How do I snack on a carbless diet?

April 11, 2012 6:14 PM

We're doing the no-starch/grains/refined sugars thing. Help me from going crazy from lack of snacks.

So for a myriad of reasons, my girlfriend and I are cutting starches/grains/refined sugars out of our diet; basically, most non-vegetable-based carbs. On the whole, this isn't that big of a deal. She understands healthy food and knows how to cook (I am capable of neither of these things), and I quit smoking habitually and am not worried about my ability to do this. So lunch and dinner aren't a problem. It's the moments in between.

I need snacks. I eat a lot of junk food -- burgers, chips, candy, soda -- and all of that is right out. I used to eat a lot of sandwiches, and those are right out too. I'm staying away from aspartame so no diet soda or sugar-free candy either. Most of the Eastern European stuff I eat -- caviar, salo, cured meat -- requires bread to be served on. Lettuce wraps are an idea, but I really need something to replace the fact that I was eating a lot of shit food and bread. Also, hummus is out because we're not eating legumes either. I have a dehydrator and will be making lots of jerky, so I'm on top of that.

So how do I eat things I would generally put on a piece of bread?

Also, what are some good dips that don't have non-vegetable carbs or refined sugars?

Finally: sauces. Every damn sauce in the fridge has corn syrup or sugar or invert syrup. We can make our own, but it'd be nice to be able to buy a sauce of some sort with no added sugar.

posted by griphus to Food & Drink (52 answers total)

I'm also trying to wean myself off of diet soda, and I've found ice water with a squirt of lime juice to be pretty satisfying.

People often recommend munching on almonds as a healthy snack substitute. Doesn't really work for me, but YMMV.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 6:20 PM on April 11, 2012

Lettuce or other leafy greens are the only thing I've come up with for eating sandwichy things.

Are you cutting fats out too? If not, then butter/oil + garlic + spices can make tasty sauces for roasted veg or stirfry, and you can do flavored aiolis for sandwich-type things.
posted by smirkette at 6:21 PM on April 11, 2012

Nuts. I eat cured meats without bread. Use celery sticks as delivery vehicles for nut butters and/or soft cheeses.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:25 PM on April 11, 2012 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: No, I'm not cutting out fats. In fact, I'm going as calorie-dense as I possibly can. My problem is that I can't keep weight on. I'm going to start working out to (among other things) gain weight, so I need something to gain it from.

I guess I should also mention that I'm lactose intolerant and can't eat spicy food.

Suggestions from Mediterranean cuisine would be most appreciated.
posted by griphus at 6:26 PM on April 11, 2012

Kale Chips! I love them spicy, but there are a million recipes you can adapt to your needs. (reminds me of popcorn)

Also saw this recipe today for Spiced Lotus Chips, I'm not sure if they fit your requirements, but they look amazing.
posted by Kronur at 6:29 PM on April 11, 2012 [5 favorites]

Hi, been doing the low-carb thing for more than a year, and let me assure you, you can eat cured meats all by themselves. I do this a lot. Or wrap it around a vegetable: prosciutto is good wrapped around grilled or steamed or roasted asparagus.

Also, cheese doesn't need crackers. A really soft cheese can be smeared on a piece of celery, but otherwise? Just eat it! You know what we had for dinner recently? A cheese and whisky pairing. Here's a picture. It was great. The photo's kind of a lie because there was way more whisky on the table by the end of dinner.

I like pecans and almonds for snacking. I smoke them myself and they are delicious, but you can get not-outrageously-salty smoked nuts commercially, too.
posted by rtha at 6:30 PM on April 11, 2012 [5 favorites]

You're pretty much describing the paleo diet - no grains, no dairy, no legumes, no refined sugars. Check out some paleo food blogs for suggestions. They do tend to use a lot of butter though, so you're going to want to investigate nut oils. You can make up some granola type snacks using nuts, coconut, seeds and dried fruit. Eggs, lots of delicious eggs. Try making some tea eggs.
posted by Joh at 6:32 PM on April 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

On lack of preview: Missed your comment about being lactose intolerant - can you still eat aged cheeses (more than 6 months)? Those have hardly any lactose left in them at that point, but everyone's different.

Seconding kale chips, though they're not suitable for dipping. Like you'd be able to stop eating them hot off the cookie sheet anyway...
posted by rtha at 6:33 PM on April 11, 2012

Nuts are good. Roasted chickpeas or wasabi peas are also good. Olive and pickles are possiblities - cherry tomatoes tossed with salt.

