Taming the 3pm Snack Beast, Part II
Some more snacks to help fill the yawning chasm between lunch and dinner, rigorously taste-tested by the WeightWatchers.com editors
Article By: Elly Trickett McNerney
There’s no worst time to be ill-prepared than when the snack beast attacks. Even the most organized among us — those who normally keep supplies of, say, string cheese, hummus and cut-up veggies at hand — can get caught short mid-afternoon. These are the times when you need something stashed away in your desk drawer, or in the glove compartment of your car.
So, we’ve nibbled and munched, tasted and tested, and narrowed the field down to a handy few. All of the snacks here come in under 5
PointsPlus values, and a decent few of them have just enough protein and/or fiber to keep your hunger at bay for a little while. There were too many yummy options for just one article, so check
last week’s article to see the rest of our picks.
Prices and availability may vary
SunSweet 70 Calorie Fruit Packs – Apricots
These bite-size juicy apricots were a happy surprise from the get-go. The portion is bigger than you might expect for 2 PointsPlus value. And when you bite into one and get the burst of naturally sweet flavor, it feels more like a freshly plucked tree-ripened fruit than something out of a package. The texture is good, the flavor is exceptional and the sweetness is plentiful enough to make you feel as if you’ve tricked the PointsPlus values gods out of more than two measly PointsPlus values.
Vitalicious Banana-Nut Vitatops
Loved by our Message Boards users, Vitalicious has a huge array of muffins, muffin tops and other baked goods. The banana-nut variety wasn't to every tester’s taste, but for those of us who liked them, they were deemed a highly valuable product. For just 3 PointsPlus value you can stay full for a while, and really bridge the afternoon snack gap. They are definitely better when toasted or microwaved, and for an extra energy boost, a tablespoon of peanut butter bumps it up beautifully.
YoCrunch 100 Calorie Packs — Chips Ahoy
Yogurt plus anything sweet and crunchy is always a hit, and these YoCrunch varieties, with Chips Ahoy cookie crumbles and Nestle Crunch shrapnel, among other goodies, were no exception. The yogurt itself wasn’t overly sweet, and it didn’t have the funky aftertaste that lower-calorie yogurt sometimes has. The crunchiness was a lovely element, though the portion size was understandably rather small, making some testers wonder if the 3 PointsPlus values was entirely worth it — especially as it didn’t keep us full for long.
Chex Mix bars — Turtle
Another favorite on our Message Boards, the treat-factor of these bars defies the 4 PointsPlus values that they cost. One of our testers is passionate about Chex Mix (especially the Turtle variety) but knows that buying a whole bag of the stuff is a passport to maxing out her PointsPlus values for the week. But the bars… Chewy, crunchy, caramelly — it’s the treat trifecta which does potentially come with an inherent danger: Is one enough? And, happily, the answer is yes.
Attune Blueberry-Vanilla Probiotic bar
Probiotic fans are used to getting their fix from yogurt, or maybe even supplements; these bars throw white chocolate into the equation. Coupled with a blueberry flavor that actually comes from real blueberries, this is a great afternoon snack for 3 PointsPlus values. It’s on the small side, so be dainty with your bites, but it’s quite dense so lasts more than a few seconds. It also boasts 30% of the Recommended Daily Value of calcium.
Kellogg's Fiber Plus Antioxidants bars — Dark Chocolate Almond
Most chocolate-flavor bars tend to lean toward the milk chocolate end of the spectrum. These Kellogg’s ones have a more grown-up dark chocolate taste, plus boast an abundance of antioxidants and fiber. They don't have that weird, chemical, slightly alcoholic taste that chocolate-type snacks can sometimes have, and with 9g of fiber, they'll make you question having that second bar…
Zen Soy Chocolate Soy Pudding
This is a hefty pot of creamy chocolate-ness; you know you’re snacking when you open one of these up. For a treat, our testers found that they were surprisingly filling. The chocolate flavor isn’t overly sweet, yet definitely satisfies a yen for something toothsome. We liked the vanilla flavor too, but all agreed that the degree of difficulty in getting chocolate to stay low in PointsPlus values yet still taste yummy was far greater.