Paleo snacks that are totally delicious and easy to make! You’ll get all your ideas and recipes in this post. Also learn why many shop snacks, even those labelled as healthy, are not healthy at all!
Snacking is where many people experience difficulty when switching over to a healthier lifestyle. Have you experienced this?
Most snacks on supermarket shelves are highly processed. They’re full of refined grains, sugars, colourings, thickeners, preservatives, additives, anti-caking agents, soy, bleaches, toxic oils and a whole smorgasbord of appetising ingredients! (P.S. insert sarcasm in that last comment)
Even the so-called “healthy foods”, like the muesli bars and protein bars, or the gluten-free foods, are 98% of the time (in my opinion), full of junk.
Just because a food is labelled as healthy, or gluten-free, or natural, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.
The best way to tell if a shop-shelf snack is truly healthy is to read the ingredients list. Can you understand the names of the ingredients? Would you find that ingredient growing outside in nature? Would you feed those ingredients to your children?
- If the ingredient list says almonds, awesome! If it says soy nuggets, maybe think twice.
- If the ingredient list says coconut oil, great! If it says vegetable fat/oil, well consider if you’ve ever seen fat on a vegetable? Does that make sense to you? (side note – avocados do have fat which is why you can buy a beautifully healthy oil called avocado oil, but vegetable oil is a big no no)
- If the ingredient list says pure Canadian maple for a sweetener, good! If it says aspartame of high fructose corn syrup, run away…very quickly! This stuff is poison.
- If the ingredient list says pumpkin seeds, woohoo! If it says glycerol esters of fatty acids or acetylated mono and diglycerides, then get your local chemist on the phone!
SIDE NOTE – all the ingredients listed above are ingredients I’ve actually found on packets of health food, including ours. But in ours you’ll only find the “real food” ingredients like almonds, coconut oil, maple and pumpkin seeds.
Here are some examples of ingredients lists I found on “health food” snacks in the “health food” aisle at my local supermarket. They sound delicious, don’t they?!
And just in case you didn’t know…
The first ingredient appearing on the list of ingredients, is the dominant ingredient found in the product, the second listed is the second most dominant and so on. So, when the top ingredients listed are things like Yoghurt Compound (made from sugar & vegetable oil) or protein crisps and protein blends made from soy (like the above) then alarm bells immediately start going off.
What really gets my goat (baaaaaa – is that the sound a goat makes?) about these supposed “health foods”, is that people are lured into buying them by fancy packaging and clever marketing. These are well intentioned people, spending top dollar, trying to do the right thing. In my opinion, it’s criminal. They’re getting ripped off. And the worst part, is that most these products taste like artificial poison and so we’re not even getting any pleasure from the food we’re eating! (which, I might add, will leave us just wanting and craving more food; queue the 3pm doughnut shop excursion).
WHAT SHOULD WE BE SNACKING ON?
Human kind has been around for millions of years and it’s been eating “real food” (like nuts, seeds, meats & veggies) for millions of years. It doesn’t take kindly to aspartame, vegetable fat or soy nuggets that have only been invented by scientists over the last century or so. Have you ever seen a picture of a caveman eating from a soy nugget tree?
Healthy snacking, or any healthy eating for that matter isn’t rocket science (although the diet industry might have you believe this), it’s just common sense.
It’s taken me over thirty years to come to this realisation. I used to down protein bars like water and muesli bars like a caveman would berries in the woods. I didn’t know any better. Industry told me these foods were good for me, and so little ol’ me invested thousands of dollars into eating them.
But I wised up! And I created Rumbles Paleo (with my business partner Brian) to give people an honest snack they could purchase, made with real food ingredients, that tasted a gazillion times better than the so-called “healthy foods” that the weight-loss industry and big brand companies, had brain washed people into buying.
Now Rumbles Paleo cookies and mueslis are wonderful real-food, paleo snacks for you to munch on. But many people want to make their own paleo snacks and you might want to inject some variety into your snacking routine too. It’s very important to have a wide variety of foods in your diet so that you consume a good balance of all important macro nutrients.
