Health-Conscious Snacking

Snacking is one of the most difficult aspects of a nutrition plan. It is almost criminally easy to take in hundreds, if not thousands, of calories while sitting in front of a television and mindlessly munching on snacks.

On the flip-side, snacking is not inherently bad. It can stave off hunger until a proper meal, keep our metabolism going, fill in nutritional needs, and give boosts of energy.

The trick with snacking is making the right choices so that we get what we need from it, without the massive flood of calories that sidelines our goals.

Reading labels on different snacks will quickly teach you one thing:

Most snack foods are calorie bombs and are nutritionally weak.

Snacks like potato chips, cookies, sodas, pretzels, most granola bars, sodas, muffins, etc. are almost all over 300 calories per serving. Some muffins that are marketed as snacks come in at over 700 calories. It’s no wonder that between three meals and maybe two or three snacks per day, we can easily put down over 4000 calories in a single day.

So how do we go about snacking without overshooting our calorie goals? One piece of advice that totally changed how I snack was to pay attention to water content.

Certain foods, like fruits, have high water content. This means that they will fill up your stomach without being high in calories. Grapes and watermelon are a good example because they have so much water that eating a bunch will fill us up but won’t bring in a ton of calories.

A cup of grapes, for instance, only has 62 calories.

A cup of watermelon has 47 calories.

An apple has 95 calories.

A cup of strawberries has 54 calories.

You might have noticed that all these examples are fruits. You may also remember that people are always saying “you should eat more fruit” while others say “fruits have too much sugar.”

Let’s unpack that. Yes, fruits are mostly sugar (carbohydrates). However, judging by the caloric content of most fruits, you would have to eat an obscene amount for this to present a problem.

Compare a cup of grapes (62 calories) with half a cup of almonds (413 calories). Almonds are a very healthy snack, but they’re stacked with calories. You can eat almost 1000 calories of almonds, before you even start to feel like you ate anything. On the other hand, an entire pound of grapes only has 306 calories. If you’ve ever eaten a pound of grapes, you know it is incredibly filling.

The other advantage that snacking on fruit brings is the micronutrients they provide. Fruits are full of vitamins and minerals that are essential to our health.

Other foods that have high water content:

• Lettuce — salads can be great snacks as long as you watch the dressings you use. Oil and vinegar is the way to go if you’re trying to keep the calories down. Vegetables, in general, are high in water content.
• Soups — water-based soups and broths are also a good option, although many soups can have very high fat content or sodium content. Look for the healthy options.
• Yogurt — while flavored yogurt usually has a lot of sugar, unflavored yogurt (or yogurt with just fruit) can be a great source of protein. It’s also almost 90% water.

This simple tip can be a game-changer in anyone’s quest to control their caloric intake. Often, simply reducing the calories from snacks can be the difference that leads to a change in our bodies.

What do you think? Had you thought about fruits and snacking this way? Are you planning on using this tip? Also, if you’ve been following along with all these articles, how are things going? Are you seeing any differences in your choices? I’d love to hear from you!

Until next week,

— Johann