Dips can eaten with slices of cucumbers, radishes or carrots.

Some cured meats are nice wrapped around stalks of asparagus. Maybe with a bit of mustard.

Kale chips = awesome.
posted by bunderful at 6:35 PM on April 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

You can use two roasted portobello mushroom caps as a sandwich "bun."
posted by argonauta at 6:36 PM on April 11, 2012 [4 favorites]

They need to be really really good almonds. It's a world of difference.

Oh god, no dairy? I am told one can make a sort of sour cream with tofu, which you could use with mayo as a dip base, and then make your own ranch/tzaziki/onion dip. (Though, of course, there are goat and sheep's cheese. I buy goat cheese 2 logs/$6 at Costco.)

Taking dairy cheese out of the equation, I primarily snack on nuts, meat (just pick it up and eat it), celery and nut butter, avocado with salt and lemon (or a splash of salsa or vinaigrette), and...cabbage. Like, I will just cut up some cabbage and eat it, but it also makes a good base because it's sturdier than lettuce.

I am not especially fond of raw broccoli or cauliflower, but some people are. Green beans, pan fried in just a little oil in a hot pan, are tasty.

For sauces, you can make curries at home (bonus: coconut milk, no dairy), and it's coming on tomato season in part of the world so you can make your own tomato sauce (tip: roast the hell out of them on a baking sheet in a hot oven to get some color and caramelization). Xanthan gum is an option for a thickener if you're trying something more advanced (and you might browse some gluten-free websites for sauce recipes, ignoring the ones that use alternate flours).
posted by Lyn Never at 6:40 PM on April 11, 2012

For crunchy snacks, try laying a bunch of pepperoni slices on a paper towel on a plate, and putting that in the microwave for a minute or two until they are crispy. It's not quite a bag of chips, but it can fill that void in a pinch.

Also: cauliflower.
posted by Balonious Assault at 6:41 PM on April 11, 2012

Baba ghanoush? (probably misspelled that)

Celery with almond butter or tahini?

Strawberries dipped in coconut milk?
posted by salvia at 6:48 PM on April 11, 2012

I eat sammiches like lettuce wraps but instead of boring lettuce I use the actual sliced meat as the wrap. (i stick arugula or radicchio inside for extreme awesomeness)

BACON.
posted by elizardbits at 7:06 PM on April 11, 2012 [4 favorites]

Pepperoni slices, hard boiled eggs, raisins (many have no added sugar), celery with natural peanut butter, carrot sticks with baba ghanoush, popcorn with, like, tons of different toppings.

I'll keep thinking!
posted by two lights above the sea at 7:08 PM on April 11, 2012

If you think you can't eat caviar or cured meats without bread, dude, you are doing it wrong.

My go to snacks:

- Cold meat
- Cured meats
- Nuts in small quantities (too much gives me a tummy ache)
- Fruit with nut butter (holy grail: banana with almond butter)
- Crunchy raw veggies (e.g. carrots, bell peppers)
- Hard boiled eggs, or even better DEVILED EGGS
- Full fat greek yogurt (I'm mildly lactose intolerant and don't have a problem with greek yogurt, maybe someone else can weigh in on its effective lactose content)

The other part of the equation here is that when I switched to eating a diet more like what you're describing, I started snacking a lot less -- I didn't have the 3 PM sugar crash anymore, for example, so I found myself going straight from lunch to dinner without getting peckish. If you're losing weight and having trouble getting enough calories (I did too), I would recommend drastically increasing your portion size at mealtime, rather than trying to shoehorn in more calories by grazing throughout the day.
posted by telegraph at 7:11 PM on April 11, 2012 [9 favorites]

Tomatoes are extremely filling and healthy to boot, as are cukes.

For Mediterranean dish, what about Shepherd's Salad. (But substituting avocado for cheese).
posted by kettleoffish at 7:16 PM on April 11, 2012

As for sauces, I've found unfiltered Flaxseed Oil to be delicious on veggies, nuts, meats, you name it. Also an alternative to using bread (if the items are bite-sized) could be to keep them together via skewers. Could make for some fun grilling as long as the meats don't get blackened. Good luck
posted by timespacewheredoifit at 7:20 PM on April 11, 2012

Fruit and fried fruits.