So, listed below are my favourite quick and easy Paleo snacks and three recipes for something a little bit more special!
QUICK AND EASY PALEO SNACKS
So below, I’ve put together a list of my favourite healthy snacks and recipes to provide you with a wide array of healthy options to bring loads of variety and deliciousness into your healthy snacking regime!
You can also get all these ideas in a handy downloadable book! Simply click the button below to download your Paleo Snack Ideas and Recipe Book.
PALEO SNACKS – RECIPES
LEMON CURD PARFAIT
This snack is amazing as a breakfast or even as a dessert too! The lemon curd takes five minutes to prep and five minutes to cook! How delicious does this look? The nuts are optional too. I haven’t given specific ingredient amounts below, as you can use as much or as little of each ingredient as you like.
INGREDIENTS
- 10 Minute Paleo Lemon Curd (grab your recipe from this post on Paleo muffins or download your free snack book by clicking the button)
- Frozen berries of your choice
- Coconut yoghurt (or natural Greek Yoghurt if you eat dairy)
- Rumbles Crumble or a selection of your favourite crushed nuts (optional)
DIRECTIONS
- Layer all ingredients together in a glass or mix it all together in a bowl!
SWEET POTATO PIE PARFAIT
Now if you’re reading this recipe and you’re Australian, you’re probably thinking this combo of ingredients is a little odd. But trust me, this is one of my go-to snacks! I just adore it. It’s especially good if you’re highly active, as the carbohydrate in the sweet potato will give you great long-lasting energy. Cinnamon baked on sweet potato is a match made in heaven, so if you’ve never tried it before, you’re in for a brand-new taste sensation. Cinnamon is a great food to eat too, as studies have shown it can help to lower the blood sugar response from food.
NOTE: it’s much quicker to make this snack if you pre-bake the potato and have it already prepared in the fridge.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 large sweet potato
- Olive oil or melted ghee or butter
- Approx. 1-2 tablespoons cinnamon
- Coconut yoghurt (or natural Greek Yoghurt if you eat dairy)
- Rumbles Crumble or a selection of your favourite crushed nuts (optional)
DIRECTIONS
- Cut the sweet potato up into approx. 2cm chunks.
- Drizzle lightly with fat of choice and sprinkle over the cinnamon. Use as much or as little as you like. I tend to be very generous with how much cinnamon I use. The potato should be completely coated in it.
- Roast for approx. 40-50 minutes at 200°C (380°F). Make sure to turn your potato a couple of times during cooking.
- Remove from oven when cooked and serve immediately topped with yoghurt and Crumble or nuts. Alternatively, cool the sweet potato and eat cold with toppings. It tastes amazing both ways!
GREEN SMOOTHIE
Green smoothies are an excellent way to pack your body with tonnes of nutrition! Don’t be afraid of them, they’re actually really delicious. It took me a few years to be game enough to put spinach in my smoothie, but once I did, I just kept on adding more and more and more green stuff until I was even adding green stuff like broccoli! But don’t worry, there’s no broccoli in this recipe (although feel free to add some in if you like!). One of the members in our Paleo For You FB Group (click here to join), feeds green smoothies to her kids and calls them Dinosaur Juice! I love that, don’t you?
INGREDIENTS
- 1/3 cup water of your favourite milk (almond, coconut, etc)
- 1/3 cucumber
- Big handful spinach
- 1/2 banana, preferably frozen (you can use a whole banana if you like it sweeter or are extra hungry)
- Handful of ice
- You can optionally add in some protein powder too
DIRECTIONS
- Place all your ingredients in a high speed blender (we recommend Froothie blenders),
- Blend until all lumps are gone. To avoid ‘bitsy’ pieces of spinach, blend the spinach, water and cucumber together prior to adding in the remaining ingredients.
- Pour into a glass and swerve watermelon hearts!
