Making healthful choices when you want a snack
By Raymond Wei, MHA,
CHE for The Health Collaborative
You’ve hit the home stretch at the office. It’s mid-afternoon. Lunch time has passed, and it’s too early for dinner. It’s time for a snack.
A Columbia University study revealed that most Americans eat at least one snack a day. Summer can be prime snacking season for many families. With kids out of school, family schedules and mealtimes become even more unpredictable because of outdoor activities and vacation schedules. With a most hectic schedule, many families substitute snacks for meals and, unfortunately, choose snacks for taste and convenience instead of nutrition.
Contrary to popular belief, snacking does not have to be bad for you. In fact, snacks can provide an opportunity for you to add balance to your diet and keep you from feeling deprived between meals.
Here are some guidelines for smart snacking.
Smart snacking
Consider snacks as mini-meals. Smart snacking starts with thinking of a snack as a mini-meal that’s part of a healthy diet instead of a treat or splurge. Make snacks an integral part of your daily meal plan. Planned snacks complement your calorie intake for the day as opposed to the chips, candy, doughnuts and other high-calorie snacks that are convenient but not nutritious. Enjoying a planned, healthy snack during the day also will help you avoid overeating at dinner.
Plan for success.
Planning is essential to make healthy snacks as convenient as the high-calorie ones. For example, clean and prepare fruit and vegetables as soon as you get them home from the store. If you wait until later, you’ll become hungry and reach for a convenient snack instead of a nutritious one. Other convenient snacks to have on hand are low-fat yogurt, low-fat cheese and lean deli meats. Stock your pantry with items such as whole-grain cereal, snack-sized packages of pretzels and small boxes of raisins or other dried fruit.
Maintain a balanced diet.
Having balanced snacks means eating many different types of foods from all of the food groups. Use the Food Guide Pyramid as your guide for snacks, as well as for meals. For example, snacking on fresh fruits and vegetables will help you reach the recommended number of servings in these groups. Selecting low-fat yogurt and cheeses will help meet your daily calcium requirement.
Taste and texture are important.
The sensory qualities of food – such as crunchiness or how it melts in your mouth – are important to how we enjoy food. If snacks taste good and have a mouth-pleasing texture, you are less likely to miss the foods with higher fat content. Combining food groups adds taste and texture. Eat cereal and fresh fruit, low-fat cheese on crackers or a rice cake with a fresh apple.
Read labels.
It’s important to read snack food labels to be sure that you understand the portion size and calorie count as well as fat, sugar and sodium content.
Shop for alternatives.
Look for the low-calorie, fat-free or low-sodium version of your favorite food. Make your selections with these definitions in mind:
Fat-free: less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving
Low-fat: 3 grams or fewer per serving
Light: one-third fewer calories or half the fat of the regular version
Low-sodium: 140 milligrams or fewer per serving
Lightly salted: at least 50 percent less sodium per serving than the regular version
Reduced: when describing fat, sodium or calorie content, the food must have at least 25 percent less of these nutrients than the regular version
Consider trade-offs.
Even the most health-conscious among us will admit that there are times when only cookies, chips, dips and other traditional snacks will do. Remember that you still have options. Decide whether you would rather have a larger portion of a reduced fat or reduced calorie snack or a smaller portion of the full-fat version.
Tips for smart snacking
• Schedule snacks with a beginning and an ending.
• Try not to eat snacks while sitting in front of the television or in the car.
• Remove a portion of the snack from its package, and place it in a bowl or on a plate before eating.
• Avoid eating snacks within one hour before a meal. The snack could interfere with your appetite at mealtime.
• Eat snacks only when you are hungry.
• Snack one to two hours after you exercise to keep your energy level high.
• Keep portions small. Snacks should contain 250 calories or fewer per serving.
More than two years ago, The Health Collaborative began working with the vending machine industry and the San Antonio Dietetic Association to develop healthful vending guidelines that meet Health Collaborative goals for a healthy lifestyle and guidelines that are realistic for consumers. The efforts of The Health Collaborative and other similar organizations throughout the country were instrumental in the recent announcement that the nation’s largest beverage distributors have agreed to stop selling non-diet sodas to schools. School vending machine beverage choices will include water, unsweetened juice and low-fat and non-fat milk, flavored and unflavored.
These guidelines developed by The Health Collaborative for snacks in vending machines are helpful when selecting snacks at other times as well.
Most healthful choices:
• 3 grams of total fat or fewer per serving.
• 30 grams of carbohydrates or fewer per serving.
• Nuts and seeds are acceptable because they are high in monounsaturated fat.
• Fruit in any form is permitted.
• All candies are considered unhealthy.
Suggested selections:
• Animal crackers, graham crackers.
• Nuts and seeds.
• Trail mix – plain.
• Fresh, canned or individually packed fruit – light syrup or natural juices only.
• Dried fruit – raisins, dried cranberries, fruit leather
• Fat-free popcorn.
• Granola bars, whole grain fruit bars.
• Baked chips, corn nuts, rice cakes, cereal/nut mix.
• Nuts with light sugar covering; honey roasted.
• Popcorn/nut mix.
• Fruit-flavored snacks.
• Pretzels – any flavor.
• Light popcorn.
• Sugar-free gelatin; fat-free pudding.
For additional information, please visit our Web site, www.healthcollaborative.net.
A cutting-edge, public-private model for solving community health issues, The Health Collaborative began informally in 1997 when several area health care organizations agreed to put aside their competitive business practices to conduct the first community health assessment. The mission of the organization is to improve the health status of the community through collaborative means. Representatives of this group are dedicated to the health and well-being of our community in the spirit of collaboration. Partners include the major health systems in San Antonio, Metro Health, the YMCA of Greater San Antonio, Community First Health Plans, Methodist Healthcare Ministries, and a community representative. For more information, visit www.healthcollaborative.net
