SANE Snacks and On The Go – Simple Portable SANE Dishes

Carrie: This is Carrie Brown and Jonathan Bailor, and we are here living the Smarter Science of Slim.

Jonathan: I thought Carrie was going to forget me. She’s like, “Carrie, and who’s the other guy? Who’s this guy?

Carrie: Yes, who’s that dude down the other end?

Jonathan: JB.

Carrie: JB, the Bailornator.

Jonathan: The Bailornator, as some people call me. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Carrie, moving on, today, we’re going to start talking about SANE snacks, an area where… last podcast we talked about exercise which Carrie I think fell asleep on the table, but snacks, Carrie’s like ding! That’s what Carrie does. Carrie does snacks.

Carrie: I do snacks.

Jonathan: Here’s what we’re going to do. I am going to be, we’re going to play roles in this podcast. Carrie, you tell me what you think about this. I am going to be mister like practical, pragmatism just, I don’t have time to do anything. Just tell me what to eat. I don’t care. I want low maintenance, low maintenance, low maintenance. That’s my character that I am going to play. It is nothing like reality, but it’s just like character.

Carrie: I am so nothing.

Jonathan: Carrie, let’s call Carrie’s character high maintenance. Carrie’s offended. No, no, Carrie’s character is the gourmand, the individual who wants a savory palate every time she indulges in, help me Carrie, I don’t…

Carrie: It’s going to taste good is what you’re trying to say.

Jonathan: Yes, yes. No, and not that my character wants things to taste bad, but that there is delicious and then that’s good; and I think Carrie is excellent coming up with dishes that are truly delicious. You’ll just got to want to eat these while you’re in a meeting or eat these while you’re watching television, because all of your attention is going to be directed at your taste buds because they’re going to be like “What? This is glorious.”

Carrie: My goal is to make SANE food that tastes as good as or better than normal food; and, so I’ve actually started blind taste-testing people where people who have no idea that I have this whole SANE thing going on. I‘ll make stuff, and I’ll bring in to work. I’ll dish it well, and I’ll get the feedback. I’ll say, “Well, did you realize that that had no sugar, no unhealthy fat, no flour, gluten-free dough, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and they all sit there and go “Wow, I would never have guessed.” That’s my point of view, that people who are not going SANE need to not be able to know by tasting it that it’s a health food.

Jonathan: Absolutely. I love it actually because this is just a wonderful… I mean it just shows different strokes for different folks. I think there are people like Carrie really likes cooking. She loves making delicious meals. I love eating them, but that’s not just something that interests me. When I get home from work, I have a very simple formula for how I eat.

I basically take a piece of meat or fish, and I cook it along with some vegetables; and I eat that. That’s my formula, and then my dessert is one of the SANE desserts we have like a SANE chocolate pudding or peanut butter pudding or all kinds of fun stuff, nuts, seeds that kind of thing, but if I had someone like Carrie cooking for me shoot, I’d sign up for that in a second so, its…

Carrie: I think you’re angling for an invitation. I think that’s what you’re doing, and you’re doing it publicly to hold me accountable.

Jonathan: Folks, what do you think?

Carrie: Busted.

Jonathan: What do you think? I think you should tell me what you think? Do you think Carrie should be, no, I’m just kidding; so we talk about snacks. Keep that in mind out of the different places we’re coming from here, and the other thing is snacks. I think may or may not be necessary. Let’s talk about macro bit about snacks, so couple of things. One, you only need to snack if you’re hungry in between meals.

What a lot of people find is, when they start to eat SANEly because it is so satisfying, they’re not hungry in between meals, so the need to snack just goes away. When I think of snacks, I am more thinking of, for me, it’s a convenience factor. This is something that is very convenient. It doesn’t take a lot of preparation. It’s potentially portable, so if I am on the road, the things we are going to talk about today are great options for us. For me, really the only difference… when I think of a snack in the context of the Smarter Science of Slim it is something that is portable and that is very, very quick, whereas meals are more something that may take a little bit more time. They’re designed to be sat down and eaten, but to be very clear, a lot of the snacks we’re going to talk about today are substantive and frankly could very easily be a lunch.

