Hey y'all,

Several years ago (literal years) I asked my readers what ideas they had for quick fuel, for what they eat when they're heads-down on a deadline and don't want to lose 20 minutes to actually cooking something, and today I was digging through my "ideas" folder (I highly recommend keeping folders like this) and found an old list of all the recommendations I got.

So here's the crowd-sourced list (along with some of my own commentary or suggestions) of what you might eat when you're convinced your butt is welded to the chair and long breaks might kill your writing or editing momentum. Or you're on a deadline and now every minute feels like it's more important than the last, even though you spent the last 3 months playing Simon's Cat on your phone (wait, is that just me?)

Steal whatever sounds good, keep it near your desk, and stop skipping meals and food because this is something that's actually crucial to your writing--fueling your body and your brain!

No prep required

• String cheese, a handful of nuts, or a cheese stick (I like Babybels). One reader keeps "a small snack bag with nuts. Pistachios, almonds, peanuts or mixed. That ties me over until lunch."
• Beef/turkey/chicken sticks
• Yogurt (plain, Greek, whatever) with granola or berries stirred in. (I also like doing peanut butter powder in yogurt for more protein.)
• A sprinkle of chia added to the yogurt/berries/walnuts bullet ("walnuts are great brain food!")
• Apple slices with peanut butter and a dash of cinnamon. (Pro tip: heat the peanut butter in the microwave and pour it over the apple slices for "peanut butter apple nachos" and thank me later. Just heat the peanut butter slowly. It stinks when you burn it in the microwave. Not that I know.)
• Cottage cheese, plain or with applesauce or a fruit cup (I like mine topped with season salt!), a reader agrees: "Cottage cheese and apple sauce (separately or together)"
• Grapes and cheese
• Hardboiled eggs (make a batch on Sunday, or buy the prepackaged ones from Costco, like I do). Someone else copped to the same habit: "Boiled eggs, even though I probably eat eggs too much, lol."
• Rice cakes or crackers with peanut butter or cashew butter
• Crackers and cheese (plain, distinct from the peanut butter crackers already in there)
• Individual packs of maple and brown sugar oatmeal
• Chips and hummus
• Sargento snack packs of cheese, nuts, and cranberries ("I love them and they help me with portion control")
• Oranges with pistachios or other nuts
• Grape tomatoes (one reader listed them alongside cheese portions and berries)
• Half a cup of cereal, dry, straight from the bag if that's your vibe and you're desperate (lol), as one reader put it, "Cereal is quick and one of my go to's."

Minimal (or no) cooking

• Baby carrots, cucumber slices, or bell pepper strips with hummus or ranch. One reader's version: "Cucumber slices and hummus or dip."
• Peanut butter and sliced banana on toast with a drizzle of honey
• Sliced tomatoes and anchovies on toast with salt and a drizzle of olive oil (the bruschetta-style one)
• Ham and cheese tortilla roll-up (distinct from the "quick wrap" bullet already there)
• A cup of granola or muesli in low-fat milk
• Whole wheat flatbread with peanut butter and apple, sliced on top with cinnamon
• Roasted apricots drizzled with honey and cinnamon
• Jimmy Dean egg sandwich things ("keeps me full for a bit actually")
• Baked oatmeal, egg & toast, or a whole wheat waffle with nut butter (one reader listed all three)
• Oatmeal with walnuts and raisins
• Tomatoes with balsamic vinegar (add mozzarella and call it fancy), which is basically what one reader already does: "I cut a tomato and eat it with mozzarella cheese.. drizzle some balsamic for a lil razzle dazzle.."
• Japanese-style pickled cucumbers
• A bagged salad kit (just don't buy Taylor Farms, lolol)

Five-ish minutes of effort

• Avocado toast, or naan with seed butter (a reader's exact suggestion: "avocado on toast")
• Grilled cheese with tomato, avocado, and red onion, word for word from a reader: "Grilled cheese on wheat with sliced tomato, avocado & red onion."
• English muffin with butter and preserves (one reader's version uses ginger preserves specifically, which, noted)
• Smoked salmon on wheat crackers, or a smoked salmon lettuce wrap.
• Tofu, kept prepped for quick snacking
• A DIY snack box: fruit + veggie + protein + fat, with cubed turkey/ham/chicken
• Yogurt and fresh berry parfait with granola, made ahead
• ​The Trader Joe's 1-minute lentil salad​
• A can of smoked oysters and crackers
• Whole wheat flatbread with peanut butter and an apple, a reader's go-to office breakfast: "If I'm feeling fancy I'll slice the apple on top and sprinkle with cinnamon. Keep it at my desk."
• Sliced tomatoes and anchovies on toast with salt and a drizzle of olive oil, a reader's savory spin on bruschetta: "you save time on dicing tomatoes and garlic by just slicing them and laying the anchovies over the top. I love it as a savory snack."
• Quick wrap: tortilla, lunch meat, cheese and a condiment of your choice
• Cup of noodles/ramen with egg, rotisserie chicken, or quick veggies on top. (Keep the broth, whisk an egg into it, cook for 60-90 seconds in the microwave and enjoy a steamed egg.)
• Girl lunch: a heated chicken sausage, mustard, a handful of raw veggies, cottage cheese (this is one of my personal faves)
• Cannot stress enough how handy it is to have a rotisserie chicken. You can use it for so many quick meals.

Batch it once, eat it all week

• Frittatas baked in a cupcake tin, frozen in portions, this is basically a direct steal from a reader: "I bake frittatas in a cupcake pan adding whatever vegetables I have, then I have one for each morning. I freeze all but two."
• Grilled chicken thighs or soft-boiled eggs, prepped Sunday, the reader who does this also keeps "soy eggs on hand" (I love soy eggs!) and eats the chicken "with crisp cucumbers or on ramen or with rice," which honestly sounds better than whatever I usually make
• Quick quiche
• Muffins, baked and frozen, a reader does this too: "I like to bake and then freeze muffins so that I always have them on hand for snacking options!"
• Homemade trail mix (whatever nuts and cereal you've got, I like to add cut up beef jerky and craisins). Someone else's version: "Chex cereal, almonds, cashews and hazel nuts"

The "I forgot food is a thing today" tier (this is the tier I need most often)

• Bone broth, sipped slowly for hours (as I wrote this, I was actually drinking bone broth), a reader summed up exactly why: "you can basically live off of it, it fills the void, its good for you, and you can sip it for hours."
• A protein shake or clear protein drink
• Low-cal smoothie with almond milk and frozen berries
• Fruit with a V8 juice chaser
• A "nectar protein shake" that's more juice-consistency than shake
• Graham crackers, walnuts, and a couple squares of dark chocolate (for real answer someone gave me, and I respect it completely, "That's breakfast for me a few times a week.")

I hope you find this list helpful but please remember that the actual point isn't the list.

It's that you, and your writing brain, deserve at least the minimum care you'd give your child, partner, pet.

Five minutes for a cheese stick and some grapes is not the thing standing between you and finishing the draft, I promise.

Happy writing! ~AJ
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