Dieting? Use quick pickles as a healthy snack
In terms of healthy eating, snacking is my downfall. So long as I abstain, I'm fine. But once I start, I can't stop.
But we all know that abstention isn't realistic, at least not in the long run. Conventional wisdom has always been that rather than deprive yourself of snacks, you should make healthier choices about them. Not a horrible idea … And you often hear the suggestion to keep a bowl of cut and ready-to-eat vegetables — such as carrot sticks and celery — in the refrigerator to satisfy those urges.
As if. When I'm feeling like polishing off a loaf of bread and half a pound of cheese, a bunch of carrot sticks aren't going to do it for me.
It took many years for me to realize there are ways to make this otherwise silly advice work.
I've discovered there are things I can do to carrot sticks (aside from dunk them in sour cream) and other veggies to render them way more satisfying, yet still healthy.
And I found that while these doctored veggies in no way can be confused with a bag of potato chips, they can be satisfying enough to prevent me from inhaling the refrigerator.
One of my favorite ways is to turn the vegetables into a quick pickle. Turns out that bathing them in a salty-tangy-sweet brine can radically up their appeal.
The best part is that these veggies are fast and simple to prepare, and it's easy to double or triple the recipe to make sure you have ample healthy munchies on hand.
• J.M. Hirsch is the food editor for The Associated Press. He blogs at http://www.LunchBoxBlues.com and tweets @JM_Hirsch.