I’m not going to list “a piece of fruit,” because, come on.

5. Primal Strips. You guys, how did these get so good? I only get the seitan ones because they have better mouthfeel than the soy ones, but I love them so much. Matthew hates when either I or Milo have been eating Primal Strips, because he says he can “smell it on us,” but he chews sunflower seeds all the time, which make him smell like salty driftwood, and not in good way, so.

4. Trail mix. I only get the all raw kinds, and if I can’t find any, I just buy all the ingredients and make my own.

3. Olives. The fancier, the better. A handful of olives is fantastic appetite suppressant when you look up and all of the sudden it’s 7 PM and you haven’t even started dinner yet and your stomach is already growling. If I had to give up every food in my life one by one, I’d save olives for the final five.

2. A few squares of dark chocolate. Yes, I eat chocolate almost every day. Having a couple of squares of high quality dark chocolate pushes the button in my brain that wants a sweet, but it’s such a small amount, and so little sugar, that it barely affects my glycemic levels. Why am I even giving a reason for eating chocolate every day? Why aren’t you eating chocolate every day is the real question.

1. Nachos! Granted, you can’t throw these together unless you already have all of the ingredients ready to go in your fridge, but I love nachos so much that I consider the advanced prepwork to be worth it. A couple of years ago, a PPKer (please email me if this is you!) compared the nutritional information in a batch of nachos prepared with the Nacho Sauce and Tangy Sour Cream from Yellow Rose Recipes to the nutritional information of dairy-laden nachos. Mine had several hundred fewer calories and practically no fat. That’s right, dudes, my nachos are straight up good for you. I have also been known to make nacho bowls with brown rice, beans, sauteed swiss chard, nacho sauce, tangy sour cream, and roasted poblano-cilantro sauce in the fall as a complete meal. (When I say “I have also been known,” you know that means I had it for dinner last night, right?)

nachos from a billion years ago