That’s why I was thrilled to see this cute idea from the California Almond Board for easy portion control and portability.

The California Almond Board handed out these petite tins that hold 23 almonds – exactly a one-ounce serving. Now, don’t go counting out almonds every time before you eat them, but do it once so you can see how it fills your hand. Then think about how mindlessly eating high calorie food can totally sabotage your hard work.

Find a tin you can use (and reuse to be green) and start taking your nuts to-go in the right portion. Pair this high energy snack with an ounce of reduced fat cheese for a snack that is sure to leave you satisfied.

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Food Finds: California Almonds Snack Packs

A one-ounce serving of 50% reduced fat sharp cheddar has 8 grams of protein and only 2.5 grams of saturated fat. If you don’t know what an ounce of cheese looks like, give me a “thumbs up” and there you have it, it’s about the size of your thumb.

This reduced fat cheese makes a healthy snack between meals. Pair it with a handful of nuts like almonds or pistachios as an afternoon snack instead of hitting up the vending machine. You’ll be sure to be satisfied.

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Food Finds: Cabot Reduced-Fat Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Plus, you can put their busy little hands to work to help you prepare these for their school parties or for a fun-filled Halloween night at home.

Trick or Treat Trail Mix

A simple snack to fill goody bags, or just keep handy during a scary movie, this trail mix takes minutes to prepare. Pretzles, reduced-fat cheese crackers, dried fruits, nuts and a few M&M candies will have them asking for more!

Sugar-Free Dirt and Worms

This is a funny little snack that sends imaginations running wild. Fill tiny flower pots or Halloween paper cups with pumpkin pudding, homemade granola and sugar-free gummy worms you make yourself for an unforgettable treat.

Caramel Apple Salad

Forget the sticky mess that caramel apples typically yield, and instead serve this twist on fruit salad. It’s made with fresh apples, butterscotch pudding, pineapple and Cool Whip, and even the big kids are going to enjoy it.

Caramel Apple Dip

Kids love finger foods and dipping – so let them scoop up this creamy, sweet fruit dip with apples, pears or even a carrot stick!

Pumpkin Walnut Muffins

Whether for breakfast or a snack, these bite-sized muffins are perfect for tiny hands and enjoying all the warm flavors of fall.

Frosty Pumpkin Smoothie

Halloween a little warmer where you live? Then whip up this sugar-free treat, that tastes like a pumpkin pie in a glass!

Crock Pot Chili Mac

Set the slow cooker and go! This tasty and hearty meal will make your Halloween evening more manageable. The kids will love that the goulash presentation looks a bit gory, too.

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Healthy Halloween Recipes for Kids

Only 8 has a tart flavor like Pinkberry, thanks to its active yogurt cultures. Its wide selection of flavors like peanut butter, caramel and about 30 others allow ice cream shop owners to keep their customers returning for new tastes.

One half-cup serving supposedly contains 32 calories, zero fat, zero cholesterol and four live active yogurt cultures. The “supposed” remark refers only to calories and serves as a gentle caution that the eight calorie per ounce labeling might be skewed depending upon how much syrup was added to the mix and the actual weight of the serving cup.

To assuage your fears, simply ask your ice cream server to weigh your Only 8 dish so that you can accurately determine whether your six-ounce cup is really six ounces or more like nine. Even though the ice cream is placed in a container that can hold a set amount of weight, most soft-serve and hand-packed ice cream shops are a bit more generous in their servings, and that equates to more calories for you.

And even if you suspect that more syrup has been added to your tasty treat, mentally bump up the calories to ten per ounce rather than the claimed eight, recalculate and dig in.

Only 8 contains water, fructose, kosher whey, whey protein concentrate, maltodextrin, natural flavorings and stabilizers, calcium and four live active yogurt cultures. Just in case your missed it, Only 8 does not contain any artificial sugars which can cause serious tummy distress. In addition, it is safe for most diabetics, for those who are lactose intolerant, and it’s gluten-free.

