like, as I am a big fan of eating small meals/snacks every 2 hours or so. In my quest to eat fewer processed foods, however, my daily snacks needed to be renovated. It was time to say good-bye to 100-calorie packs and microwave popcorn, and try to say hello to nature's bounty. Here's what my lunch kit contained on a random day this week to satisfy my snacky cravings:

• An organic nectarine. Yum! The nectarines have been amazingly delicious this summer.
• A bag of snap peas - and yes, those plastic baggies have been washed and re-used. Unfortunately, the grocery store didn't have any organics.
• A bag of organic strawberries.
• Some Yoplait yogurt. While this is definitely a processed food, I perused the ingredients list. Those processed foods I do choose to eat (and of course, I eat many of them) I'm examining more carefully, and trying to reduce the numbers of things I eat that contain ingredients that are a) unprounounceable, b) unrecognizable, and c) unfoodlike. My Yoplait fit the bill. Also, I like Yoplait because I can recycle the packaging, whereas their competitor's packaging can't be recycled in Houston.

These snacks were delicious and my renovated diet has had a secondary benefit: I've lost 3.5 pounds without any effort at all!

Of course, my favorite healthy, unprocessed snack is this: