Snacking!

Hello Splodgies!! 

Since I moved to the Lake District, I've been trying to eat healthier. 

Recently a day's meals would look something like this:

Breakfast:

-Coffee

- Porridge with raisins or toast with marmite (scrambled egg when I have time)

Lunch:

-Wrap with houmous or mozzerella, tomato, carrots and spinach

- An apple or banana

- A kitkat

Tea:

Usually pasta and tomato sauce (made by me of course!) or a sandwich

On the whole, I think that I've been fairly successful, I don't drink fruit juice anymore except for the occasional glass of squash when I come in from work. My main problem is that I'm still finding the need to snack- which is annoying because the rest of the time I'm eating so much healthier. I think that this snacking habit was a minor problem whilst at university, but during the time that I've been employed its got worse, and is now becoming a very difficult habit to break. I do have fruit on my desk, and I grab a few raisins from the cupboard when I get in. But I also have a biscuit tin on my desk, and whether you like it or not, biscuits are a much cheaper, more convenient and satisfying snack. And they keep for much longer than fruit. More seasoned readers of The Daily Splodge might know its sister blog http://biscuityblog.blogspot.co.uk where I write reviews of biscuits (though posts there are few and far between in comparison to this blog) 

I don't snack in the mornings or at work or after I've had my tea before I got to sleep, in fact, my snacking is a problem at a very specific, predictable time- a few hours after having arrived in from work, but before I would usually have my tea. What I need is something that provides the sweet crunchy kick of a biscuit whilst at the same time having the nutritional properties of a piece of fruit and maintaining a long shelf life when correctly stored. I think that nuts could ideally fill this snacking gap for me, as they are crunch, low in calories and high in protein, and also have the conveniences being cheap and lasting a long time. Unfortunately they have the inconvenience of potentially making me die. Sometimes I think my dietary requirements may be too narrow to make a lucrative gap in the market for someone to create something in a snack that has all the attributes I'm looking for. But really, there must be lots of vegetarians who don't eat nuts? I can't be the only one. Hmm.... Back to the drawing board. 

I'm considering making a batch of flapjack or buying some cereal bars at home bargains, but these both present me with problems:

1. A flapjack will probably contain more sugar and fat than a biscuit anyway, given that it is mostly made of sugar and fat. Although it would outstrip a biscuit on the fibre content

2. Cereal bars are often a potential hazard for me as they frequently contain nuts. And the ones that taste of something more than cardboard can be really expensive too! 

I did think about getting one of those Graze boxes that I'm always seeing advertised whenever I watch TV, but the thing is, even though the first one is free, I think that it'd be too expensive to do in the long run. I'm planning on gradually cutting down on snacking before cutting it out all together.

What do you think? Got any tips on how I can snack healthier, cheaply? Let me know in the comments 

Today, this is me and some etchings I made on the wall: 

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

x