In fact, you probably won’t necessarily need them, because you’re going to be so full from your other meals that again, think of these as almost interchangeable with meals. They’re just focused on convenience and speed, rather than being elaborate gourmet feasts. Fair? First on the list, and Carrie, you can just interject here, is handful of raw nuts with unprocessed lunch meat and/or raw non-starchy vegetables. A couple of things to call on about this one, so we say raw nuts. Nuts in general are wonderful, but we want to combine them with something else; otherwise, it’s not really going to satisfy us, because fat is an incredibly satisfying component; but we do want to make sure we get a lot of fiber and protein as well.

Those are really the constituents of satiety, so that is why pairing nuts with unprocessed lunch meat or non-starchy vegetables is so effective because it gives us that water fiber and protein. The other aspect that is important is we say raw nuts. This is important to mention because there’s all sorts of honey roasted, chocolate covered… A dry roasted or roasted almonds, those are fine, but if possible, raw nuts really are our best options, just minimally processed, maximally satisfying good stuff.

Carrie: However, I am coming up with… I’ve posted one. I will be posting more. If the taste of nuts is not enough for you, I am coming up with a range of nuts that have been, you know, like the honey sesame whatever… only SANE versions of that.

Jonathan: Yeah, and that’s actually brand. What Carrie brings up is, if you want to create your own cinnamon vanilla pecans using a SANE recipe, that’s great. The thing to watch out for is just that which is sold in the convenience store aisle, because that’s not natural. It’s got all kinds of junk in it. The other thing that I am going to risk becoming unpopular with some nutrition communities with this next comment, our taste buds are designed in many ways so there is like umami, I think I am pronouncing that correctly.

It’s more like meat taste and they’re salt, they’re sweet and more of a fatty taste. These are things that we crave. They’re programmed into our brain, and for a lot of people, if you have nuts, which are wonderful sources of fat and they’re covered in honey for a lack of better terms, it’s very easy to sit down and eat a pound of those; and because your brain is kind of going bananas. That doesn’t mean avoid nuts. Nuts are fantastic for you. It just means, I highly recommend not covering them with insanity and eating them with things that are high in water, fiber and protein, so non-starchy vegetables and meat or fish; so, just don’t eat them alone and don’t eat them covered in insanity.

Carrie: Right. Insanity.

Jonathan: Good stuff, and Carrie, I think I had what you had made, a cashew something that was amazing.

Carrie: Orange spiced cashews. Caramel orange-spiced cashews. There we go.

Jonathan: Amazing.

Carrie: With no sugar, obviously.

Jonathan: They were a wonderful dessert. I may have mentioned this before, maybe some of our listeners can empathize with this; but I found personally, Carrie tell me what you think, about this, that there is a difference between feeling full and feeling satisfied. I define full as where there is no empty room in my stomach. I filled my stomach up, and I am good. Satisfied is almost like it’s more in your brain. It’s like I feel fulfilled by what I just ate. I do not feel deprived. For me personally, I have to eat protein, and I have to eat fat in order to feel satisfied.

I could eat salad until the cows come home and egg whites. I could eat five pounds of that, and I wouldn’t feel satisfied. I feel full. What I loved about your cashews or nuts and seeds in general especially things like cocoa, coconut, chia and flax is, I eat my meat and fish main dish, lots of non-starchy vegetables on the side; and then my dessert is nut and seed-based and it’s super rich because it’s got all that fat. It really takes me from full to satisfied while staying SANE.

Carrie: Right, and you don’t need a ton; and if you’re already filled up with the other stuff, you don’t want a ton, but it’s enough.