Check with your local independent ice cream shops to see if they carry Only 8 frozen yogurt. If they don’t, encourage them do so as lines for this low-cal tasty treat have been rumored to extend out the door.

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Food Find: Only 8 Frozen Yogurt

Just this past month, they added three new yummy and healthy snacks: Apple-Cinnamon Nut Clusters, Citrus Burst Nut Clusters and Almond-Cranberry Nut Crisps. TrueNorth provided us with a few samples of their latest natural eats and here’s what we thought:

Apple-Cinnamon Nut Clusters: With roasted almonds and peanuts combined with chunks of chewy dried apple chunks and a sprinkling of earthy cinnamon, these crunchy clusters packed a delish combination of sweet and salty. One, one-ounce serving (about five clusters) has 170 calories, 12 grams of fat, three grams of fiber, five grams of protein and a nice dose of Vitamin E and magnesium.

Citrus Burst Clusters: A more vibrant take on the usual almond nut cluster, these chunks contain a mixture of roasted nuts, dried cranberries and orange peels. The tangy chewiness of the dried fruits compliment the crunchiness of the peanuts and almonds making each square is a fusion of textures. One, one-ounce serving (about five clusters) has 170 calories, 11 grams of fat, three grams of fiber, five grams of protein and a nice dose of Vitamin E and magnesium.

While we LOVED these new nut clusters, we do have one strong comment of caution: You can’t just eat one serving. In fact, we tore threw one entire bag in just a few minutes. Five squares for 170 calories is a pretty decent snack, calorically-speaking, but in terms of quantity, you really need to ration out your serving size and stick to it, or else you’ll be grabbing for nut fragments, some 850 calories later.

The Almond Cranberry Crisps: These crackers on the other hand were yummy: Light, crispy, kind of sweet, kind of chewy and at 130 calories per 15 crisp serving, we felt much less anxious about eating a second serving.

Look for these new TrueNorth products in the snack and nut aisles of your grocery store. Each one costs about $3.29 per bag. And don’t forget to print off a coupon from the company’s website for extra savings.

Happy Snacking!

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Food Find: TrueNorth’s New Nut Clusters and Nut Crisps

Therefore, when on a recent trip to Whole Foods, I discovered Rachel’s Wickedly Delicious single-servings of cottage cheese, I knew I had found a gem of a food find.

That is why, this week, We Love Rachel’s Cottage Cheese.

The dairy lovers at Rachel’s took plain ole cottage cheese and jazzed it up with sun-dried tomatoes, cranberries, dill, cucumbers and all sort of other tantalizing seasonings, including fruits and veggies. So rather than you adding a bit of this and a bit of that to your cottage cheese, Rachel’s does it for you. Trust us food-lovers, here at DietsInReview, this is no ordinary cottage cheese; This is as gourmet as cottage cheese can get.

You can choose among six different scrumptious flavors: Cucumber Dill, Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto, Lemon Verbena Berry, Pear Mangosteen, Pomegranate Orange Cranberry and Roasted Red Pepper.

Each flavor contains 110 to 140 calories, 14 grams of protein and 20 percent of your calcium needs.

Great for an on-the-go snack, a flavorful addition to your lunch or a new twist on your breakfast, look for Rachel’s Wickedly Delicious Cottage Cheese containers at Whole Foods and other mass retail grocery stores.

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We Love Rachel’s Cottage Cheese

There’s a new reason to pop some of your favorite movie-viewing snack, sans the slabs of butter. According to findings presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, popcorn contains more antioxidants and dietary fiber than any other snack food.

According to Joe Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania and lead author of the study, the antioxidants in popcorn are effectively protected from the sun during the drying process. That means the corn only loses a small amount of it when popped. Plus, the fiber is not removed.

“The more processed the grain is, you’re losing nutrients and antioxidants,” says Vinson. “The closer you can get to the plant, the better off you are.” Popcorn is a whole grain.

