Between creative cottage cheese toppings, frozen yogurt bites, and pumpkin-spiced everything, there’s likely no shortage of snack inspo on your social feeds. But according to nutritionists, there is one massively underappreciated snack category: fruit.
“Fruit is a healthy snack ingredient that contains a lot of the nutrients and antioxidants that have anti-inflammatory properties, which may help reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer,” says registered dietitian Keri Gans MS, RDN, owner of Keri Gans Nutrition. Flavor now, longevity later!
While a single piece of fruit can make a great snack for people on the go, fruit on its own isn’t quite as filling as most people need a snack to be. Why? The sugar content. Natural fruit sugar (known as fructose) is far healthier for you than the sugar found in processed snacks and sweets (typically known as sucrose or glucose), but the sugar content in fruit can still spike your blood sugar, says registered dietitian Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, author of “Read It Before You Eat It.”
“When your blood sugar spikes, it also drops, which can make you feel tired and fatigued,” Taub-Dix explains, which is the exact opposite of the energizing effect most people are after when snacking.
The trick to making fruit a healthy, satiating snack is to pair the fruit with additional foods. “If you combine the fruit with a healthy fat or protein source, you slow down the speed the body can metabolize the fruit sugar, which helps keep your blood sugar level,” she says. And that stands whether you’re eating fresh, frozen, freeze-dried, dried, or canned fruit, she says.
With that in mind, we put together the below list of healthy snacks with fruit, each of which pairs fruit with another satiating ingredient (or two). Trust, whether you’re looking for a post-workout snack, morning grab-and-go, or midday munch, you’ll find a fruit snack option that works with your goals, tastes, and needs.
