Spin-off: Convenience snacks

[Pea-n-Me]

The grocery bill thread today brought up some debate about snacks: cups of applesauce and fruits vs buying a jar and putting them in reusable containers; and buying a big bag of chips vs little bags, etc. Pros and cons to each, for sure. I bring fresh cut up fruit to work regularly but sometimes by the time I eat it it’s getting soft, and if I don’t have time to eat and save it for the next day, I’ve had it turn sour.

I recently discovered a new snack I really like but man, are they expensive! It’s the Oh Snap! products. Adorable packaging and super convenient - can enjoy some nice pickles without the mess. Last week I got the Cool Beans and really enjoyed them, too, but to buy them in bulk they can be as high as $3/bag - for a few pickled string beans! It made me seriously start to think about making my own!

Anyone else like the Oh Snap pouches? What do you use for snacks to send to school and work, if you do? Do you ever make your own?

 

[kymom99]

I usually buy the larger bags of snacks snd bag myself. My son also likes the Lance crackers in the packages. If I see a hood sale on the individual chips I sometimes buy them. I’ve not seen the oh snap things you asked about.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Trader Joes has a mixed seed grain cracker called a Norwegian Crispbread which is the new favorite as I spin my family away from as much gluten as I can manage, great alone or with Caponatina eggplant dip, also good with hummus or cheese (trying to reduce dairy too). The Trader Joe's dried Mango are my favorite snack, banana chips too, this store has the best selection for unique things to try. We had no TJs but an Aldi near us in PA, so that also had an extraordinary selection of unique things.

DD is experimenting with all sorts of things, Hippeas are her favorite & we are all enjoying new things like hummus with cannellini beans.

DS loves the Trader Joes Plantains esp the Jerk ones, I like both the sweet (they say sweet but it just means plain and not savory) and the more chip like slightly salted ones. He had discovered some amazing mushroom chips at Costco but I can't seem to find them anywhere.

Also considering making some of my own things with a dehydrator, I think about it from time to time but the thought of one more appliance on the counter is just

 

[AustinTink]

What are these "snack-size portions" you speak of? I bought a family size bag of Cheetos puffs the other day and my husband polished them off by the end of the night.

 

[nw6675]

The grocery bill thread today brought up some debate about snacks: cups of applesauce and fruits vs buying a jar and putting them in reusable containers; and buying a big bag of chips vs little bags, etc. Pros and cons to each, for sure. I bring fresh cut up fruit to work regularly but sometimes by the time I eat it it’s getting soft, and if I don’t have time to eat and save it for the next day, I’ve had it turn sour.

I recently discovered a new snack I really like but man, are they expensive! It’s the Oh Snap! products. Adorable packaging and super convenient - can enjoy some nice pickles without the mess. Last week I got the Cool Beans and really enjoyed them, too, but to buy them in bulk they can be as high as $3/bag - for a few pickled string beans! It made me seriously start to think about making my own!

Anyone else like the Oh Snap pouches? What do you use for snacks to send to school and work, if you do? Do you ever make your own?

I like the hot pickles! And now I am off to eat a pickle...

 

[barkley]

Anyone else like the Oh Snap pouches? What do you use for snacks to send to school and work, if you do? Do you ever make your own?

never tried that brand of pickles but saw them at a store locally recently. i didn't look at the price but when i just google searched i found that you can get them for MUCH LESS at target ($1.59) or by ordering through amazon ($13.50 for 6 and free prime shipping). i used to get little individual cups (about the size of one of those applesauce cups) of mt. olive brand pickles-i liked the little dills while my kids loved taking the little sweet pickles in their lunch bags.

as i posted on the other thread, i'm a big fan of individually packed items IF the price works out to be lower/i end up with less waste due to spoilage. when the kids were still of school age i used to stock up at halloween on the boxes of mini bag 'treats'-fruit treats, cheese puffs, pretzels, chocolate covered pretzels (i still grab these )...they were happy to grab a couple of these to fill out their lunches. i pretty much exclusively get our favorite chips in individual bags as well as goldfish crackers (they taste so much better fresh out of the bag so it keeps us from eating an entire container). banana chips we would put into a big ziplock bag and fill into little ones, i used to be able to find bags of individual bags of beef jerky at costco but not recently. i get about 3 brands of cookies only in individual packages (knotts berry farm, lorna doons and milanos-all three tend to stale quickly so i save on waste).

 

[barkley]

What are these "snack-size portions" you speak of? I bought a family size bag of Cheetos puffs the other day and my husband polished them off by the end of the night.

that's what happens to nacho cheese doritos and bbq hawaiian chips here if i get the non snack size bags

 

[AustinTink]

that's what happens to nacho cheese doritos and bbq hawaiian chips here if i get the non snack size bags

Nacho Cheese Doritos have been relegated to vacation food status only. Too dangerous to keep in the house with the chip monster.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I do buy some things in individual packs because they stay fresher or we only use a little and then the rest gets forgotten (applesauce cups, for example) and I'm OK with that.

