Monday 18 August 2014

Beat the 3PM Binge with Nut Butter!

Its 3pm. You saw off your lunch at least 2 hours ago, but its still 3 whole hours until its even slightly acceptable to eat dinner. Your mid-afternoon snack somehow became your mid-morning snack and now the vending machine at the end of the corridor is calling your name...Sound familiar?

As an office worker myself I see it time and time again. People start the day with the best intentions; sauntering into the office with their snazzy smoothie, gossiping about their greens and bragging about their broccoli. Then 3 o clock hits, the treat trolley appears and before we know it the entire office are munching on their Magnums. And it's not to say that I haven't been tempted by a cheeky 3 o clock treat, of course, I'm not a saint. But I have found a solution which I can get just as excited about, without the associated guilt.


NUT BUTTER
 

Somewhere out there, someone is making a butter out of every single nut under the sun. And they are just great. Nut butters are a really fab way to add protein into the diet and, used wisely, nut butters can stem hunger pangs for far longer than a similar amount of low fat food ever could. Ensure that you pick out brands that don't have added salt and sugar and try to avoid any butters which contain palm oil (some terrible people are tearing down some lovely little monkey's home to make room for palm oil plantations - not cool). Some particularly good brands include Meridian (http://www.meridianfoods.co.uk/) and Myprotein (http://www.myprotein.com/home.dept) if you want to buy in bulk (strongly advised!!)

Whilst you are more than welcome to spoon some tasty butter straight into your mouth (this is great as a post training protein kick), you may wish to take a slightly more dignified approach and pop your nut butter on top of something to make a yummy little treat. I have tried and test a number of butter-combos and here are a few of my personal favourites.

  • Cashew Butter + Bananas + Melted Dark Chocolate

  • Almond Butter + Apple
    
     
  •  Peanut Butter + ANYTHING (but Rude Health http://rudehealth.com/ spelt cakes are pretty awesome)
 
 
Hope you get as nutty about nuts as I do - enjoy :-) 



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