Jonathan: Yeah, and that’s actually a brilliant point too, is eating them at the end of the meal rather than as the meal itself is also a great way to avoid overeating. What you’re trying to do if you just eat nuts by themselves, you need to feel full and you want to feel satisfied; but nuts aren’t going to fill you up because they’re not big enough. They don’t have that water, fiber, and protein; so you’ve got to have the big stuff, water, fiber protein to fill you up and then you’ve got to have the natural fats to satisfy you. That’s why I want to combine them. Make sense? The other thing I’ll mention, Carrie talked earlier about her goal is to make dishes which in the blind taste test are super SANE and also very delicious. One thing that makes me really excited about that is, it’s a great example or great case study…

When we talk about living a SANE lifestyle, it really isn’t a life of deprivation because fat fine, salt fine, and even the taste of sweet fine. We just don’t get it from caloric sweeteners. We get it from natural non-caloric sweeteners, and of course, umami, or however the heck you pronounce it, a meat type flavor, totally fine. The four major flavors, things that people crave are all good to go. We just have to pick where we get them and that is why we were able to… it’s like all the colors of the rainbow are available to us we just use different shades, analogy, bam.

Carrie: Yeah, I had to get in somewhere.

Jonathan: Carrie says she like my analogies.

Carrie: I do. I love your analogies.

Jonathan: All right. So that was just snack number one. Snack number two is 30 grams of protein worth of hardboiled eggs and egg whites, so depending on your goals, there are two things to call out of this one. First, we said 30 grams of protein worth, which is worth talking about; and then we talked about hardboiled eggs and egg whites. I say hardboiled because they’re portable, and that’s fantastic. I say eggs and egg whites because as we’ve covered in previous podcasts, a whole egg gets only 35 percent of its calories from protein. It doesn’t make it bad. It just means it’s a good source of fat, not a good source of protein.

An egg white has 91 percent of its calories coming from protein. If your goal is to eat 30 grams of protein, which it should be, because we talked about it in earlier podcasts, at about 30 grams of protein our blood levels of amino acid Leucine gets to the point where it triggers muscle protein synthesis, which is a great thing we want to have happen in our body; we’ve got to eat 30 grams of protein in a sitting. It’s up to you, depending on the amount of fat you’re eating on in your diet to pick the ratio of egg whites to whole eggs that you want to eat but no matter what, I want 30 grams of protein in that snack.

Don’t eat two snacks, each of which contain 15 grams of protein, eat one big snack that contains 30 grams of protein; so however you want to do eggs, egg whites to do that. If you’re a low carb, you’re going to eat more egg yolks. If you’re more higher carb, you’re going to eat more egg whites. It’s up to you to do it.

Carrie: However, the best way to do it is still, to hard boil the whole egg and then just whip the yolk out. I mean, just cut it in half and take the yolks out of those you don’t… leave the yolks in for one and take the yolks out for two, or however you do it; but don’t over think how to get hardboiled egg whites. Just cook the whole egg, and whip the yolk out.

Jonathan: Carrie, do you have any tips on, I still struggle on peeling hardboiled eggs. Is there… I try to crack them on the counter, and I try to peel them; but I don’t do a very good job of it. Is there a chef-based technique to peel hardboiled eggs?

Carrie: No. Smack, peel.

Jonathan: Just like I’ve tried to sort of smack all around.

Carrie: I smack it all around and then…

Jonathan: How long you usually like cook them, and at what water temperature?

Carrie: Do you want the proper answer or the how Carrie-does-it-at-home answer?

Jonathan: What’s the quickest easiest way to do it? It may not yield the best hardboiled egg ever but I just want the quick easiest way.

Carrie: I put it in water and put it on the stove, and turn it off when I remember it.

Jonathan: Okay, a little bit better than that. Let’s go little bit better than that.

Carrie: It’s the truth. It’s what I do. You can’t ruin a boiled egg unless the pan boils dry, then you can burn a boiled egg, believe it or not. Yes, I have done that, because I was upstairs and it was downstairs and anyway… won’t have that problem anymore, but yeah, no. Boil the water when the water is rolling boil with a slotted spoon just lower the eggs in 10 minutes and you’re good.

