24
votes
Study on the health impact of snacking shows quality of snacks more important than quantity or frequency
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- Title
- Quality of snacking matters more than quantity or frequency, study shows
- Authors
- Lily Ramsey, LLM
- Published
- Jul 24 2023
- Word count
- 51 words
A classic example is nuts. Nuts are what are called "nutrient- rich" foods because, yes, while they can be high in calories for how small they are, those calories "count" because everything in a nut will either give you protein or a type of fat that is considered "heart- healthy."
White bread, on the other hand, is essentially all sugar. These are considered "empty" calories because all it gives you is a short burst of energy, but not other nutrients your body needs.
So 100 calories of nuts is better for you than 100 calories of white bread because even though the calories are the same, you got some nutrition out of the nut.
Additionally, since nuts provide primarily protein instead of sugar, it takes more time for your body to burn through it. Eating nuts as a snack will keep someone sated for longer.
Replacing snacks with nutrient dense foods such as fruit, vegetables, and nuts can make a huge difference.
What about snack nuts. The ones coated in sugar, salt or spices?
Just curious how those ones stack up.
Sugar isn't great, salt depends on your personal need for salt (great in hot weather if you're drinking a lot of liquids for hydration or other), spices are generally a positive. Something like curry powder or cayenne pepper has minimal nutritional impact, which means you get a lot of flavor for the calories.
Vegetables and fruits are generally good examples. They have very low calorie density since they have little to no fat and have a lot of water and fiber, yet have a lot of vitamins of varying types. Snacks made from whole grains are also good, like wheat bread or crackers like Triscuits, but once again avoiding the ones with lots of butter, oil, or cheese.
They don't have to be fat-free, but some fat sources are better than others. Nuts, seeds, and avocados are better than oils, cheeses, and butter.
Fruit is actually pretty great as long as you're talking about the fresh stuff and not the stuff stored in syrup or dried. Dried fruits not only have more concentrated sugar but you might be surprised that a lot of them have added oils. Yes sugar is bad to overconsume, but like the study says, the vitamins and fiber make it a lot more worthwhile to eat. You might notice that it's a lot harder to overconsume sweets as fruit than it is as candy or donuts or other things made with refined sugar.
Likewise any veg also makes a good snack so long as it doesn't have added fats or sugars. Edamame is a pretty good choice. Most of the ones I love are crunchy so I don't have too many options to give you except maybe some bean dishes like hummus (preferably with little or no oil). Perhaps roast some carrots ahead of time so they get soft and lose the crunchyness. Roasting them well will also make them taste sweeter, giving them an almost caramel-like flavor. And while I don't personally like them, I know a lot of people who could probably live off of sweet potatoes. Try some of the purple ones!
Edit: I saw that @boxer_dogs_dance replied as well and her advice conflicts with me on dried fruit. They're not wrong, so let me clarify a bit. They're not bad, they're just not ideal. They have higher caloric density compared to the non-dried versions.
Grapes generally don't have added oils so they're one of the better options. Dried mango strips are usually oil-free too.
I'd also like to double down on the idea that added sugars are things you should avoid.
It's her lol, but thanks for the information re dried fruits. I just thought about them being soft for OP with their aversion to crunchy things. : )
Argh, I made certain to use gender neutral pronouns as I was writing it, but then I realized I needed to reword it and my stupid brain put in a "he". I'm gonna change that.
I would avoid added sugar if at all possible. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/sugar/how-too-much-added-sugar-affects-your-health-infographic
Dried fruits like raisins would be great. Most of the things you mentioned sound appropriate to me. If you are going to have sugar added choices, homemade baked goods like apple crisp are probably better than fruit cup imho. But you have a lot of options and can work around your sensory aversions. Cooked squash or sweet potato or bell pepper or eggplant is excellent and not crunchy.
If you are going to avoid raw vegetables, consider where else you can add fiber to your diet. Is oatmeal with supplemental foods like yogurt or raisins or berries appealing to you?
I wouldn't put dried fruits in "great" either. They have some fiber, at least, compared to candy, but by drying them out you're substantially increasing the density of sugar, which is why they're so sweet. You much more easily overeat by snacking on raisins than grapes. It's OK, but I'd try to keep dried fruits down as well.
Thanks. I'm learning.
quote Our study showed that the quality of snacking is more important than the quantity or frequency of snacking, thus choosing high quality snacks over highly processed snacks is likely beneficial. Timing is also important, with late night snacking being unfavorable for health."
Kate Bermingham, PhD, postdoctoral fellow, King's College London
So for this researcher 'highly processed' is the opposite of high quality.
Food writer Michael Pollan makes a similar point in his book Omnivores Dilemma. He goes into a lot of detail and history, but suggests buying and eating food made from ingredients that were available 100 years ago. (He's not at all opposed to choosing food from a variety of cultures, just warns us to limit the food that contains multisyllabic factory produced ingredients.)
I find nutritional 'quality' to be quite contextual to needs, of course.
On intense cycling rides where I'll be burning thousands of calories, I'll eat energy gummies and drink soda, which are essentially pure sugar that goes straight into my bloodstream and can be used immediately by my body to keep it performing well. Nuts are also nice for medium-term energy.
But on days when I'm just sitting around watching TV or reading, having energy-dense snacks like the above would be completely mismatched with my energy needs. I still feel hunger and snackiness despite having low-energy needs, so fibrous, low-calorie-density snacks like apples are my go-to.
I find the concept of contextual energy-matching snacking to be lacking in mainstream discourse. But finally getting around to making the core of my eating philosophy helped me a lot with weight management than any strictly categorical thinking about foods.
Since OP has said they find crunch foods distasteful, do you have any ideas? Baked apples maybe?
Dried prunes are a fantastic source of fiber. Medium-high density of calories, but they fill you up much better than nuts, which are easy to overeat in one sitting.
Fresh peaches and plums are wonderful and soft. Low-med calorie density. High fiber. Albeit a little expensive.
I think the search for healthy low-activity snacks is good cause to get acquainted with a good fruit grocer. I go to Berkeley Bowl in, obviously, Berkeley, California, which seemingly offers every fruit cultivar on the planet. But Whole Foods and other nice grocery stores have good selections, as do big ethnic grocery stores, like H Mart, 99 Ranch, and others.
Hi Neighbor! : )
We also shop at the Berkeley Bowl. Fantastic market.
Oh! A fellow worshipper at the Great Temple of Produce! All hail Berkeley Bowl!
Honestly it's probably the biggest thing that keeps me from leaving the area. It keeps my life gastronomically exciting.
I mean, depending on what you need, many towns and cities have cooperative markets that will have similar although not exactly the same food for sale. Davis for example has the Coop.
But everyone leaves or stays for their own reasons.
I'll get back to you if someone else hasn't answered.
The mention of late night snacking being notably bad is particularly interesting. This seems to corroborate the research that intermittent fasting, even with a wide window (say 10am to 8pm), is beneficial to health.
For what it's worth, Sumo wrestlers purposely eat just before sleeping in order to put on as much weight as possible.
I do wonder though, as a night snacker, if it’s not everything else around my life choices that keep me up until ungodly hours, that would make my analytics show me as unhealthy, rather than snacking at night itself. Like if I worked night hours and had a decent life balance, night would be my midday for my biorhythm. I only skimmed it but didn’t see anything about that.
Do you mean 10pm to 8am?
No, they mean the window for eating is 10am to 8pm.