Also, have you tried taking enzymatic lactase supplements with dairy products? Someone I know who is lactose intolerant says she can eat anything she likes as long as she takes a tablet with it.
posted by orange swan at 7:20 PM on April 11, 2012

ALSO I know I have told you this like 3 times already BUT SERIOUSLY DUDE Finlandia cheese is trufax 100% lactose free and they have swiss and muenster and they are both GLORIOUS TO BEHOLD.

GO FORTH AND NOM.
posted by elizardbits at 7:33 PM on April 11, 2012 [3 favorites]

Pickled eggs? If you didn't grow up eating them it probably sounds like a terrible idea, but trust me, these things are great: tasty and super-convenient and basically solid protein and oh my god did I mention tasty? They're a bit of a production, but while you're at it you can make a couple jars at once and keep them in the fridge.

I like to do them in the juice from a big can of beets. You must get canned beets where you are, yes? I imagine Eastern Europe as a pretty beet-intensive place. Drain out the cartoonishly magenta-colored beet juice, mix it with vinegar at about a one-to-one ratio, add some sliced onion and some black peppercorns, and throw the beets back in there too if you're the sort of person who likes snacking on beet slices. (Or is that too carb-y for you? Maybe go easy on the beet slices.) Put it on the stove to come up to a boil. There's your brine.

Meanwhile you hard boil your eggs. Follow whatever personal superstitions you have about hard-boiling eggs. Fish them out of the water and set them aside to cool when they're done.

Then you take a big jar — a quart-sized canning jar will hold about a dozen eggs, give or take — and dunk it into the boiling water for a few minutes to sterilize it.

Okay. Now when the eggs are cool, roll them on a tabletop or something so the shell crackles but doesn't come off. Put them in a big jar and pour the hot brine over top until they're competely covered.

Now stick the whole thing in the fridge. They get tastier over time, and the vinegar keeps them delicious for at least a month. (The super-paranoid National Center for Home Food Preservation says you should eat them within 3-4 months "for best quality," so this isn't just some half-assed "hasn't killed me yet" nonsense, a month is in fact totally legitimate and really at the end of the month they may still be improving in flavor.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:34 PM on April 11, 2012 [13 favorites]

Pickles!
posted by beepbeepboopboop at 7:41 PM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

JERKY JERKY JERKY JERKY. JERKY. JERKY IS SAVING MY LIFE RIGHT NOW.

Also the deviled eggs. Genius people suggested them in my "help me with snacks" thread a while back and they are amazing. You can put some harissa or wasabi in with your mayonnaise and they will be even more amazing.

If your gall bladder can handle it, pate with onions and cornichons is an incredible snack.

Look around for nuts you find satisfying. I like Brazil nuts more than almonds as a snack; they're slightly higher in calories (which is a plus for me and it sounds like for you too) and really satiating. Other friends of mine swear by macadamia nuts, but they are too fatty for my stomach to enjoy.
posted by Sidhedevil at 7:55 PM on April 11, 2012

Microwave Flax Bread is super easy to make and surprisingly tasty. I always liked to eat it warm with butter and sugar free jam, but it would make a serviceable sandwich bread.

I'm not sure if it's clear from the recipe, but "flax meal" is ground flax seeds. I used to buy whole flax seeds in bags and grind them in a coffee grinder I bought just for grinding seeds... you probably don't want to use the same one you use to grind coffee.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 7:58 PM on April 11, 2012

My new favourite snack is a sour green apple, sliced really thin, and a couple slices of thick cut bacon. Actually, it's my favourite lunch, too.

Really fresh raw almonds are totally delightful. Keep them in the fridge and they're almost juicy, I swear. If you're going for calorie dense, grab some macadamia nuts, too. PURE FAT.

When I was doing an elimination diet, I ate a lot of cooked chicken breast as a snack. I just roasted up a couple at the beginning of the week and kept them sliced in the fridge.

