Cook'n is the best selling recipe organizer

If you take road trips, or if your day is so busy that you are forced to grab some attempted healthy nourishment (healthy and nourish being the key words here), well, good luck. Unless we really think things through, we could end up with just a collection of empty-caloried, brain-fog-inducing junk food.

There are some fairly healthy alternatives hiding on the convenience store shelves though - we just need to know to look for them. Of course, even healthy alternatives can be problematic if we consume too much. So watching the serving sizes is the advice as well.

All this said, here are 10 healthy choices available in most gas stations or convenience stores. And by the way, if you happen to frequent a certain store on a fairly regular basis, you might ask the manager to stock any of these items if they're not already offered:

Bottled water


Fresh fruit (usually bananas, apples, and oranges are the choices)


Yogurt (light, low-fat, or plain)


Nuts


Energy bars (Clif, Pria, Nutri-grain, Kashi)


String cheese


Sunflower seeds


Fig Newtons


Popcorn


Beef jerky (a bit high on the sodium though, so easy on the amount you eat)

So now we know we do have some fairly OK options to get us down the road. But my best recommendation is to plan ahead if possible, and bring a healthy snack basket from home. When we do this, I can include my homemade granola bars and no-fat muffins, chilled bottles of smoothies, fresh fruit, whole grain crackers and slices of Cheddar cheese, raisins and nuts mixed together, and my favorite xylitol gum for cleaning our teeth inbetween gnoshing episodes.

Besides the increased health factor, we've saved a bunch of money. Gas station snackies are so expensive!