Jonathan: It may seem stupid but as someone who didn’t realize this at the beginning, the slotted spoon thing is important because if you just drop the egg in the boiling water, two things are going to happen. One, you’re going to crack the egg in the pot. Two, you’re going to splash yourself with boiling water, which is not pleasant. Well, I may be good at science you were like if you drop an egg in boiling water while you’re perched over the pots, what is going to happen? I didn’t go through that thought process and my arm had a little burn on it as a result, so…

Carrie: We love slotted spoons.

Jonathan: Place the egg gently using a slotted spoon into the pan or the pot whatever it’s called.

Carrie: Boil the water first, lower the eggs in. Ten minutes you’re good.

Jonathan: Is there a limit to how long I can refrigerate? I go to Costco or some bulk store, and I buy eggs. I buy five dozen eggs at a time, because it’s like four boxes which is ridiculous; and I just want to boil twelve eggs so that I am good for my snack on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Carrie: Oh, that’ll be fine.

Jonathan: They’re fine.

Carrie: I keep them in the glass Pyrex dishes in the fridge. It’s all good.

Jonathan: All good, and Folks, that is what I’d recommend personally. If you’re going to do hardboiled eggs don’t wake up in the morning and boil two eggs and then do it again the next day, unless you like doing that or you’re retired, and you have much time on your hands. Set aside some time on the weekend to boil eggs.

Carrie: It takes the same time to boil twelve as it does two,. It’ll take you one minute longer to peel them, so just do it all at once. You saved electricity or gas, you saved… I actually hardboiled eggs, so I road trip a lot and I drive for 14 hours straight in one heat, and I do it on my own. What I take with me to eat because I don’t stop to eat, is beef jerky, hardboiled eggs, and cucumbers.

Jonathan: Yes, some non-starchy veggies in there.

Carrie: I can drive and eat that, and I will hard boil 24 eggs; and they’re in the car. I’ve got the beef jerky, the turkey jerky, and I’ve got cucumbers; which I eat like apples, a sanity right there. I never go in the gas stations ever because there is nothing SANE in those places, nothing, and that powers me all the way to know I can drive from Seattle to San Francisco in one hit on hardboiled eggs, beef jerky, and cucumbers.

Jonathan: It’s brilliant, because they’re not only portable but they’re easy, like if you had a little thing of you could I mean you might need to bite it twice, but depending on the size of your mouth like I have a large mouth so I could probably take in an entire hardboiled egg and just put it in my mouth while I am driving. I’m just like, I wouldn’t look good while I am doing it.

Carrie: It’s okay, because I am on my own.

Jonathan: No, it’s brilliant. Hard boiled eggs, good stuff and again, just another plug for buying these things in bulk because it’s much more affordable, and these are things that are easy to buy in bulk if you’re going to grocery store that only sells eggs in cartons of twelve, you may want to consider going somewhere else if you’re feeding more than one person. Anyway hardboiled eggs, 30 grams of protein, the yolk versus the white. It’s completely up to you. Next on the list is one to three cups of raw non-starchy vegetables.

Some of my favorite are sugar snap peas, celery, carrots, cucumber, or broccoli, or even cauliflower with a Greek yogurt dip. You’ve got your non-starchy veggies. You’ve got your Greek yogurt as your dip, so you’re getting your protein. You’re getting your non-starchy veggies, super, super SANE. If you want it to be more satisfying, you could use a higher fat Greek yogurt. If you want it to be more focused on protein you could do a lower fat Greek yogurt. It’s just up to you. Carrie, do you have any tips on how to make a good Greek yogurt veggie dip?

Carrie: The easiest way is to get your non-fat Greek yogurt and add, for example, I was reading the other day in the store older packets of the pre-made ranch dressing, and expecting to find a lot of crap in there; and I was amazed. I cannot remember what brand it was, but there was a packet of ranch dressing mix which had no sugar in it. It was all awesome. It was basically, I cannot remember what the base was but it was SANE and then it had herbs and spices in it; so that’s by far the easiest way to just get your Greek yogurt, mix in a packet of Ranch dressing mix or whatever those mixes are you can get. Just make sure you read the label before you buy it. You don’t want sugar. You don’t want a whole bunch of wheat. That’s the easiest way to go.

