8 Simple Tips To Keep Your Picnic Healthy Slideshow

No one ever said that picnics are traditionally unhealthy. In terms of quantity, a picnic's caloric spread is limited to what can fit in a basket, and the odds are that you aren't going to want to spend your day in the sun filled with a basket's worth of lard- and bacon-grease-marinated donuts. Look to this list for ideas that will help ensure that your picnic basket's contents are healthy, delicious, and light enough to allow maximum enjoyment during your springy, picnic-worthy day.

Click here for 8 Simple Tips to Keep Your Picnic Healthy.

When faced with processed meats, there are some good reasons to not consume it daily. But enjoying a little (delicious) processed meat during your picnic should be fine in moderation. Prosciutto is one of the healthier charcuterie choices you can make. This relatively lean meat has 60 calories per ounce, comprised of three and one-half grams of fat, eight grams of protein, and no carbs. For a picnic packed with omega-3s, add smoked salmon into your charcuterie mix. It has four grams of healthy fat and seven grams of protein per ounce.

There's nothing like a little cheese to go with your charcuterie. That being said, knowing which cheeses are highest in protein can help to not only fuel your body well but to also help you feel full. At 42 percent protein, parmesan cheese tops the list of cheese protein content. Swiss cheese also comes highly recommended for both its high protein and high calcium content. Two slices of Swiss cheese contain 44 percent of your daily calcium intake and 15 grams of protein.

Sweets with sunshine is quite the pleasant pairing, but your dessert selection doesn't have to be one that will ruin your diet. Consider making healthier chocolate cake or simply snacking on some dark chocolate with a 70 percent (or higher) raw cacao percentage.

Want your sweet treat to be filled with protein? Check out these protein powder-based Vegan Protein Balls.

Fried chicken is a great picnic entrée, but as you're well-aware, this delicious food is loaded with the unhealthy kind of fats. Making your own fried chicken allows you to control the just how nutritious it is. We suggest coating it in a mixture of quinoa, eggs, and Greek yogurt instead of a traditional method of breading.

For the recipe for Quinoa-Crusted Fried Chicken, click here.

If you want to eat whole carrots and cucumbers at your picnic, be our guest. But if you're looking for a delicious, fork-fueled way to consume healthy produce, making a vegetable slaw is the move. All you'll need to do for this light dish is shred, season, and toss your favorite healthy ingredients ahead of time.

Click here for our Healthy Vegetable Slaw recipe.

A lot of sandwiches and dips that people enjoy bringing to picnics are mayonnaise-based. Greek yogurt can replace mayo (and even sour cream) in any recipe that calls for the villainized condiment.

Click here for a Healthy Tzatziki Greek Yogurt Dip recipe.

One of the best parts of picnicking is slowly grazing on food over the course of a few hours. Instead of grabbing a bag of chips or pretzels to share, make a fairly large bowl of salad and bring enough forks for sharing. If you make a delicious, nutritious salad such as this Kale and Brussels Sprouts Salad recipe, you won't even miss whichever unhealthy snack you've replaced with it. With kale, Brussels sprouts, orange segments, almonds, dried cranberries, and manchego cheese tossed with a DIY Creole Vinaigrette, your salad bowl will be the envy of the entire picnicking community.

We suggest drinking wine when picnicking. Other than the fact that you can hoist the bottle to and fro in a trendy wine carrier, there are a lot of healthy nutritional aspects of consuming moderate amounts of wine. Plus, in an effort to keep your picnic as clean and simple as possible, one bottle of wine travels just a bit easier than a six-pack of beer (more on healthy beer choices here, in case you despise wine).