5 Healthy Snacks for Moms-to-Be

When it comes to a healthy pregnancy snack, a winning choice involves high levels of both energy-boosting nutrition and delicious flavor. As champion snackers, we know this all too well. Thankfully, our current choices prioritize plant-based nutrition—making use of whole foods, plant-derived protein sources and minimally processed ingredients and sweeteners—and taste really good, too. So whether you want to start the day on a nutritious note, need to fuel up before or after a workout or crave something convenient, healthy and tasty, pick your pleasure.

KIND Breakfast Bars

KIND, the current king of snack bars made with minimally processed ingredients and whole foods, introduced a line of breakfast bars earlier this fall made with a gluten-free blend of super grains: gluten-free oats, millet, buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa. Choose from five flavors—dark chocolate cocoa, blueberry almond, honey oat, raspberry chia, peanut butter (our favorite). Find them now exclusively at Target and Target.com, as part of the retail giant’s Made to Matter–Handpicked by Target collection, and then on KIND’s website and in additional stores in January. kindsnacks.com

Chosen Foods Bites with Chia

One word sums up these tasty bites: crunch. Packed in handy single-serve pouches, the little nuggets—loaded with healthy fats, omega-3s, protein and fiber—have less than six grams of sugar a serving, which means you will get an energy boost without a major blood-sugar spike. Vegan and gluten free, Bites with Chia rely on chia seeds and a host of wholesome ingredients (pecans and organic sesame seeds included) to help further its mission of bringing superfoods to the masses. chosen-foods.com

Vega One Bars

No matter how committed you are to making nutritiously sound snack decisions, there are days when eating well can seem nearly impossible. Vega One Bars battle back: Dosed with omega-3s, antioxidants and 1 billion probiotics, the tasty bars are sweetened with minimally refined sweeteners (organic raw agave, organic tapioca syrup). Chocolate Peanut Butter is the best-tasting chocolate peanut-butter health bar we have come across; Chocolate Coconut Cashew and Chocolate Cherry Almond are tasty, too. A bonus? Each one is equivalent to a single serving of greens. myvega.com

Go Raw Coconut Crisps

If chips are your thing, try swapping the notoriously unhealthy versions for Go Raw Coconut Crisps, a twist on chips made with dehydrated coconut in savory (Tangy Lime, Salt & Vinegar) and sweet (Choco Chunk). Go Raw preaches the virtues of raw foods, which retain live enzymes that are killed by cooking. goraw.com

Perfect Bars

The San Diego–based family behind Perfect Bars has a heart-warming backstory and a recipe based on its late patriarch’s nutrition know-how. Protein-rich and spiked with more than 20 superfoods, including kale, spinach and alfalfa, the bars use organic honey as a natural preservative and are at their freshest when kept in the refrigerator. They come in seven flavors including Cranberry Crunch and Fruit & Nut; we are smitten with Almond Coconut (vegan, thanks to dates swapped in for honey) and Almond Butter. Gluten-free and Paleo friendly, too. perfectbar.com