Unfortunately, the tendency with popcorn is people bathe it in butter and salt. Yum, that’s good… but it’s the death knell of any nutritional value.

The researchers also found that most whole-grain breakfast cereals and common grain-based snacks contain considerable amounts of polyphenols, a form of antioxidants believed to offer key health benefits, such as reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

(via: Health News)

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Popcorn Packs a Nutritional Punch of Antioxidants and Fiber

I decided to try my hand at making my own, and scouting around I found a really great recipe original to Faith and Family magazine and reposted on several blogs. It appears to be fairly healthy, with whole wheat flour and oats and sweetened with honey, which doesn’t affect the blood sugar as badly as honey. A bonus when you make your own is the lack of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats, and you can literally whip up these bars in minutes.

When they are cool, cut and wrap individual bars in wax paper and pop them in the lunch boxes. Or, you know, eat them all in one day. (I’m not telling which happened in my house!)

Homemade Granola Bars Recipe

Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour, or spelt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup butter, softened*
1 cup honey

Add-ins: 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, 1 cup chopped walnuts, peanut butter, soy butter, cocoa powder. Other options include dried fruits, sunflower seeds, coconut, nuts.

Lightly butter a 9×13-inch pan. In a large mixing bowl, combine butter and honey first. Then add all ingredients except add-ins. Beat hard until combined. Stir in add-ins. Press mixture into pan — really jam it in there – use your hands so your bars don’t fall apart.  (Note – I FORGOT to add the flour and then had to pull the batter back out of the pan, and when I did add it in, it was very wet and sticky, so I added another 1/2 cup of flour – which made the bars very dry. I thought that the batter needed to be less moist in order to stick together – don’t make that mistake.) Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes until golden brown. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into bars. Let bars cool completely in pan before removing and serving.

Also try this Homemade Granola recipe with Grape Nuts and raisins.

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How to Make Your Own Granola Bars

These crispy, chewy-gooey food bars are packed with healthy ingredients like fruits, nuts, honey, and crisp rice. And they are whole-grain, contain nine vitamins and minerals and soy- and gluten-free, with no trans-fats or high fructose corn syrup. JamFrakas come in five flavors, each with its own funky name: Chocolate Chip Cosmocrisp, Banana Chocolate Blastocrisp, Strawberry Crispiscrumptious, Peanut Butter Blisscrisp and Apple Crispalicious. Each one has 90-120 calories, 4-5 grams of fat, 2 grams of fiber and contain all organic ingredients.

If you are looking for an awesome snack that you can quickly toss in your kid’s lunch box or that you can quickly toss back when a snack-attack hits you, look no further than JamFrakas.

Since these tasty bars are packed with things like dates, apples, honey, cashews and almonds, you don’t have to worry about them melting in the late-summer heat. They are the perfect size for an on-the-go nosh that won’t spoil dinner; and since they are made with whole foods, they won’t send your kids (or you) in to a sugar frenzy.

Look for JamFrakas at Whole Foods, Trader Joes and other large grocery stores in the energy or nutrition bar section.

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We Love JamFrakas from Lara Bar

Our recommendation when looking at protein bars is to look at the ingredient list to make sure it doesn’t contain any unhealthy ingredients and make sure it has at least 10 grams of protein and less than 10 grams of sugar.

Comfort Bar hits the mark with additional protein, but is slightly higher on the sugar content. With that said, the bars are sweetened with agave nectar, which does not spike blood sugar as it is slowly absorbed in our system and is a popular sweetener used among diabetics.

Comfort Bar is a nice option for meal replacement, especially for those on the go. For a snack, we typically like fruit and nuts as whole foods that aren’t processed in any way and provide more nutrients; but in a pinch, protein bars can be a good option. Also, for those with food allergies (gluten and wheat) this protein bar could, as the name states, provide you some comfort.

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Comfort Bar Offers a Gluten-Free Protein Bar