(I feel guilty about bagged salad and pre-shredded cheese, though. - I really should do my own.)

Our go-to snacks lately are cheese and crackers, apples and peanut butter, or microwave popcorn, but when I was packing lunches for DS, I would buy the little bags if chips/snacks when they were on sale. I felt like chips didn't do as well if I repackaged them.

 

[unrequited23]

I buy the applesauce/fruit & veggie pouches for my kids lunches. They only have 12-15 mins to eat lunch, so I try to pack things they can eat fast.

 

[ronandannette]

We're a small family of 3 with only two of us regularly eating at home. We also live in a condo with limited storage so I try HARD to buy things in as small a portion/package as I can find, even if it costs a little more. Snacks are an issue because half of almost every family-sized bag of anything we open eventually gets thrown out after going stale. I love little individual bags of chips or whatever but can't buy them in bulk due to storage. I do buy individual applesauce - the little cup is just the right amount to serve with ham or chops or to add to a cake or muffin mix (or whatever). I also buy beverages in individual serving bottles rather than the much less-expensive 2 litres.

All those years ago when DS was packing school lunches, he wouldn't eat a sandwich so it was all about the individual servings of crackers, cheese, fruit, treats, juice-boxes, and whatever. At least a few days a week he took a Lunchable - tossed in with a baggie of carrots or a piece of fruit it was a very convenient all-in-one solution.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

never tried that brand of pickles but saw them at a store locally recently. i didn't look at the price but when i just google searched i found that you can get them for MUCH LESS at target ($1.59) or by ordering through amazon ($13.50 for 6 and free prime shipping).

Thanks for the thoughts! That’s how I originally found them, ie individually for around that price. I bought a few pouches after enjoying them the first time to keep on hand. I was a little disappointed I had to throw two of them out after a week or two because the bags got “puffy”. I’ll probably have to pay more attention to the dates (honestly I forgot to check the ones I threw out to see if they were out of date but I really doubt it). But that’s one of the reasons I’d hesitate to get a big box of them. I‘ll probably be the only one eating them and I don’t want them to go to waste, especially at that price. They are good though!

 

[DisneyHardin]

I don't buy a lot of individually wrapped snacks. I will buy the packages of Lance PB crackers to have for a quick thing to throw in my lunchbox. Very rarely too I will buy the individual bags of either Veggie Straws of Pirates Booty at Costco for lunches, but usually I just grab a handful of pretzels and put them in a Ziploc for my lunch.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

The grocery bill thread today brought up some debate about snacks: cups of applesauce and fruits vs buying a jar and putting them in reusable containers; and buying a big bag of chips vs little bags, etc. Pros and cons to each, for sure. I bring fresh cut up fruit to work regularly but sometimes by the time I eat it it’s getting soft, and if I don’t have time to eat and save it for the next day, I’ve had it turn sour.

I recently discovered a new snack I really like but man, are they expensive! It’s the Oh Snap! products. Adorable packaging and super convenient - can enjoy some nice pickles without the mess. Last week I got the Cool Beans and really enjoyed them, too, but to buy them in bulk they can be as high as $3/bag - for a few pickled string beans! It made me seriously start to think about making my own!

Anyone else like the Oh Snap pouches? What do you use for snacks to send to school and work, if you do? Do you ever make your own?

We are working on portion control, so for some things we do buy the preportioned bags. Also, for things we don't eat a lot of, but want some on occasion, the small bags are better. I do prefer to cut my own fruit, but I find that if it's cut and portioned when I buy it, I tend to eat it, haha.

We don't go through a lot of chips here (except Pringles and Hot Cheetohs Limon, oh, and Hint of LIme Tostitos) so it's better to get the single serve bags for us, so they don't go stale from being opened.

I get certain trail mixes from Target in the big containers, because I know we'll eat them before they go stale, and I can just grab a handful for a snack in the afternoons, and not feel I have to have a full bag of it. But I also get the Sahale snacks in the individual bags, because the big bags are just as expensive.

 

[LoveSpringsteen]

We always have on hand individual fruit cups, yogurt cups, cheese sticks, pudding cups, peanut butter crackers, granola bars and fig bars and use these items for our work/school lunches in addition to fresh fruit.

 

[CdnCarrie]

We buy a few things that are individually packaged (granola bars and yogurts are the 2 that come to mind) but very little these days. When the kids were young we tried to give them real food in their lunch bags and not too much junk - no chips, or soda. But sometimes little bags of goldfish with their sandwich, veggies and fruit. Lunchables were a rare thing given for field trips in summer daycare.

 

[penn19]

What are these "snack-size portions" you speak of? I bought a family size bag of Cheetos puffs the other day and my husband polished them off by the end of the night.

To be fair, that’s how they were meant to be eaten.