Unboxed: 9 nutritious picks for the at-home snacker
Snacking has exploded during lockdown, but these better-for-you options offer great-tasting and guilt-free indulgence.
![Unboxed: 9 nutritious picks for the at-home snacker Unboxed: 9 nutritious picks for the at-home snacker](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt09e5e63517a16184/bltafc06db067aebac6/64cbf83cdb0bcc7a8de33eaa/NewHopeNetwork_Horizontal_RGB.png?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
These tasty biltong-inspired beef chips are wafer thin, making them easy to chew and even easier to snack on. With just 100 calories per bag, these meaty snack-packs also pack a hefty 20 grams of protein and are carb and sugar free. This flavor, one of three, is lightly seasoned with black and red pepper, rosemary, onion, garlic, lemon and orange, before being air-dried and roasted.
This is the latest addition to the company’s line of “skin-on-superfruit” and it represents a new way to think about eating, literally, rind. Made from a blend of organic coconut, watermelon and cantaloupe, these deliciously tangy fruit snacks have the perfect amount of chew, along with plenty of fiber, vitamins and summery flavors in each and every bite.
The sprouted almonds in these lightly caffeinated, ultra-nutty snacks have a formidable crunch and an unbeatable flavor that’s addictive in its simplicity. Consumers won’t miss the seasonings in these salt- and oil-free nut snacks, which are keto and paleo friendly and Non-GMO Project Verified. This variety, one of three, has just coffee and sprouted almonds. That’s it!
Grab a bag of these toasty triangular chips for a new kind of snacking experience. Made from seasoned ground plantains cooked in 100% avocado oil, these chips help support this Certified B Corp’s mission to provide healthy and delicious banana-based snacks that support environmentally sustainable practices like upcycling and regenerative and fair farming practices. Also available in Lime and Sea Salt flavor.
With a crisp outside and chewy center, these new Keto Certified mini cookies offer work-at-home snackers sweet and indulgent treats that are made with real-food ingredients they can feel good about. Non-GMO ingredients such as almond flour, butter and cage-free eggs, are mixed with organic coconut sugar, coconut flour, coconut oil and ghee to make these great-tasting mini cookies, which also come in an Almond Butter Chocolate Chip variety.
Made from sprouted cashew nuts seasoned with curry, cayenne, turmeric, paprika and coconut aminos, these USDA Organic snacks were created by Malibu firefighter Rich Pauwels who wanted a healthy, high-protein and nutrient-dense snack to munch on during those long days and nights on the job. These easy-to-digest, dehydrated snacks are also chock-full of good fats and paleo friendly.
More tender than a classic jerky, but sliced thick for a meaty mouthful, these seasoned steak strips are made with 100% grass-fed beef. With 9 grams protein per serving, this variety has a sweet Asian flavor, inspired by seasoned, marinated Korean barbecue.
These mini granola bar-esque snack bites come in three varieties, all of which have a honey and nut butter base. This one stands out for its mixture of oats, honey, peanut butter, brown rice crisps, dark chocolate, dried apricots, raisins, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and sea salt. Both crunchy and chewy at the same time, these bites are USDA Organic and made 100% from delicious, real-food ingredients.
These light and crispy chickpea thins have a texture that hovers somewhere between that of a chip and a cracker. The chickpea flour has been steamed to remove the legume’s sometimes-apparent iron taste, leaving a delicious buttery Snap with an umami-full zing that comes from tamari, garlic and sriracha sauce powder. Just try not to polish them off in one sitting.
These light and crispy chickpea thins have a texture that hovers somewhere between that of a chip and a cracker. The chickpea flour has been steamed to remove the legume’s sometimes-apparent iron taste, leaving a delicious buttery Snap with an umami-full zing that comes from tamari, garlic and sriracha sauce powder. Just try not to polish them off in one sitting.
No vending machines, no stopping at the gas station or corner store on the way into work, no darting out for a mid-morning coffee at the lobby café—there’s no doubt that snacking habits in America have changed over the past six months as many people have been forced to work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But far from being brought to a screeching halt, snacking—that beloved American pastime—is alive and well, turning home kitchens into proverbial water coolers and endless sources of grazing at all hours of the day. In fact, a recent survey conducted through a partnership between California Walnuts and Kelton Global reports that 48% of Americans admit to snacking more now than before the pandemic.
One of the reasons for this likely has to do with the search for comfort in these uncertain times—represented by a return to the nostalgic and indulgent treats of the past—and perhaps a certain amount of “devil may care” attitude about our waistlines brought about by pandemic-related stress.
At the same time, many consumers are also paying more attention than ever to the importance of health and wellness and the idea of “food as medicine.” The connection between health and immunity and what we put in our mouths is top of mind, and Americans are starting to pay more attention to what they eat. According to a June 2020 survey by New Hope Network Next Data and Insights, 35% of consumers were buying "better-for-me" products in mid-June, versus only 27% in mid-April.
What and how to snack
In the natural channel, the snack categories that are doing well in terms of year-over-year growth reflect these values to some extent, although they also reflect our changing snacking habits. For example, single-format grab-and-go items such as bars no longer seem as necessary when people are stuck at home all day.
According to SPINS data on category sales over the past six months in the “natural enhanced channel,”—a grouping of more than 1,850 full-format stores with over $2 million in annual sales and 40% or more of coded sales from natural/organic/specialty products—cookies and snack bars started the year with a 0.5% decline in growth over the previous year, and in June of 2020 that decline was at -2.3%. Jerky and meat snacks, other typical single-serving grab-and-go snacks, plummeted from -3.8% year-over-year growth in January 2020 to -17.7% in June.
On the other hand, products that tend to come in multiple-serving packaging like nuts, chips and crackers did comparatively well during the COVID-19 lockdown. Nuts, trail mix and dried fruit started the year at -1.6% but, by June had grown by 18.6%. Year-over-year growth of chips, pretzels and snacks increased from 3.7% to 10.3% during this six-month period, while crackers and crispbreads grew from 1.1% to 5.6%.
The better-for-you snacks featured in this gallery are made with everything from sprouted nuts to grass-fed beef, real-food ingredients, upcycled fruit and more. They are also ideal for opening, leaving on the kitchen counter, grazing on throughout the day, sharing with the kids/spouse or devouring little by little while staring out the window of a home office and wondering if one should get up and mow the lawn.
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