by Dr Deborah Lee, Dr Fox Online Pharmacy
Image by Chil Vera from Pixabay
We Brits love snacking! 87% of us admit to snacking every day, according to a 2023 Nestlé (Nature’s Heart) survey. We snack on chocolate (63%), crisps (57%) and cakes (45%). More than half of those surveyed (57.7%) said they had a snack instead of a meal, at least once a week. If you start missing out on meals, the nutritional quality of the snack becomes even more important, and you are less likely to achieve our 5 fruits and veg per day.
- What are the pros and cons of snacking?
- What’s the healthiest snack?
- What’s the unhealthiest snack?
Take a look and find out.
What are the pros and cons of snacking?
The pros of snacking
- It helps get rid of those hunger pangs between meals.
- It restores blood glucose levels.
- It’s an additional opportunity for nutrition.
- It can be helpful for those with small appetites, perhaps due to illness, who need to eat little but often.
The cons of snacking
- Too much snacking lowers your appetite and can result in skipping meals.
- Snacking on high-fat, high-sugar and high-salt foods results in food cravings and reinforces unhealthy eating behaviour.
- Snacking on high-calorie foods leads to obesity and the associated medical problems.
What’s the healthiest snack?
When you want a snack, think about snacks that can improve your health – not worsen it. A snack should provide only 10% of your daily calorie intake. Each snack should only be 150-200 calories.
Snack on foods that are high in protein, fibre, and whole grains, or fruit and vegetables. Nuts and seeds contain large quantities of health-giving antioxidants. Use snacks as a way to get your 5-a-day – Some now advise 10-a-day.
Ideas for healthy snacks
- Cut up sticks of carrot, celery or apple. Raw fruit and veg are high in fibre which helps you feel fuller for longer, improves gastrointestinal transport, prevents constipation and lowers cholesterol.
- Hummus, cottage cheese, or avocado – these can be spread on whole-grain crackers. (One serving of avocado is 1/3 of an avocado). These are high in protein, and eating more protein helps you feel fuller for longer. Cottage cheese is a low-fat, low-calorie cheese.
- Fruit – for example, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, mango, pineapple, grapes, melon or banana. These are rich in vitamins and minerals, and are powerful antioxidants, meaning they counteract the dangerous effects of oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress underpins the development of many of the chronic diseases we see today including heart disease, type-2 diabetes, cancer and dementia.
- Cherry tomatoes -these are another potent source of antioxidants especially lycopene, which prevents DNA damage and supports the immune system. One portion is 7 cherry tomatoes.
- Nuts – a handful of nuts – preferably unsalted. These are high in protein, healthy unsaturated fats, vitamins, minerals and fibre.
- Seeds – a handful of pumpkin or sunflower seeds provide a range of important nutrients and are high in fibre.
- Cheese – 6 or 7 small cubes of mature cheddar, Edam or Gouda. Dairy products are rich in calcium needed for bone health and iron needed to make haemoglobin.
- Full-fat yoghurt – this tastes better and is more satisfying than fat-free yoghurt. Choose a live, probiotic yoghurt – which provides healthy bacteria to improve your gut microbiome.
- Make your own vegetable crisps – using healthy olive oil and vegetables such as kale, beetroot or sweet potato. This is another way to get your 5-a-day. Chickpeas can also be roasted in the oven to give a healthy crunchy snack.
- For a sweet fix – try a sugar-free jelly or 2-4 squares of dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids). Dark chocolate is lower in sugar and has a higher flavanol content than milk chocolate.
The NHS has a range of healthy snack ideas.
What’s the unhealthiest snack?
Unhealthy snacks are those made up of processed and ultra-processed foods. These foods are high in calories but have little or no nutritional value. However, they are often foods we love eating – and are high in sugar, fat and salt. Manufacturers make them like this on purpose as they want us to keep buying them.
Common examples of the unhealthiest snacks are crisps, chips, biscuits, cakes, pastries, chocolate, ice cream and desserts.
These foods are addictive. Research shows that eating processed and ultra-processed foods stimulates the pleasure centres in the brain in exactly the same way as a shot of cocaine! Sugar leads to the release of dopamine – the happy hormone. Repeatedly eating sugary snacks reinforces the neural pathways, leading to sugar cravings and withdrawal symptoms. It’s vital to break the cycle and stay away from unhealthy sugar addiction.
- Sugar – Adults should only have 30g of sugar per day – that’s about 7 sugar cubes. Children aged 7-10 should only have 26 g of sugar per day – 6 sugar cubes. Children aged 4 -6 should only have 19 g of sugar per day – 5 cubes.
Sugar is often a hidden ingredient in food – always read the labels. The average chocolate bar contains 25 g of sugar – that’s almost your whole daily sugar allowance in one item of food. If you start snacking on chocolate, no wonder it’s impossible to stop!
- Fat – Saturated fats raise blood cholesterol levels and increase the risk of atherosclerosis, the main cause of heart disease and stroke. Snacks such as cakes, biscuits and desserts are generally high in dangerous saturated fats and trans fats, as are fried foods such as chips and burgers, and fatty meats such as sausages and bacon.
A sausage roll is one of the worst types of snacks – being high in saturated fat, trans fat and calories (300-400 calories per sausage roll). It also contains pork which is a red meat. Eating too much red meat increases the risk of bowel cancer. The WHO has classified beef, lamb and pork as a class 2A carcinogen.
- Salt – Salty snacks are a common cause of excess salt intake. We should all be taking in no more than 6 g a day of salt, but the average Brit consumes 4 g per day – 40% more than the recommended amount. A high salt diet is a major cause of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. Salted crisps and nuts are relatively high in salt.
People often do not realise how much salt is hidden in their food. Surprisingly, bread and cookies, which don’t taste salty, often have a high salt content. Sorry to say it again but one of the worst culprits for salt is the sausage roll which contains 1.6g of salt (around 25% of an adult’s daily recommended daily intake).
Final thoughts
If you need to snack between meals, think carefully about how to improve your nutrition, not worsen your health. There are many healthy, fun, satisfying ideas for snacks.
The NHS has a range of healthy snack ideas.
- What could you do to snack more healthily?
- Why not try some healthy snacks today?