Are Larabars too carby?
posted by looli at 8:00 PM on April 11, 2012

-smoked fish
-fish /seafood
-roasted veggies: beets, cabbage, turnip, pumpkin, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, everything you have really!
-beet chips
-fresh herbs (makes every meal better)
-lactose free cheeses, especially cottage cheese
-flavored butter (lactose free) with herbs, garlic, tomatoes, lemon
-tamarind sauce
posted by travelwithcats at 8:01 PM on April 11, 2012

Low carb snacks with no dairy/no legumes:

Marcona almonds (the kind from Spain)
1/2 an avocado drizzled with olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and some sea salt
Smoked salmon on cucumber rounds (add sour cream if you can get a substitute)
A slice of ham or turkey wrapped around a pickle spear (add cream cheese if you can get a substitute)
Fancy pickles (asparagus, okra, corn, etc.)
Hardboiled or deviled eggs
Almond butter straight from the jar
Olives
Trader Joe's or Annie Chun's roasted seaweed snacks -- salty and crunchy!
Almond/coconut milk smoothie with frozen strawberries -- try 1/2 cup of each type of milk to start and add a tablespoon of coconut oil for additional fat
Almond butter/cocoa/coconut oil cups (use stevia instead of aspartame)

Personally, I think given that you can't eat dairy, a lot of the extra fat will end up coming from sources like avocados and coconut milk/oil.

If you can eat Greek yogurt, try it with a sprinkle of cinnamon. If you can eat cottage cheese, try it with some tomatoes, scallions, salt, and olive oil.

Manufactured sauces are going to be hard to do (especially BBQ sauce and ketchup). Your whole style of cooking/eating will change. However, don't be afraid of vinegar-based dressings or mustard or mayo or maybe a small amount of tomato sauce.
posted by kathryn at 8:12 PM on April 11, 2012 [4 favorites]

Sauces: try adding lime juice, lemon juice, or fresh herbs, maybe with olive oil and you might not need a sauce. Pestos or chimicurri-type (cilantro, tomato, onion, paprika/cumin) sauces might be good.
posted by SarahbytheSea at 8:19 PM on April 11, 2012

I snack on nuts, tomatoes, olives, raw veggies, sundried tomatoes, roasted garlic, celery with peanut butter, pickles, berries (which are lower GI than most other fruits), mushrooms, avocados, salads with lots of different kinds of greens, and sweet potato chips. For meals I usually pair a bunch of these with deli meats; I'm really lazy when it comes to cooking, and this is easy, fun, and fast.

To treat myself I like dark chocolate and small portions of sorbet.

Interesting teas are a fun way to snack if you're not really craving food but rather the habit of eating or needing something to do with your hands. I have a problem of eating when I'm bored, so now I make a really flavourful tea instead. Hot, iced, herbal, black, white, oolang, green, blends...
posted by toerinishuman at 8:28 PM on April 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

I eat paleo/primal and my go-to snack is sliced carrots and babaganoush.
posted by padraigin at 8:33 PM on April 11, 2012

careful not to load up on too many nuts. 4 months into a Paleo diet and I developed an allergy to nuts, I guess because I was always eating them. Bummer.

If you're into baked goods: coconut flour!
posted by Neekee at 8:46 PM on April 11, 2012

I like sliced jicama as a bread replacement for sandwiches or dipping.
posted by i_am_a_fiesta at 9:07 PM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Seltzer as a soda replacement, and you can do a lot of pseudo-cheesy-saucey things with cashews.
posted by manicure12 at 9:16 PM on April 11, 2012

For nibblies, how about sunflower seeds?

Or macadamias? They're really tasty.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:56 PM on April 11, 2012

Did anybody mention almond flour?
posted by oceanjesse at 10:35 PM on April 11, 2012

Avocado-based dips

Roast a batch of veggies and keep them in the fridge for easy snackings. A pan of roast cauliflower+sliced dates+sliced olives is heavenly.

Keep a nice hearty salad in the fridge and grab a bowlful for a snack - massaged kale salads are great for this because the kale is hearty enough not to become gross after a couple of days in the fridge. (search for massaged kale salad recipes, there are a million of them - basic method is wash and tear up kale, add lemon juice, kosher salt, olive oil, maybe Bragg's apple cider vinegar, and scrunch the kale vigorously with your hands to allow the acid and salt to break down the cell walls, "cooking" it without heat. do this for about 5 min and you'll see a very obvious visual change in the leaves as they wilt. Then add your other favorite chopped ingredients and dressing.)

