100 Calorie Vegetarian Snacks

If you are following a calorie-controlled diet, it's very handy to have a list of snacks you can dip into without guilt. A small snack is often all it takes to take the edge off your hunger, and units of 100 calories make the calculations very straightforward. Even I can do the math on that! Lots of vegetarian snacks are very healthy in the right quantities, and keep well if stored correctly.

There are a number of commercial snack providers who have cottoned on to this now, and are producing their brands in pre-packaged 100 calorie portions. This can be a great help to every dieter, to have it all worked out for you in advance - but of course, the cash cost of the item might be higher if bought in this way, not to mention the environmental packaging cost. You need to weigh up each purchase for these factors, because convenience and help that it gives you in complying with the diet you are following, might make ready-made 100 calorie snacks a sound investment in some circumstances.

You should remember however that weighing and measuring food portions is not rocket science, and you can easily create your own ready-to-go 100 calorie snacks by simply repackaging food you have bought. If you use reusable Tupperware containers and larger purchased food amounts, you can save yourself cash, AND save the earth at the same time.

NB - Success does depend on whether you can avoid nibbling and munching whilst you are weighing and measuring!! I find sucking a sugar-free mint helps, whenever I am preparing food, for myself or other people.

The math is pretty straightforward, you just need a calculator and some accurate kitchen scales, and the packaging of your bought food.

Check the contents on your packaging, or if a whole food you can research the calorie content online...

120g bag of walnuts = 785 kcal (eek!). Yet nuts are actually a very healthy food and great source of vegetarian protein - you just have to control the portions. Work it out:

120/785 x 100 = 15.2g walnuts, makes a 100 kcal snack.

So you get your bag of walnuts, your kitchen scales, a stack of baby-food size Tupperware pots. Unfortunately you won't get large portions if you are using any kind of nut, but at least the pots fit in your handbag or glovebox for emergency snacking. In this example you will get nearly 8 100cal portions of nuts from your 120g bag of nuts. And if you break the bag out into 100cal portions as soon as you open it, you will be able to keep track of how much you eat, and avoid mindlessly grazing on hundreds of excess calories.

Of course if you want a heartier and more filling snack, use bigger tubs and a lower calorie food!

Your brain does burn some calories doing arithmetic! But if you want a short cut, here are a selection of easy 100 calorie snacks you can enjoy as part of your vegetarian low calorie diet.... some more healthy than others, but they're all in 100 calorie blocks for easy and convenient dieting...

• 1 oatcake with a scant 1 tsp peanut butter
• 1 slice of wholemeal bread (or 2 multigrain Ryvitas) with marmite
• One small banana
• 33 grapes (freeze them, delicious and lasts longer!)
• 14 small almonds
• 1 hard boiled egg
• Half an avocado
• 2 Jaffa cakes
• A glass of champagne
• A Muller-lite yoghurt
• 20 small black olives
• A slice of Weightwatchers Carrot Cake
• An orange and a kiwifruit
• Half a pint of lager
• 30g low fat hard cheese and a few sticks of celery
• A punnet of blueberries with a tbsp fat free greek yoghurt
• 10 Pringles
• 6 figs
• 5 roasted chestnuts
• 1 small pot of low fat natural yoghurt with with a handful of raspberries