I love, love, love the feedback, questions and concerns everyone writes in – so thank you and keep ‘em coming! Sometimes when I receive a comment, I think it’s worthy of it’s very own post. Having said that, this post is kind of a follow up to a previous post.

Yesterday I wrote that I would rather grab ‘real’ food over a bar any day and a concerned reader wrote in and questioned whether a cheese string was ‘real’ food. My personal thoughts are this: In order to eat healthier, lose weight and maintain weight loss we have to find easy, convenient ways to help us do it. It’s really nice and romantic to think that we can cook all our meals at home and always eat whole foods – but the reality of the situation is that we are all busy with work, kids, school and a million other things.  And the majority of the time, unhealthy snacks seem to be easier to grab than healthy ones. So I’m always looking for ways to make healthy snacks the easy bite to grab.

A cheese string is a great pre-portioned snack that you can carry with you. With 15% (150 mg)  of your RDA of calcium and 6 grams of protein, this grab and go food is a good kick in the pants to help fight off the mid afternoon munchies- and it’s full of protein that will help keep you full. The ingredients are listed as follows: Partly skimmed milk, modified milk ingredients, bacterial culture, salt, microbial enzyme and calcium chloride (a common salt). Yes, there is definitely salt in a cheese string. And those watching their sodium intake should be careful not to eat too many, but at 140 mg per string, that’s about 6 or 7% of your maximum daily allowance.

I don’t necessarily think that this is the snack to end ALL snacks, but I do think it’s good for you. And I also think that it’s way better than going to work without a snack and then turning to the candy machine when you get hungry.A cheese string versus an apple? Well, they are both great AND they both provide different sources of energy and different nutritional benefits. With the cheese string you’re getting protein and calcium. The apple provides you with carbohydrates, vitamin c and fiber. When in doubt, take them both.