To make fresh veggies less work: Peel and slice a batch of carrots, celery, cukes, etc and keep them in the fridge, cut ends down into glass of water to keep them hydrated

A friend who eats raw vegan shared this walnut "ground meat" recipe - we used it as a filling for a spring roll-esque wrap and it was unspeakably yummy. She said she uses it in tacos and various other applications. Could be used to make a bunch of little snack-size packages you could keep in the fridge (leaf+wad of walnut paste + ?)
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:26 PM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

If you can eat Greek yogurt, and you might be able to depending on your level of lactose intolerance, Greek yogurt + cinnamon + a little bit of honey (you can skip this if you want) + fresh sliced peaches (or another soft fruit/berry with less sugar) = filling deliciousness. FWIW, I am mildly lactose intolerant, and yogurt just makes me kind of farty. If you're the in serious pain, running to the bathroom kind of lactose intolerant, you may not want to take the risk with Greek yogurt.

Oh, and guacamole! Anything you eat with it is just going to be a vehicle for guacamole delivery, so I'd say eat it with something bland like celery.
posted by yasaman at 12:03 AM on April 12, 2012

I don't know how to make links on my phone, but the About.com site on low-carb diets has a great recipe for flax crackers- these have been my wife's go-to dip conveyor and snack during her 50lb weight loss. The ingredients are nothing but flax meal, Parmesan, garlic powder, and water (although you'll have to look up the ratio, sorry) and they go great with the spinach dip recipe that's also on site, or with tuna salad, egg salad, or any other dip you want to eat. Also, due to flax seed being the main ingredient, these crackers are notably high in fibre. My wife and I jokingly call them "bowel buddies."
posted by arcticwoman at 3:37 AM on April 12, 2012

I love those packs of roasted salted seaweed sheets you can get in ethnic markets for when I'm jonesing for potato chips (BTW, Mefi loves this already but roasted kale chips are good too if less shelf-stable/portable). Nuts, seeds (pepitas). Hardboiled eggs. Slices or wedges of jicama with seasoning sprinkled on them (you can go the tangy route or something like a touch of cinnamon and a small drop of sweetener, or no-added-sugar nut butter, etc., stuff you'd put on apples). Some markets carry roasted/fried veggies like green beans, okra, etc. that are awesome and better than chips. Yogurt-covered nuts, provided the yogurt isn't all sugar. String cheese. Veggie snacks like ants on a log (celery, raisins, peanut butter; if the raisins are too sugary you could put something else on there, maybe toasted sesame seeds or something). Tea. Cubes of unsweetened gelatin stuff, like spicy tomato aspic. Marinated olives or marinated cheese. Marinated or grilled cubes of tofu can be really good if you flavor them enough.

And lots of dips are low-carb, with fat making up for that. Guacamole, riffs on green goddess (take a shit ton of various green herbs, a bit of anchovy paste or tinned anchovy mashed up, etc. and to make it dip add something creamy like sour cream, yogurt, or maybe mayonnaise). Tzatziki. Roasted eggplant dip. Muhammara. Caramelized onion. Pimento. Or you could go another route and take favorite seasoning blends (Penzey's has lots designed for this purpose) and just add the thickener of your choice, whether oil and vinegar/lemon juice or said yogurt/sour cream/mayo, plus perhaps a pureed or minced veggie of your choice (bell peppers are pretty all-purpose).
posted by ifjuly at 5:01 AM on April 12, 2012

And a lot of times, you can serve whatever used to go between bread on a bed of vegetables (which work best depends on what's going on top of them, both flavor and logistics/texture-wise) with a fork and knife. It's not the same, but it's good in its own way.
posted by ifjuly at 5:04 AM on April 12, 2012

Oh, the lactose intolerance, didn't see that before...hm. It's probably not what you want to do, but just throwing it out there as personally I'd find it hard to gain weight on a no-carb calorie-dense diet without any dairy--those generic lactaid pill things work pretty well. Both my husband and I are lactose intolerant (mine's pretty mild though at this point due to habituation) and we just keep it around the house.
posted by ifjuly at 5:06 AM on April 12, 2012

I can chime in on the lactose quantity in Greek yogurt.

Empirically, Greek yogurt contains a lot less lactose than other yogurts because of the amount it's strained. The milk sugars occur a lot less when they whey is strained off, and you're left with a much thicker-textured and protein-dense product.

Anecdotally, I'm pretty heavily lactose-intolerant and I can handle Greek yogurt like a champ. Regular yogurt used to have to be taken with a lactase pill.
posted by rachaelfaith at 6:09 AM on April 12, 2012

Springboarding on Rachaelfaith's note about Greek yogurt above - if you can handle that, then you can make labneh, which is basically marinated spreadable yogurt cheese balls.

