What's in your glove compartment?

How is it possible that Iowa with only 6 electoral votes or North Carolina with only 15 electoral votes could decide the presidential election? It takes 270 electoral votes to win. Iowa will cast 2.2 percent of all electoral votes. North Carolina will cast 5.5 percent of all electoral votes. Breakfast, lunch & dinner may be California (55 electoral votes), Texas (38 electoral votes) & Florida or New York (29 electoral votes). However, the snack that you eat or don't eat when you are in your vehicle driving might determine the outcome of your health.

Don't sleep on your snacks.

As snacks are the new swing calories, you gotta get your glove compartment goodies dialed in. If you have healthy & tasty snacks at home, in your car & at work, you got your snack business covered. If you work from home & you don't own a car, you're in great shape. It's doesn't require much thought or preparation. You don't want perfunctory snacks to undermine an otherwise healthy eating day. And I approve that message.

What is a healthy snack?

This is far from an exhaustive list of glove compartment snacks. I looked at four things to determine a snack's value: calories, fiber, protein & sugar. 200 or less calories works. Fiber which makes you feel satiated should be 5 grams or more. Protein which also makes you feel satiated should be 5 grams or more as well. I covered sugar in a previous blog. It's a gateway to unhealthy eating. Try to keep the sugar to 10 grams or less. These are some of my favorites snacks, but I didn't rank them.

1. edamame (soy): 1 cup, 189 calories, 8 grams of fiber, 17 grams of protein & 3.4 grams of sugar.

2. almonds: 23 kernels, 162 calories, 3 grams of fiber, 6 grams of protein & 1 gram of sugar. Almonds are my tried & true snack. I had to cut almonds & the entire state of California a little slack. Almonds didn't quite measure up to the fiber criterion. However almonds deliver a lot of hearty healthy fat.

3. Quest Bar (Vanilla Almond Crunch): 190 calories, 18 grams of fiber, 20 grams of protein & 1 gram of sugar. Wow! Perhaps the most important thing as far as nutrition is eating whole unprocessed unrefined foods. As far as I know all energy bars are highly processed. This is no exception. The numbers, however, are off the charts.

I wanted so badly to include walnuts, pumpkin seeds & sunflower seeds. They all came up short in fiber and/or protein. If you eat 2 ounces or 1/4 of a cup of walnuts, you get 363 calories, 4 grams of fiber, 8 grams of protein & 2 grams of sugar. I consider walnuts a superfood, so I think the 363 calories is well worth it. Thanks for reading.