Healthy Surf Snacks

Surf Snack Ideas.. Good Food

Surf snacks: Quick snacks, easy to make, higher protein content… and not much garbage.

When most people think of a snack, they usually end up considering something made with processed flours, added sugars, food coloring, and little if any protein.

Those type of snacks are a good way to throw off blood sugars, deplete your energy levels, get fat, and not really benefit your body in any way… but I will say, they usually taste damn good.

Seriously though, some quality snacks can go a long way in helping to keep you fit, maintain high energy levels, staying lean, and simply staying healthy.  So here’s a snack list I came up with recently.

A past client of mine is now being heavily recruited by college rowing teams, and his mother asked me for some decent snack ideas to keep him going after, and before workouts. Most of these could be easily thrown into a cooler for a post surf snack.

What To Look For In A Snack

-DOES IT CONTAIN A QUALITY PROTEIN

• helps provide sustained long term energy… muscle repair.. provides satiety / curbs hunger

-WHAT ARE THE INGREDIENTS?

• Is it primarily processed and refined flours, artificial ingredients, and artificial flavouring or coloring…. if it is, don’t eat it, or at least not often.

-IS THERE ANY TYPE OF CARBOHYDRATE? (glucose, fructose, starch, sucrose, lactose)

• an all protein snack is by no means bad… I have them pretty often. But if you can get some type of carbohydrate in there as well, then that would certainly be a good thing.Carbs can provide the most easily used form of cellular fuel. We’re surfers… we need some muscle fuel! But shit flour carbs, which most snacks are made of are no good. Think more along the lines of fruits or even dairy.

Quick, Healthy, Surf Snacks

Meat Rolls with some veggies or avocado – a quality deli meat and wrap it around some bell pepper slices, or avocado slices, or some spinach leaves and a piece of cheese…. easy!

Jerky – eat your meat!! How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!? (I hope someone picks up on that reference). Buy some high quality beef jerky, or just make some with a food dehydrator.

Canned Oysters / Sardines – I love these things. They’re cheap, easy to travel with, and have a lot of quality nutrients. HOWEVER, you should really try to find some that are in Water, or if you must, Olive oil.

Stay Away from the ones stored in vegetable oils. Those veggie oils (canola, soy, etc.) are basically toxic. Throw some hot sauce on these bad boys, and BAM!.. snack time. I like Sriracha.

Salmon Cakes– these are rad, easy to make, and delicious. I’m including a link to a recipe, but by no means stick to it. Use whatever spices

you want. The basics though are some canned fish, a bit of almond meal (thickener), some eggs (usually 2) and then some spices… mix it and fry it up like pancakes.

Paleo Salmon Cakes

Cottage Cheese… and some fruit – another easy snack. Get some high quality organic cottage cheese if you can. Good stuff.

Greek Yogurt with some fruit and nuts – again, no preparation needed. Shoot for Raw nuts if you can get them, and organic yogurt.

Parmesan Cheese.. and some fruit – easy snack that takes NO time to make.

Parmesan cheese actually packs a decent amount of protein, and is quite often a really clean cheese. Eat some fruit too and you’re getting fat, protein, and carbs…. all good!

Homemade Protein Bars. There are tons of recipes out there. Google something along the lines of “paleo protein bar”.  The link below has some pretty good ones.

Paleo Protein Bar Recipe

Raw Nuts and Fruit – if you’re doing Raw nuts (which you ought to, roasted nuts have high levels of potential free radicals from the unsaturated fat).. you should soak your nuts and then dry them out.

The soaking process helps to break down the phytic acid ( which binds to other minerals and prevents you from absorbing them), breaks down other anti-nutrients, and also makes them much easier to digest.

How To Soak Nuts… and Why You Should

Want Some More Real-Food Snack Ideas… and Recipes

This is my go to recipe guide, Healthy Urban Kitchen, and it’s from one of the contributors to Surf Training Success. This Healthy Eating guide falls in line with my personal food values and nutritional ideas…

I recommend it to all of my one-on-one clients. It focuses on real, wholesome foods, and teaches you what to eat, and what not to eat to create long lasting health, energy, and well-being. Loads of recipes.. I promise you’ll absolutely love it.

So Make Some Quality Snacks!

There you go….. some quality snacks. Easy to make, and a hell of a lot more nutrition than a bag of Doritos. That shit might be ok when your 13, but most of us aren’t 13 anymore… so snack on something decent for yourself.

I totally just remembered Ants On A Log…. celery, smeared with some Peanut Butter, and then topped with raisins. I used to smash those when I was like 7yrs old! Funny memory, and a good snack idea.

Leave me some comments if you try any of these, or if you’ve got some personal favorite snacks!

-cris