Jonathan: I found that just some people like stronger tasting dip. Some people like more of a weaker tasting dip, so just experiment. Start with less of the seasoning packet, and then mix it up, taste it. If you want it to be stronger, add some more taste it and then just be conscious while you’re doing that like maybe add the dip mix in teaspoons, at a time, so you can remember, “Oh, three teaspoons, that’s what I like,” so now you know moving forward, you use three teaspoons; but it’s completely up to you. The other thing I would mention is dip mix since it’s nonperishable, it’s very easy to go on the internet and type in all natural ranch dressing or there are all kinds of veggie dip, just all natural dip mix in Google or Bing. You’re going to get all kinds of freaking options that you can buy.

Carrie: Still read the label, because we all know that the word natural has different meanings for different people depending on whether they’re food manufacturers or consumer.

Jonathan: Absolutely, and, of course, you can intermix these. We’ve already talked about raw nuts with non-starchy vegetables, lunch meats, eggs, egg whites, non-starchy vegetables, Greek yogurt. Hopefully, you can see that these things start to become interchangeable. You can mix and match them. The next couple of options we’ve already really covered, and that’s unprocessed lunch meat, beef jerky or salmon jerky, cottage cheese mixed with some berries, Greek yogurt mixed with some berries. The key thing for all of those, so those are protein sources is, you want to make sure you eat them in those 30 grams of protein.

Literally, I want you to… do not eat 20 grams of protein worth of unprocessed lunchmeat as a snack. Eat 30 grams. It will be treated differently by your body, and it’s just going to give you fuller longer because if you just eat 20 grams then you might eat 20 grams twice, and you’re going to miss that muscle protein synthesis threshold where if you just would have done that one snack with 30 grams you’d be good to go.

Again those snacks were 30 grams of protein worth of unprocessed lunch meat, jerky’s like Carrie mentioned. There’s all kinds, beef, turkey, salmon. You can do cottage cheese plain or you can mix it with some berries. You can do Greek yogurt plain or you can mix it with some berries, all of which are great options. Any thoughts on those, Carrie?

Carrie: Yes, I have thoughts on those. The plain Greek yogurt, if you struggle with eating 30 grams worth of Greek yogurt at a time….

Jonathan: A 30 grams of protein worth of Greek yogurt.

Carrie: That’s what I meant, protein worth of Greek yogurt, throw in a scoop or two of your whey protein, then you have to eat less but you’re getting more protein in it, so, that’s one thing. You can do the same thing with cottage cheese. If you can’t eat that much cottage cheese in terms of volume, throw in a scoop of vanilla whey powder; and also lunchmeats and jerkies, please read the label. You would be horrified at some of the amounts of sugar and crap that are hidden in these things but in the jerky.

I am a bit of a jerky connoisseur, because I eat a lot of it; and I have read the ingredients label about every available jerky produced in America and most of them have an inSANE amount of sugar in them. Just please don’t think “Eww, look a slab of dried beef.” Read the labels, and the same for processed meat. I get my lunchmeat… I don’t buy Trader’s Joe jerky, because it’s got a lot of sugar in it, but for lunchmeat, read the labels. I buy at Trader Joe’s, because it’s so cheap, and there is nothing in it but meat.

Jonathan: Things like jerky, again since they’re nonperishable, they’re great internet options, meaning if you don’t find anything, if you live in a rural area where there is only really one grocery store, go to the internet. Look for, of course look at the labels, but look for… just type in no sugar or low sugar or all natural, no sugar beef jerky or low carb beef jerky, just anything that’s going to help steer you away from sugar. You’re going to find a bunch of options on the internet, too, which is great.