1. Take a container of Greek yogurt, and strain it even more thusly - line a colander with a coffee filter, and set it over a bowl. Dump in the Greek yogurt. Let the whole thing sit for a couple hours, until it gets a little firmer than cream-cheese consistency.

2. When it's strained down enough, pinch off walnut-size lumps of the strained yogurt and roll them into balls.

3. Get a bunch of chopped herbs of your liking, some crushed red pepper if you want, and some olive oil. Also, get a big jar.

4. Put a layer of the yogurt cheese balls into the bottom of the jar; sprinkle on some of the chopped herbs and/or red pepper on top of that. Alternate layers of yogurt balls and herbs, and finish with a layer of chopped herbs. Pour in enough olive oil to cover the whole thing, seal it and put that in your fridge.

5. It'll be ready in a day or so; just fish out a few of the herbed cheese balls and use it as a spread or dip. Maybe stuff celery sticks with it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:48 AM on April 12, 2012 [5 favorites]

Seconding what ifjuly said. If you are what they call a "hard gainer," it might be even harder for you to gain muscle on a very low carb diet. After you lift weights, you want the anabolic effect of insulin to help you recover. Starchy carbs are the best way of getting that, but you can get them from paleo-friendly sources like potatoes, bananas/plantains, taro, etc.

I say this as a former longterm VLC/paleo dieter. I had to start eating a lot more carbs once my weightlifting got past a certain level, but I have never felt better.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 8:49 AM on April 12, 2012

Don't snack.

If your meals are good (large, high fat/protein) then you shouldn't be hungry between meals. In fact, if you're a hard-gainer and you *want* to gain, then you should be eating so much at each meal that you're stuffed and not hungry at all when the next meal starts.

There's no biological need to snack. It's not going to help your metabolism. The whole "many small meals are better than a few large ones" is a myth.

Snacking is a habit, once you've solved the hunger issue through better meals then it's just a matter of breaking the habit. Once you've freed yourself from snacking life is much better - you're not constantly looking for the next fix or having to carry feedbags everywhere with you.
posted by jpeacock at 9:10 AM on April 12, 2012 [4 favorites]

cucumber discs are a good delivery vehicle for other foods.
posted by batmonkey at 9:26 AM on April 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I LOVE Snapea Crisps: http://www.snacksalad.com/products.html They make me feel like I'm eating carby snacks. You can get them at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, and maybe regular supermarkets too.
posted by wisekaren at 11:06 AM on April 12, 2012

Crisp pickled vegetables. And crisp pickled vegetables dipped into stuff. Like batmonkey, I was going to suggest cucumber or zuccini/squash slices to use as a substitute for crackers. Lightly and fakely pickled with a splash of wine vinegar and ground pepper. Oh, and Macadamia Monster Mash.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 11:19 AM on April 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've been making these crackers, and variations on them, and they're AWESOME and stupidly easy. The chia seeds gel as a base for the other seeds in the crackers. I did a slightly sweet variation by not adding the onion/garlic, and instead adding about half a cup of unsweetened coconut, and a tablespoon or two of honey.

They're high in protein, and pretty calorie-dense, and totally grab-and-go, which for me, is a really hard thing to find eating low-grain.
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 3:10 PM on April 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

PORK RINDS
posted by AceRock at 5:55 PM on April 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

If you're eating lower carb, you shouldn't be getting as hungry between meals. If hunger is actually killing you, eat some nuts or hard boiled eggs... and add an extra meal to your day. Odds are that your body has gotten terrible at storing calories throughout the day from a lifetime of snacking, but - good news - your body will figure this new schedule out and adapt to it.

I say this as someone who can't keep weight on (6'8", 210 lbs). I moved to a low-carb, lactose-intolerant diet. After about a year, I've added 10 lbs without much effort at all, and I've lost what very little pudge I had around my midsection.) I'd probably have added more weight, but my main snack is coffee and/or water.

I've also found Kind Snacks almond and coconut bars to be delicious, but in moderation.
posted by talldean at 7:04 AM on April 13, 2012

Second macadamia nuts (Costco to get a price in the realm of reason)

Try Paleo hot chocolate - many recipes on the web. Basically simmer 6oz coconut milk with 6oz water. Add 1-2tbls raw, unprocessed cocoa powder, dash of cinnamon, maybe some honey. Whisk til smooth. VERY satisfying.
posted by jbradley at 4:55 PM on April 13, 2012