10 Eco-friendly snacks! // Meatless Mondays #3

Snacks... satisfying, delicious quick fixer-uppers that instantly make you feel better. Snacks can be salty, sweet, fresh, or processed, but they're not always great for the environment. Besides the fact that many snacks are wrapped or packaged in plastic or other non-recyclable materials, a lot of them are made with animal-derived ingredients. From previous posts, you may now understand that animal agriculture really has a negative effect on the environment and one way to be a helpful environmentalist is to reduce your intake of animal-derived food. In this post, there will be a list of 10 snacks or snack ideas that are vegan, meaning they contain zero ingredients derived from animals! All of them are easily accessible in most US supermarkets. Enjoy!

1. Fruits & Veggies (duh)

Fruits and vegetables seems like a pretty obvious vegan snack idea, but not everyone thinks "Hey, I'm kinda hungry... maybe I'll eat some carrots." So if you're a person that only eats fresh produce when your mom forces you to, you should consider eating them on your own! There's so many delicious options to choose from! Some easily accessible fruits include pineapple, mango, cantaloupe, and kiwis... YUM!

Bonus: Smoothies are super yummy snacks you can put together if you have some extra time! So many ways to switch things up with smoothie ingredients! Just make sure to use a non-dairy milk or water or juice as the liquid!

2. Nut Butter!

There are so many different types of nut butters on the market now and even some nut butter combinations that are to die for! There's peanut butter (the classic), almond butter, cashew butter, sunflower seed butter, hazelnut butter, and way more. Some great butter mixes are peanut butter mixed with coconut oil (Earth Balance brand carries this jar of heaven), hazelnut-chocolate butter (like Nutella but vegan), and I'm sure there are a lot more out there worth trying.

Bonus: Most Jellies are vegan, so just imagine how much better PBJs can improve after trying different nut butters!

3. Hummus

This smashed chickpea or pinenut dip is savory and delicious! There are a lot of different flavors of hummus like Roasted Red Pepper or Spinach-Artichoke. Hummus is great with veggies such as carrots and broccoli and are traditionally eaten with pita bread.

4. Potato-anything

French fries, hash browns, mashed potatoes, home fries, baked potatoes... all amazing! Just make sure toppings and sauces are vegan!

5. Earth Balance snacks

The brand Earth Balance is an entirely plant-based company. This means that none of their products have animal ingredients and are entirely plant-based. They have amazing vegan alternatives such as butter, different peanut butters, crackers, chips, and so much more! They also make cool substitutes for popular snacks like cheez-it crackers and cheeto puffs!

6. Oreos... yes they're vegan!

Oreos do not have dairy products in them! Although people believe the cream stuffing is made from some sort of milk, it isn't. Although they are vegan, they are very processed and contain High Fructose Corn Syrup. Also, "Milk's favorite cookie" should be dipped into non-dairy milk to keep it vegan!

7. Cereal

There are a bunch of vegan cereals that can be poured into non-dairy milks for a quick, lazy-mood snack. Cap'n Crunch (original, berries, PB), Quaker Life (original & cinnamon), most Kashí cereals, Kellogg infrosted Mini Wheats, are just a small portion of delicious cereals that are vegan!

8. Nuts & seeds (another duh)

Just make sure the nuts and seeds aren't mixed with milk chocolate or yogurt to keep them vegan! Trail mixes are also a great idea, and there are plenty of mixes that include all-vegan goodies!

9. Dried Fruit

Raisins, plums, mango, banana... just a few absolutely amazing dried fruits you can find at your local supermarket!

10. Popcorn

This movie theater favorite is great for snacks at home! Just make sure there's no butter! I know it's not the same without butter, but there's always EarthBalance butter you can melt all over it! You can also mix in some cocoa powder, caramel, or vegan candy into your popcorn for different tastes.

I hope this post inspired you to try new things and become more passionate about eating eco-freindly!