Processed Snacks and Desserts: What the Hell, Let's Have Some!

 via flickr

By Crabby McSlacker

Are you one of those people who eats only healthy whole foods, having absolutely no desire to consume tasty and convenient items created in some huge factory somewhere, packaged up and shipped thousands of miles away to your very own neighborhood grocery store?

Well, congratulations!

Enjoy that little cute little plate of fresh cut veggies and hummus. Savor that teeny-tiny handful of raw nuts. Arrange those fresh apple slices into a Pinterest-ready photo broadcasting your virtue.

Me? Sometimes I buy processed stuff in boxes and bags and cartons and resealable pouches.

My meals are generally pretty damn healthy, and there are whole food snacks I'll eat too. (Hello, nuts and fruit and a few select veggies). But if I don't have a few good indulgence foods on hand, things I truly love... then I'll soon end up on the Dark Side of the Snacking Street, on the Wrong Side of the Right Track. You know that neighborhood, right? It's where the nachos and the bakery sheet cakes and pepperoni pizza and the Ben & Jerry's all live.

And try as I might, I just can't love a fucking carrot stick no matter what I dip it into.

Yet so many snacks and desserts that are advertised as "healthy" are no such thing. If I weren't an obsessive nutcase, I might not ever have found my current favorites among all the zillions of faux-healthy offerings crowding the grocery store shelves.

So what do I eat?

(Note: No one is paying me anything or offering me anything free for this post. I'm done with that, having discovered that $7 worth of free snack foods is not worth all the angst and procrastination and misery that comes with actually having to write a review on command. These are just things I like, many of which I've mentioned before).

London: Visitor's Guide to Healthy Food & Fitness

photo: karmetic peace at deviant art

Guest Post by Helen Foster

So this is the last of the great guest posts for a while--I'm heading home from Budapest tomorrow. And I'm looking forward to boring the snot out of you all with tales and pictures, many of which deal with the very same theme: trying to find healthy food and exercise options while traveling.

London was not on my itinerary this trip, alas, but it is an amazing and wonderful city and a popular travel destination. It's a hell of a lot more likely you're going there someday than Budapest, right?  So Helen's got you covered with some great tips!  And there are many more over at her informative and hilarious website, Health-e-Helen, because she's British and lives and breathes this health and fitness stuff.

If her name sounds familiar, it's because I wrote about her awesome (and cheap) fitness ebook Gymspiration a while back, in a post about a one-question personality test which I stole from her. Plus she's on the blogroll, and I'm hoping some of you remember to click over sometimes when her posts come up.

Anyway, I've been having a grand old time, and I will eventually have lots to share about that when I get back to blogging. Whether that's a promise or a threat is an open question.

So please welcome Helen!--Crabby

When I found out Crabby was needing guest posts I was jumping up and down waving my hand in the air faster than you can say ‘yay, I get to write for my blog idol’. Of course then the doubt set in – what can I write about? What do I know more about than Crabby? What have I done? Can I feign amnesia?........then Crabby gave me the answer herself.

I’m British and on my blog health-e-helen I’d written about a delivery service in London offering low-carb, broccoli bread pizza and Crabby was coveting a slice. The word visit was mentioned. Aha, I thought – if Crabby wants to come to London and eat low-carb pizza so might Crabby’s readers! And they might want to do other healthy stuff too while they’re here. And that I know about. See no longer is London a wasteland for the fit and healthy. Yes, we all still drink like fishes and have slightly wonky teeth but we’re catching up when it comes to the healthy stuff. So , here we have it, The Health-e Guide To Healthy London.