Low carb snacks are wins all around because they satisfy your hunger without making you take a tackle on your blood sugars. They can be delicious, and are often the freshest and healthiest snacks around. Best of all, they require very little in diabetes math department.
There’s a lot of talk about the benefits of a low-carb diet, alongside plenty of critique and criticism. (Welcome to diabetes, eh?) But after 31 years of type 1 diabetes, I can anecdotally say that when I’m keeping my carb consumption on the lower side, my blood sugars have fewer swings. There’s plenty of scientific evidence that touts the benefits of low-carb diets, as well.
And you might be thinking, “Yeah! Great! Thanks for the links to intense reading material, but I’m here for the snacks!” Let’s get to that. I talked with people from the diabetes online community about their favorite quick-grab low-carb snacks. Here are some tasty and satisfying options:
- Cheese Cheese, glorious cheese! Whether you’re mad about a mild cheddar or have a hankering for Havarti with horseradish, cheese is a great snack that fills your belly without bumping your blood sugars.
- Nuts Embrace your inner squirrel and reach into your stash of almonds next time you’re feeling snacky. A handful of nuts can bring some healthy fats and protein into your diet, without a load of carbs. Almonds and walnuts in particular are a great choice!
- Vegetables and hummus While hummus is certainly not as low carb as cheese, it’s still a fairly low carb choice. And there’s nothing quite like the satisfying crunch of fresh vegetables, except maybe if you pair them with some garlic hummus, in which case, you’re set on the snack front in terms of taste and texture.
- Hard-boiled eggs A low-carb snack that can be prepared in bulk ahead of time is the best kind! Boil up a dozen eggs on a Sunday and you have a grab-and-go snack option all week. These protein packed snacks will fill you up and will hopefully keep you from reaching for the office candy bowl. (And if you want to get your kids interested in eggs as an option, why wait until Easter to color them?)
- Kale chips Potato chips are addictive, but pretty rotten in the nutritional department, so why not get some crunch and seasoning into your mouth via some homemade kale chips? Here’s a recipe from Carolyn Ketchum that you can make at home, and if you’re feeling less than eager about making your own, you can purchase ready-made kale chips, too.
- Snap peas While they’re usually easiest to find in warmer weather, snap peas are a terrific low-carb snack that you can graze on with little guilt. These pea pods are naturally sweet and also pack an impressive iron, vitamin C, and vitamin A power punch. (You can eat them on their own by the fistful or add them to your veggies and hummus plate.)
- Homemade trail mix While traditional trail mix leans heavily on the grains, a low-carb mix of almonds, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, and pecans to craft up a delicious snack that’s easy on your blood sugars and also very easy to make ahead of time and portion into quick-grab snack packs. This recipe from Carolyn is amazing.
- Pickles The original “free food!” Pickles are tasty and offer a crave-quenching crunch, and so long as you’re selecting seasoned and not sweetened options, the carb count is very low.
- Cherry tomatoes These round little options look gorgeous, taste awesome, and have roughly 5.5 grams of carbs per cup, so you can snack responsibly. While they are freshest and tastiest from the farmer’s market, most grocery stores offer up a diverse selection of tomatoes year-round.
- Deli meat roll-ups It’s like food origami! Keep some deli meats on hand, like sliced turkey, salami, and cheese – and roll them up together to create a quick and low-carb snack that can also fit neatly into a lunch box.
- Cottage cheese Rounding out our list is the low-carb staple, cottage cheese. You can score some protein, healthy fats, and many minerals with this handy snack. Double down by adding some cherry tomatoes and you have the perfect snack attack defense.
I live on a fix income, and I have no top teeth,so anything hard is out of the question, I have been trying but with not much to buy with is very hard to do.