Carrie: One of the, in fact the brand that I eat is strangely enough the most widely available brand in America, which is the Jack’s links, but do not get the teriyaki flavor or the barbeque flavor, just get the plain, beef jerky. It has more protein and less sugar than any other jerky I’ve seen.

Jonathan: Sort of a funny anecdote about, so I don’t eat jerky, not because I don’t like it but because it makes my jaw hurt.

Carrie: You are such a wuss. You did not just say that.

Jonathan: No, no. I also cannot chew full sticks of gum, because if I chew a full stick of gum, it makes my jaw sore, where if I eat a… and my brother is saying, you can dead lift 415 pounds reps, but you cannot chew beef jerky? Are you kidding me?

Carrie: Beef jerky is easy, meat eating.

Jonathan: It is actually not. It is no. It is actually not.

Carrie: It is.

Jonathan: You’re doing a bunch of concentric actions to close your jaw, so thank you very much; but I wanted to give you a quick plug here.

Carrie: You are never going to live that down.

Jonathan: I am humiliated with this. I need to do more jaw exercises.

Carrie: What do we get to?

Jonathan: I want to talk a little bit more about cottage cheese and Greek yogurt, because I have a love affair with cottage cheese and Greek yogurt and not just by themselves. Carrie mentioned in passing, adding whey protein powder to these things, and it’s not necessarily… Really, any, if you want to use casein protein powder or the point, is add protein. The reason I do that is so… I literally crave, this is my new thing I crave. I take equal parts cottage cheese and Greek yogurt, and I use the non-fat variance for the reason I will describe momentarily and then I add some chopped walnuts, chopped just above where you’d consider it to be a flour, somewhere of a chunky.

I add some vanilla whey protein powder and some vanilla extract and some cinnamon. I don’t even want to eat my meals anymore. I just want to eat that stuff, because I don’t even know… it’s like rice pudding got in a relationship with heaven and out came this. It is so good, and you can eat, I just make this freaking tub of it, and I’m just like num, num, num because I don’t feel bad about eating it, and it taste so bad for you. It’s funny though. I’ve tried it with not all the ingredients.

I’ve tried it without the walnuts, I’ve tried it without the whey protein bit. I’ve tried to, it seems like you’ve got to have all those things, and you can do just Greek yogurt, or you could do just cottage cheese; and it still works, but I found that when you mix them together, woo, good stuff, and it doesn’t make your jaw sore, which is good.

Carrie: This is coming from the man who doesn’t even like Greek yogurt.

Jonathan: I don’t like plain Greek yogurt, no.

Carrie: There you go.

Jonathan: But I use it so much.

Carrie: I bring that not to embarrass you further, because you’ve already done enough of this on that podcast; but I say that because I know there are a lot of people out there who don’t like yogurt and who particularly don’t like Greek yogurt and who particularly, particularly don’t like plain yogurt. Jonathan doesn’t like plain yogurt, but you find ways to make it palatable to work for you. Whey protein is brilliant, because it alters the flavor to the point it makes it a lot more palatable; so you too can enjoy Greek yogurt and cottage cheese.

Jonathan: You won’t even enjoy it. It will be like, almost as if… there is something about dairy products for me, at least that I just love; and that creaminess, I just dig. I also mentioned I eat a fat-free variance when I do this. This is a great example. Again, I get beat up about this because low fat. I am not saying low fat because I’m against fat. I say low-fat because I am intentional about the types of fat I’m eating. The recipe I just mentioned gets the vast majority that comes from fat. Why? I put walnuts in it. Walnuts are primarily fat.

Walnuts are an extremely healthy source of fat. In fact, they are even a better source of fat from a quality perspective than dairy products are. What I am doing in this recipe is I am saying, I want my high quality protein. I also want delicious, high-quality fats, so I could eat full fat Greek yogurt and I could eat full fat cottage cheese and I could eat walnuts if I wanted to. If your goal is to eat a high fat, low everything else diet, then you should do that but if that’s not your goal then the Greek yogurt, the cottage cheese, the whey protein, those are your sources of protein and your walnuts are your source of fat.

