Snacks are an important and healthy way to fuel your body in-between meals. But when you follow a paleo diet, things can get tricky when it comes to snacking. Avoiding grains, dairy, and other products that only became available after farming, means a lot of traditional snacks are off-limits. Here are some tips on how to get more paleo-friendly snacks in your diet.

Dehydrate Fruit

Fruit is nature’s candy, sweet, juicy, bursting with flavor, and rich in nutrients. Fruits are wonderful foods that should play a bigger role in your diet. Carrying around fruit as a snack can be challenging though, because it needs to be kept refrigerated if it’s not going to be consumed quickly. Dehydrated fruit, on the other hand, is shelf stable and easy to take on the go. You can purchase dried and dehydrated fruit at the grocery store, or make it yourself! Just place strips of fruit in a dehydrator and bake for 6-8 hours, until the fruit has dried. It is fun and easy, and tastes delicious.

Make Jerky

If you’re a fan of jerky, you’ll love making it at home. Jerky is dried and cured strips of meat. Jerky has been around for hundreds of years, and is a method used before refrigeration to preserve meat. And it is very easy to make jerky at home, you just have to dehydrate it.

Dehydrating meat removes 80% of the water. This will shrink the meat strips a bit, but also make it chewy and snappy in the jerky way you love. Removing the water is also a large part of what makes a jerky shelf-stable. There are tons of recipes available online to make your own jerky to check out.

Snack on Trail Mix

Lots of trail mixes are paleo, as long as you stick to the ones that are made with nuts, seeds, fruits, and nothing extra like chocolates or pretzels. Trail mix is a great way to get a burst of energy from a good mix of healthy fats and protein. And it’s so easy to make your own at home using exactly what you like.

Following a paleo diet doesn’t mean you have to give up snacking. With a little preparation, you can have delicious and crave-worthy snacks that are paleo-friendly. Give these tips a try and see what is your favorite paleo-friendly snack!

Read this next: How to Listen to Your Body as You Eat

Throwing away food feels just like throwing away money— having your groceries go bad so soon after buying them is frustrating to say the least! How can you prevent your good food from going bad for as long as possible? Here are a few tips that may extend your groceries’ lifespan significantly.

Follow Storage Instructions

Any food item comes with ideal circumstances for storage. While you may think you know where foods should go, take the time to learn exactly where each food item has the best chances of “survival”. For example, some fruits and vegetables will last longer unrefrigerated, like tomatoes, bananas, herbs, melons, and squash. Know what foods need to be kept out of moist areas (like mushrooms or grains), and what foods benefit from hydration (like carrots or celery). Pay attention to labels on packaged foods, and research the unpackaged foods to ensure you are storing them properly.

Process It

Consider processing your foods to give them a much longer lifespan! According to Vacuum Sealers Unlimited, using a method like dehydrating, vacuum sealing, or freeze drying will extend the shelf-life. These methods maintain many of the nutrients and much of the flavor of the produce you love, allowing you to use it for months to come without worrying about rot or expiration. If the food item is not able to be processed, then consider freezing it! Most foods can last almost half a year without acquiring freezer burn, which damages the taste and texture of those foods and exposes them to potentially harmful chemicals from your freezer. Plus, frozen foods retain 100% of the nutrients they contain at the moment of freezing.  

Buy the Right Foods

Be aware of the freshness of your groceries when you buy them. You can’t blame food for rotting when they were on the verge of doing so even in the store! Prevent waste by meal planning and only buying the produce necessary for those plans. Or, implement a process of cycling through your food to make sure that you’re using your oldest things first—this applies to packaged foods as well as produce. And Then We Saved recommends looking at expiration dates before you buy, and (as much as possible) buying products with a naturally long shelf life like pasta, potatoes, dried meats, canned foods or honey.

Each of these things will help you reduce or even eliminate the frustrating waste that you may have from old and rotten food. Try one or try all and enjoy your fresh food, all the time!

Read this next: How to Fit Healthy Eating Into Your Busy Schedule