Snacks
Diet
Most dieticians are now in favour of smaller meals spread over the day. Sometimes these supposed meals are so light that they may more properly be called Snacks.
If these snacks are carefully spread out and form part of your eating plan for the day then they can play an important role in balancing out your energy and nutrition needs. If, however, the Snacks are a little more spontaneous then they are more likely to be processed and high in sugar and fats.
The most common fats in this case are the saturated and trans fats which in large quantities are not conducive to good health.
Comfort Foods
Now sometimes we can reach for the favourites in the pantry that not only supply us with energy but also give us a feeling of comfort. These so called comfort foods include chocolate, candy, chips, bread, crackers and cakes. The latter tend to be the more refined varieties that give a solid sugar hit. Some of these foods actually trigger a release of endorphins and this can make them very tempting.
Weight Gain Snacks
At different times in your life weight gain may in fact be important. As a patients recovering from long term illness you may need to regain weight to return to a healthy body mass.
Breast feeding mothers often need a little help in keeping their weight up due to the demands of pregnancy and child raising.
Weight lifters struggle to eat enough food at normal meal times so are very likely to benefit from snacks over the day to help builds new muscle.
Weight Loss
It may seem strange to now talk about weight loss when talking about snacking. Yet many successful weight loss programs use snacks as part of the calorie control in the diet. These are usually low carbohydrate snacks in the form of drinks and food bars. They are carefully constructed to supply specific calorie counts and are often high in fibre.
Healthy Snacks
Healthy foods are a great source of ideas for snacks but this does not in themselves make them better than highly processed foods. Some fruits have high sugar levels and not ideal to be eaten in large quantities. As with most things it is balance that we are after and there are many varieties of fruit and vegetables so they can be mixed and matched over the day to give a healthy balance of nutrients.
Kids and Snacks
Kids and Snacks are usually food in close company. Where you might spend half an hour trying to get a child to eat their meat and veges at dinner time they will race out to the ice cream truck in seconds. They are likely to prefer the sweet and salty, high fat foods that the advertisers promote in the media over your raw salad.
This does not mean we should give in to their demands - we just have to be a little cleverer.