I also do things like the same basic cottage cheese, Greek yogurt with cocoa or with coconut, and I don’t feel bad; and I don’t overeat. I don’t accidentally overeat because I am being selective about the fats I am choosing and I am just picking the highest quality fats available to me, and it is good stuff. I think I’m going to have some when I go home, because now I am all pumped up about this.

Carrie: I am going to send you home with that whole dish of refrigerated cookies. so your crazy rice pudding might have to take a back seat.

Jonathan: To your refrigerated cookies? The last couple options here for SANE snacks or just portable meals for lack of better terms, so protein bars… be careful here, because talk about reading labels, good Lord, protein bar labels, that can get a little dicey. The general rule of thumb is the protein bar should contain at least 30 grams of protein and less than 8 grams of sugar. The vast, vast, vast majority of bars do not meet that criteria. I would say less than 5 percent of the “health bars” on the market meet that criteria, so 30 grams of protein minimum and less than 8 grams of sugar; otherwise, it is not a protein bar. It is not a health bar. Maybe it’s an energy bar, I don’t know, but the vast majority of Americans don’t need any more energy. We have plenty of energy stored in our body in the form of body fat, so we don’t need to supplement our diet with energy bars. However, a protein bar, 30 grams of protein, less than eight grams of sugar, good stuff.

Carrie: I spent probably an hour and a half in PCC.

Jonathan: What’s PCC?

Carrie: PCC is a grocery store. It’s kind of like super healthy version of whole foods. I don’t actually shop in there, because it’s crazy expensive; but they do have some cool stuff, and I do like to go poke around. They have a wall of protein bars, energy bars. I couldn’t even count how many different ones they had there, but I spent about an hour and a half reading labels; because that’s fun for me. Reading labels, and those things are scary, scary. There was not one in that whole wall, and I think PCC have more variety than anywhere else. There was not one that I could walk out with, maybe couple of the Lara Bars, but that was it.

Jonathan: Yeah, actually to be very clear, I am thinking about protein bars space for over a decade. Granted, there was not a selection there is today a decade ago, but really, only two brands come to mind for me. I am sure there are others, but the first and my recommendation is quest bars, but to be fair, quest bars actually don’t meet this criteria because they have 20 grams of protein and like one gram of sugar or something like that and 17 grams of fiber.

Carrie: I get to eat two at once?

Jonathan: You could eat two or you could eat one of those with some lunchmeats or with some jerky so that you get to the 30-gram threshold, but they’re incredibly filling, they have a bunch of fiber in them.

Carrie: And they taste like candy.

Jonathan: They taste like candy. The ingredient list is short. The other one is pure protein, which as the title implies. The bars are basically pure protein so those are all grams. I think they have a small size and a big size. The big size is 30. The small size is like 15. It’s quite small. Really, those are the only two brands I found. Just be very careful folks, because this literally, be very careful because you’re getting into shark-infested waters with bars because, Good Lord, some of this stuff is just a nightmare; so be careful there.

30 grams of protein, less than 8 grams of sugar. If the bar doesn’t have 30 grams of protein, but it has very little sugar, just eat something with some protein along with it. Last, but not least, there are and actually this won’t be last, we’ll do one more because this isn’t a good one to end on. Sardines, not a popular dish in the States but actually quite, if you like fish, sardines they’re not bad.

I thought they were going to be disgusting, but I tried them the other day, they’re quite delicious. I would get then packed in water. Getting them packed in oil has a bit of a different flavor. The reason they’re cool is they’re amazingly high quality protein and amazingly high quality fats. Sardines are some of the Sanest foods in the world and they just come into this little tin, where you’d pull the top back, you get a fork and you eat them, it’s just…

Carrie: They’re all yummy. In England, we eat a lot of sardines, and I was raised on sardines on toast. Now, of course, I don’t eat toast but sardines are awesome.

