Indulgent Snacking in 2018: Satisfying Your Cravings (and make the world a better place!

Indulgent Snacking in 2018: Satisfying Your Cravings (and make the world a better place!)

There is an argument to be made for letting snacks be snacks. According to many nutritionists, there is a healthy space for a little indulgence in snacking, and even when we are on a strict diet, indulging in foods we love can even help us stay healthier overall.

However, as we enter a new level of awareness regarding what we are eating, we are learning that being indulgent never needs to mean being irresponsible. There are hundreds of snack options out there that leave nothing to be desired in terms of taste, but also can help you feel proud of what you are eating in terms of quality and origin of the food. This blog post gives you six things to look out for when you are looking for indulgent snacks that will satisfy your cravings while still remaining a responsible choice.

1. Hearty ingredients

   Beans, lentils, rice…these food staples have been around for centuries, and for good reason. Hearty ingredients like these are packed with protein and therefore keep you feeling full and energized longer, and this is the key to picking responsibly indulgent snacks. (It’s harder to indulge if you’re going to feel the need to indulge again when you’re starving 45 minutes later!)

   Luckily, there are tons of snack options that offer hearty ingredients as their base, such as Saffron Road’s Crunchy Chickpeas. These crunchy chickpeas include more protein than fat, and are a perfect on-the-go snack that will keep you full when you need to postpone your next meal for a few hours.

   The key to choosing a snack is to avoid straight sugar and loading up on simple carbohydrates that will give you a short spout of energy but leave you hungry and exhausted. Candy, baked goods, and fried foods will are an indulgent that might not be worth the crash later on.

2. Organic and Non-GMO

   By now, many people are convinced that GMOs and the chemicals used in non-organic foods are not worth the lower price tag. With more and more people educating themselves on the benefits of organic and non-GMO foods, there is a significantly higher demand for “clean and wholesome” snacks, which makes responsible indulging that much easier. At this point, finding organic snacks is as easy as doing a little bit of extra reading in the grocery aisle. Check to make sure your product is “Non-GMO Project Verified” to ensure that you are only eating foods that have been awarded the highest seal of approval from the non-GMO project.

   Should you go the extra step to insure that your snacks are GMO free and organic? Consider the amount of pesticides, chemicals, and hormones that are used in non-organic food processing. Mindful consumption is also an easy way to make sure that the animals involved in the food process are treated with a baseline level of compassion and kind, humane welfare. For more on this, check out Saffron Road’s commitment to using livestock raised with care in all of our meals.

3. Fair Trade

   Just as important as researching how your snacks are grown, indulgent snacking without the guilt means checking to see if they are traded ethically. By insuring your snacks are fair trade, you aren’t just ensuring that no farmer or tradesman was taken advantage of in the process of getting your ingredients. You are also supporting efforts to stop child labor, unfair working conditions, and dishonest business practices across the world.

   Look for signs of Fair Trade certified on your snack options to make sure that the products you buy are held to the high standards of the Fair Trade movement that promises fuller transparency and 100%, bulletproof trust. When you shop Fair Trade, you are using your purchasing power to create meaningful change in the lives of others.

4. Dark Chocolate

   CLICK HERE FOR A $1.00 off COUPON!When we think of indulgent snacking, one word tends to comes to mind: CHOCOLATE! However, not all chocolate is created equal, and opting for chocolate that is at least 70% cacao can make your snacking not just tasty, but truly healthy. Dark chocolate offers health benefits that make it one of the smartest snack options out there. It can prevent cancer, lower your cholesterol, and is chock full of antioxidants. Milk chocolate, on the other hand, has been altered to the point that it offers little of these benefits.

   Saffron Road’s new dark chocolate covered crunchy chickpeas are an indulgent snack food that combine hearty chickpeas with real Fair Trade dark chocolate for an unforgettable experience. The chickpeas are panned in a proprietary process like an M&M – only much healthier! Like M&M’s, they “Melt in your mouth, not in your hand”, so you won’t have any chocolate or powdery residue on your hands. They are packed with plant-based protein, and are a pure, healthy, clean indulgence.

5. Portion Control

   A common problem people have when they switch to healthier snacks is that they tend to overindulge because they assume that the calories matter less. However, too much of a good thing is never a good thing. A great way to control your indulgence is to buy snacks that come ready-to-eat in proper single serving containers. Otherwise, a great option is to take any bulk snacks you buy and sort them into single servings as soon as you buy them. That way, you can reach for a snack when you need one, without stressing about how much you are going to allow yourself to eat. This is a such a simple fix, but it’s an easy way to trick your brain into eating the right portion size, and this can have serious benefits when it comes to controlling your snacking.

   Have you seen Saffron Road’s snacks that come in single serving pouches to make snacking easy!

6. Taste

   As much as we want to be healthy as often as possible, most of us don’t choose snacks because we are hungry or looking to be healthy. Instead of trying to restrict ourselves by eating the fat-free, sugar-free, taste-free versions of our favorite snacks, it is usually better to simply let yourself enjoy an indulgent (but still smart) snack from time to time, and then get back to your usual healthy routine.

   Indulgent snacking is all about choosing the right ingredients and leaving snacking for the right time. With all of the creative snack options out there, we are lucky to be able to find choices that satisfy our cravings, keep us full, and make the world a better, fairer place at the same time.