On Snacking

It looks like it has taken me all of one post to break out the 'ol "food" tag.  So be it, it's time to talk about snacks.  I'm going through one of those phases right now where I'm trying a little bit to lose weight and am having very slight success, but one of the unintended consequences of this is that I'm spending a disproportionate amount of time thinking about food.  For someone who likes to cook and loves to eat, this is a blessing and a curse.  A blessing because ideas come to me for meals and snacks that otherwise wouldn't have, and a curse because when pizza is on my mind pizza ends up on my plate. So I'm going to try writing about it instead to see if that helps.  My goals here are to answer the questions, "What makes a good snack?" and "What snacks are the best snacks?"  The answer to that question comes in the form of an acronym I literally just made up while writing this sentence that I'm unjustifiably proud of.  Introducing SATE: Satisfaction, Availability, Taste, and Expensiveness. 

Satisfaction
This is a combination of how much a snack satisfies your desire to eat, and how nutritious a snack is.  Cheese sticks for instance, will satisfy your hunger, but they're awful for you.  By the same token, raw spinach is great for you, but you'd have to eat a ton of it to be full.  Something like homemade guacamole would score well here, as it's both filling and nutritious.  Scored at 0-5 for health, 0-5 for filling, total 0-10. 

Availability
This one, like taste, is not going to be static from person to person.  It refers to how easily available an ingredient is for you, i.e. how likely are you to have it in your kitchen/how far are you going to have to go to get it?  For me anything involving tortillas, cheese, peanut butter, eggs, spinach, or pasta rates highly here, a pre-packaged snack from Japan or India would rate lower.  Scored at 0-10, high score meaning I could make it right now, 0 meaning I'd have to get on an airplane to make it. 

Taste
Pretty self-explanatory, how good does it taste? 0-10, high score being the best thing and 0 being the worst thing.  

Expensiveness
Slightly trickier, this one includes both monetary and time costs.  If it takes an hour, its overall snack rating should suffer. Scored at 0-5 for monetary cost and 0-5 for time cost, total 0-10.

Now, I'll put some basic, standard snacks through the metric. 

Quesadilla- The gold standard of snacking, or at least my most common snack.
S: Very filling, not particularly healthy. 4.5+1.5 = 6/10
A: Always have the stuff to make quesadillas at the ready, but don't always have the sour cream.  9/10
T: No arguments, no blown minds. 7/10
E: Ultra cheap, 10-15 minutes of cook time.  4.5+3= 7.5/10
Total: 29.5/40

Spinach Salad- I love a good spinach caesar or garden salad.
S: Filling/less healthy with croutons and too much dressing, or very healthy/not filling if the inverse, call it 4+3.5 or 2.5+5 = 7.5/10
A: If I'm making a garden salad I might be out of one thing or another, but on the whole 8.5/10
T: Caesar tastes better, but they're both good.  6.5/10
E: Inexpensive and super fast 4+4 = 8/10
Total: 30.5/40

S'mores Pop Tarts- A guilty pleasure that I indulge now and then.
S: Fairly filling, completely devoid of nutritive value.  3+.5 = 3.5/10
A: Will have to go to the grocery store, but that's not far. 6/10
T: God they're delicious, though. 8/10
E: Cheap, open and eat.  4.5+5 = 9.5/10
Total: 27/40

Hummus and Pita Chips- Always feel like I don't eat this enough.
S: Filling and not terrible for you! 4+4 = 8/10
A: Grocery store item. 6/10
T: Depending on the hummus, this can be anywhere from 5-8, let's assume I get good stuff or make it myself 7.5/10
E: If store bought it's a little pricey but no prep, inverse if homemade, we'll say 6.5/10
Total: 28/40

I fully intend to do this more with more involved snacks, I just wanted to get my snack-rating metric out into the world.