Low Calorie Packaged Foods

headstoes
headstoes Posts: 25 Member
edited September 21 in Food and Nutrition
Does anyone have any packaged foods they'd like to share which are low in calories as well as tasty, and essentially worth the calories? They don't really have to be healthy either, as long as they have low calorie counts.

I live in Australia also, so maybe some foods don't translate well, as a heads up. I have so far found a few snacks and things which I frequent on, which don't seem that healthy, but they are low in calories which is desirable, including:
Weight Watchers jelly fruit cups - 10 calories,
Oreo cookies two pack - 101 calories,
Bird's Eye Steam Fresh broccoli, cauliflower and carrot - 55 calories,
Edgell canned four bean and corn mix - 145 calories,
Golden Circle green peas - 125 calories,
Nestle Peters Billabong ice cream cups - 70 calories,
Kellogg's LCMs rice bars - 90 calories,
Mamee Rice Sticks - 88 calories,
Safcol tuna in springwater - 67 calories,
Bega Stringers Cheese - 59 calories,
Yoplait Forme No Fat yogurt - 70 calories, and
Unibic gingerbread man - 125 calories.

This is pretty much all I eat, and I am really stuck for variety. I also eat a lot of frozen meals, but I don't like them having more than about 250 calories, so I don't have much variety really. Less frequently I have Weight Watchers muffin bars and Special K muffin bars which I really quite like but I don't think they have worthwhile calories. At about 125 calories each, I'd rather have my Cherry Ripe Double Dipped 70% Cocoa at 248 calories, or 117 calorie Cadbury Curly Wurly than say a satisfactory diet bar with 120 calories. Basically, I don't want a raw deal. Any suggestions into packaged low calorie foods would be fantastic.

Replies

  • edelq
    edelq Posts: 111
    Hi, I'm from Ireland,, not sure how many of these things you'd have, but these are the snacks I enjoy

    Alpen light bar- choc and fudge- 88 cals I think, and lovely!
    Snack-a-jacks- either the bag of crisps, or the large sweet ones- caramel one is abournd 85 cals, choc chip is a little more
    Hummus-I get a little selection pack of different flavors and have that with crackers/ rice cakes or veggies as a snackKe
    Kellogs fibre plus bars- they're yummy too!
    nature valley / jordans cereal granola bars
  • daninicole
    daninicole Posts: 4 Member
    Hi!

    I am a personal trainer and work with quite a few people that struggle with this problem. I created a mini-menu of lower calorie meals/snacks for them.

    Here are few of the ideas:

    Starkist Tuna Salad Packs with crackers
    Fresh Fruit
    String Cheese
    Yogurt
    Cottage Cheese
    Baby Carrots with light ranch packages
    Plain popcorn
    Granola bars
    Pre-packaged salads (with low-fat dressing)
    Pre-packages Chicken salad (found near tuna in grocery stores)
    Tortilla with peanut butter/almond butter and banana
    Hard boiled eggs
    Instant Oatmeal

    Anyways, those are a few ideas. I hope they can help! A few questions for you, why are you stuck on the low calorie meals? How do you spread these out each day? About how many calories are you taking in each day? Maybe I can help you continue to meet your weight loss goal!
  • kellycrow
    kellycrow Posts: 140
    is there a reason you are looking only at packaged foods?? i personally try to avoid prepackaged foods because they are generally processed, high in sodium, and just not 'real' food.
    I DO, however, enjoy the packages of dehydrated fruit that kids sometimes bring for snack at preschool. I have to find out where they get them!
    Also, fruit leather is pretty good... it is seriously just smooshed fruit... nothing artificial in them... low calorie... i keep them in my purse in case i am someplace and STARVING...
    I also enjoy veggie crisps.
    But generally, when I need to bring lunch or snacks someplace (like I will for a soccer tournament this weekend) I bring baggies with grapes, carrots, baby corn, cherries, etc with me so I can eat healthy and real foods.
  • headstoes
    headstoes Posts: 25 Member
    Unfortunately the only thing we have in Australia is those Kellogg’s bars – I will have to go check them out.

    @daninicole - Those are pretty general suggestions which I am familiar with too, but thanks anyway. I was after more pre-packaged suggestions also, but I think I'm on my own on this one being Aussie. To answer your questions, I am trying out a low calorie diet at the moment, and been going for over a week. It may sound horrible but I am doing 900 calories a day, and I’m seeing how it’ll treat me. I spread my calories out pretty evenly in the day over 6 meals, with 3 larger meals and snacks.

    @kellycrow - I’m looking only at packaged foods because they are easy to keep track of how many calories I am taking in, and for portion control they are helpful so I don’t overeat or make a mistake.

    I’ve never tried keeping a strict track of my calorie intake, and pre-packaged foods seems the way to go, and the most hassle-free. I just want some new ideas, but I guess I'll have to do some shopping aisle trawling and searching yet again.
  • indianfood
    indianfood Posts: 2
    Yes. We have packaged food.
    This site will help you.check out below link.
    http://readytoeat.com/indian_food.html
  • sarah1988_18a
    sarah1988_18a Posts: 1
    Hi there, I too live in Australia & here are some snack I like to eat:

    Nut cruble Uncle Tobys muslie bars, even the chock chip ones: 88Cal
    Light baby bell cheeses: 50Cal
    Captains table cracked pepper water crackers: 4=50something Cal
    Coles Frozen Dim Sims are quite low too around :110Cal

    Hope this helps you a little :)

    Regards Sarah :flowerforyou:
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,423 Member
    Don't feel you only have to eat packaged food to keep track of the calories - get yourself a food scale if you want to be accurate and you wil find most fruits and veggies in the database with 100g serving. If you eat 40g of fresh pineapple you can enter it as 0.4 of a 100g serving. Easy and accurate!

    And a hint for searching for fresh stuff in the database - add the word "raw" to your search and look for an entry with no * in front. These are entered by MFP and have 100g serving size (plus others like cups, oz etc)

    Heres some of my favourite snacks (I'm an Aussie too):
    - Be Natural muesli bars 116 or so cals
    - raw almonds - 69 cals for 10 almonds
    - Black Swan Low Fat Greek style yohgurt (I buy it in a 500g tub and portion it into 100g serves). 98 cals per 100g
    - Sunrise rice cakes (can't remember the cals but they are pretty low, though pretty horrendously high in sodium)
    - Coon light cheese slices - 70 cals
    - boiled egg - about 74 cals
    - vegemite on toast - around 105 cals depending on the bread you use. I like Helgas Quinoa and Flaxseed bread, 100cals/slice
    - fruit, fruit and more fruit - strawberries, grapes, apples, oranges, mandarins, persimmons (in season at the moment and delicous!) If it is a large fruit (like a persimmon) I'll sometimes cut it in half and make it two snacks.
    - Roasted sweet potato - 81 cals for 90g baked.
    - Vitawheat multigrain crackers - about 80 cals for 4 (or 6, I can't remember) crackers.
    - Chris' lite hummus (about 60g per serve I think)
    - Sunbeam sultana and apple 30g little boxes - about 80 cals each

    While you're in the supermarket have a look at the mini tins of baked beans and tuna too.

    You can see that most of my snacks aren't very processed - and I think that when you are eating so very few calories you are really going to have to pay attention to the quality of those calories. If you are surviving on 900 cals of mostly processed snacks per day, you are running a very real risk of malnutrition. To say nothing of having almost no energy to do anything fun in your life.

    I know you didn't ask for advice about how much to eat, but I'm going to give it anyway!
    Unless you are under medical supervision, then eating only 900 cals a day is a bad idea.
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