Sweet potato chips and LaraBars

America has become a nation of convenience.  Everything is convenient nowadays - Don't know where you are going?  Just pull up a map on your smartphone.  Have a question for someone while you are away from home?  Use your cell phone to call or text immediately.  Running errands?  Hop in your car and go.  Need a meal or a snack, but don't have much time?  Grab something packaged, and you're good to go in minutes.

Now, I'm not going to lecture on the many ways that so much convenience has affected society, but I am going to write a little about packaged food.

As mentioned in an earlier post, when I cut processed food out of my diet, I struggled to find snacks.  I realized that pretty much everything that I snacked on came in a package.  It was fast, convenient, and let's face it, I think most people find some comfort in eating junk food.  Packaged food is also delicious.  Did you realize, though, that it is specifically manufactured to make you want more?  Our taste buds are designed to seek out sweet, salty and fatty tastes.  Food processing companies take major advantage of this by adding as much sugar, salt and fat to their products as possible (not to mention all kinds of additives and preservatives).  These types of foods can actually become addictive, which is part of what makes it so hard to put them down.

In my quest to find things to snack on, I came up with a list of good whole food snacks, such as raw fruits/veggies, hard-boiled eggs, various kinds of nuts, trail-mix with nuts and dried fruit, etc.  But I will admit, that sometimes I still get a hankering for some "junk food."  Two of my favorite "junky" snacks at the moment are:

1)  Kettle cooked sweet potato chips by Food Should Taste Good

These chips are amazing!  The ingredient list is Sweet Potatoes, Sunflower Oil, and Sea Salt.  They are every bit as good as Lays potato chips, but without nearly as much guilt.  Food Should Taste Good also has other chip flavors.  I have only tried a couple, but these win hands down.

2)  LaraBars

These come in a variety of fun flavors (Pecan Pie, Cashew Cookie, Peanut Butter and Jelly, etc.) and all boast a short ingredient list of whole foods.  I have only tried a few flavors, but my favorite so far is the Coconut Cream Pie (dates, unsweetened coconut, cashews, almonds, and extra virgin coconut oil).  Yum!  So, again, a great convenient snack without the guilt.

Here in Memphis, both of these products can be found at Kroger and Whole Foods.  I have found that Kroger tends to be a bit cheaper, but Whole Foods generally has more variety of flavors.