Staff Picks: Healthy Snacks to Keep at Your Desk

Stave off midday munchies with these editor-approved options

Snacking is easy, but snacking right can be hard—especially at your desk. Here’s how Outside staffers stay healthy and sated during our long workdays.

Fruit

I keep it light with refreshing, in-season fruit like grapes, cherries, strawberries, and watermelon. Fruit is hard to really overeat, and it fills me up without making me feel overloaded or fatigued. Plus, it usually won’t tear up my stomach during lunchtime and evening workouts.

—Abbie Barronian, assistant editor

Nuts

Nuts! More precisely, raw almonds and cashews, which do an amazing job of satiating hunger and powering me up for a lunchtime run without filling my belly. I always pack them in a relatively small container, because if I have the whole bag, I’ll eat all of them.

—Mike Roberts, senior executive editor

Nuts are a staple desk snack for me. They’re savory, packed with healthy fats, and stave off hunger between lunch and evening climbing sessions. My favorite is raw pistachios, but peanuts also do the trick (I know, they’re technically legumes!). I buy them with the shells on so I can pace my snacking.

—Ula Chrobak, editorial fellow

Hummus

My absolute favorite snack is hummus with pretzels or carrot sticks. If I have a busy weekend, I’ll just buy hummus from the store and split it up in Tupperware containers. But when I have a little time to spare, I love prepping this homemade lemon hummus. It’s pretty impossible to find this flavor in a store, and the recipe is so easy to make at home with a blender or food processor that it’s worth the extra effort.

—Abbey Gingras, editorial assistant

Peanut Butter, Two Ways

I eat sliced apples with peanut butter. It was my favorite thing to make for myself at home after cross-country practice when I was in high school. It’s still my favorite snack.

—Svati Narula, social media editor

Every day, I have a midafternoon snack of two rice cakes smothered in peanut butter and topped with banana slices. It usually turns my keyboard into a sticky mess, but it’s the perfect blend of carbs, fats, and proteins to give me the energy I need to have a productive afternoon.

—Ben Fox, associate reviews editor

Eggs

I’ve been cutting back on meat lately, so I’m always looking for ways to get more protein into my diet, especially in the past few weeks as I’ve started returning to the climbing gym. (Gotta work on my noodle arms!) My friend and Outside video producer Marie recently taught me how to make the perfect poached egg, so my new go-to breakfast is avocado toast with pepper, chile flakes, and a poached egg.

—Abby Wise, online managing editor

Edamame

I like edamame as a salty afternoon energy booster. It’s a high-protein, low-calorie snack that satisfies my potato chip craving and fills me up enough to carry me through an after-work hike or climb until a late dinner.

—Kaelyn Lynch, editorial fellow

Seaweed Snacks

I love my seaweed snacks! And these seaweed crackers. Apparently seaweed is the new superfood (so many minerals!) but I mostly just can’t get enough of that briny flavor, and I like to eat crunchy things when I work. If you don’t have a good Asian market nearby, Trader Joe’s usually has them.

—Luke Whelan, research editor