Jonathan: Literally, you can go and again, this is a great internet option because you can buy them in bulk online. They’re nonperishable, so you can literally get them, put them in your freaking glove compartment and just like “Oh, you’re hungry? I’m going to eat 30 grams worth of sardines,” and then just throw the can away and you’re good. You’re done. No cooking. No refrigeration, nothing. It’s just there. It’s like a protein bar, but not with all the crap in it. It’s just super healthy fats, the healthiest fats in the world plus the highest quality protein in the world, no refrigeration, no cooking, easy breezy.

Carrie: Just keep a couple of disposable forks and napkins in your glove compartment.

Jonathan: Maybe some mouthwash, because you’re going to have fish breath.

Carrie: Good point.

Jonathan: Good, and then we’ve also got… just as a general thing here when it comes to snacks, anything that’s SANE, you could just eat it as a snack. You don’t need to have really anything specific. The one high level tip that I like to tell people is don’t be afraid of freezing stuff. A lot of just typical SANE dishes you can make your “own frozen dinners” meaning take a SANE dish, put it in a Tupperware container, freeze it, and then it’s going to thaw out over the course of a few hours. Keep it in an insulated bag.

If it’s in an insulated bag, a few hours later it’s partially thawed out, pop it in a microwave; and you’re good to go. You’ve made your own TV dinner. You’ve got this on-the-road thing. I’ve done this with smoothies when I take short plain flights. I freeze the smoothie, by the time I get there, my smoothie’s ready; so, just don’t be afraid of freezing stuff. Just take regular SANE food, freeze it, put it in an insulated bag, you’re good to go when it thaws out. Sound good?

Carrie: Sounds great to me.

Jonathan: Of course, our green smoothies and our SANE smoothies are always awesome portable options so keep those in your back pocket, not literally, but figuratively.

Carrie: Got it.

Jonathan: How do you think we’ve covered SANE snacks today, Carrie?

Carrie: I think we did awesome.

Jonathan: I think I am actually now hungry based on our SANE snack conversation. I can use a SANE snack right now.

Carrie: One thing I like to do, and particularly with some of the things that I’ve classified as breakfast, but they can also be desserts up on my blog like the chia seeds and strawberry cereal, I like to make up four or five days worth at a time and then put it in little dishes, Pyrex dishes, which I keep in the fridge. If I do get the munchies, I am prepared.

I am not going to, you know, not that there is anything really inSANE in my house anymore, but particularly if you’re living with other people who are still insisting on eating inSANE things, which is their choice; but if you have that stuff around and you get the munchies or you have an emotional moment or whatever, to have these little pots of SANE goodness ready to go in the fridge or the refrigerator, cookies or things like that. For people who’ve been on the dark side, I think that’s one of the biggest pitfalls is having instant SANE food available that doesn’t come in a packet, so I tend to make things up in bulk so that I can just whip it out the fridge if I am having a moment.

Jonathan: I couldn’t agree more, Carrie. Doing just like we say, buying things in bulk, cooking in bulk I would almost venture to say is a requirement of living a SANE lifestyle, because just set aside some time on your days off and do some cooking and freeze it, refrigerate it because when you get home from work or when you get home from whatever you’re doing and you’re just tired and you can just open the fridge, pop something in the microwave and it’s just ready, man! That not only keeps you SANE from a metabolic perspective, but it also keeps you SANE from a psychological perspective; so good stuff all round.

Carrie: Be prepared, I think is my big thing when it comes to snacks.

Jonathan: Be prepared and be SANE.

Carrie: Be prepared for the times when you might fall in the munchies trap.

Jonathan: Love it.

Carrie: That will really, really help you.

Jonathan: Absolutely. Well, this is great stuff Carrie. We’re here. We’re eating smarter. We’re exercising smarter, and we’re living better. Hope you guys are enjoying it. Hope it’s helpful, and we’ll see you next week. Jonathan Bailor and Carrie Brown signing off. Have a good one.

[End of Audio 37:19]