“You should eat healthy snack foods if you want to lose weight,” they say. But just how many carrots, yogurt and whole grains can you eat? Snack foods are supposed be a little more fun.
So then they tell you to eat some nuts. Great choice, but, again, you quickly become bored and can’t bear to look at another almond or walnut. Click here to learn more about our weight loss centres.
There just doesn’t seem to be any healthy snacks with lots of variety, like you get with the all-time snack food champ, potato chips. You can have a different flavour of chip every night, have them with dip, have them kettle-cooked, and maybe even switch to tortilla chips for the weekend. But, sadly, they’re not very healthy and the enemy of weight management programs.
Hummus to the Rescue
If there was a healthy snack food Hall of Fame, hummus should be the first inductee. From tasting great to offering a variety of flavours and styles that rivals the potato chip, hummus has it all.
1. It’s Really Good For You
When you check the health benefits of chick peas, or garbanzo beans, which are the main ingredient of hummus, you’ll understand why some call it a “superfood”.
100mls of chick peas has 19 grams of protein, 61 grams of carbs, and only 0.6 grams of saturated fat. It also contains significant portions of the daily recommended values for calcium, iron, vitamin B6 and magnesium. And chick peas have been shown to help lower your LDL (bad) cholesterol levels too.
2. It’s Great for Weight Loss
High in fibre and protein, hummus helps you feel full without getting lots of calories, so you eat less and don’t have to worry as much about hunger pangs.
3. It’s Delicious
Just the ingredients list alone makes your mouth water, including chick peas, lemon juice, garlic, tahini (sesame seed paste), olive oil, salt (just a pinch) and cumin. And you can get or make different versions with a variety of beans, spinach, curry, tomatoes – the list is only limited by your imagination – so you can come up with your own taste sensations.
But it’s what you eat with your hummus that can really make it different every time you have it.
As a Middle Eastern dish, hummus is usually served as a dip, especially with pita bread. But that’s just the start of your dipping options. If you ever thought you would eat more broccoli if you could make it taste better, hummus does the trick. It’s tough to think of a vegetable that doesn’t go well with hummus – and fruits too; like apple slices.
Hummus is also great as a sandwich spread, as an ingredient in many hors d’oeuvres, like hummus stuffed tomatoes or avocados, and you can even use it as a low-fat salad dressing.
If you always have some hummus around, you might never eat an unhealthy snack again – and never get bored of your healthy snack choices.
To learn more about hummus and other healthy snack options for weight loss, talk to one of the nutritional consultants at your local Herbal One Centre.