Welcome to Nutrition Bites. The no nonsense podcast where you get the truth about food so you can eat what you want and be healthy. I’m your host Maggie and welcome to the series! The idea of only eating food at three specific times in the day is history. Now, for better or worse, we all nibble on crunchy, salty, and sweet stuff in between breakfast, lunch and dinner. But this habit just may be our latest nutritional downfall. On the menu today, snacks.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a snakehead. I’ve always preferred the squirrel-like behaviour of constant nibbling throughout the day versus saving my hunger for a big, hearty meal. Whether it was keeping an emergency granola bar in my bag, stashing a box of cereal in my school locker, or storing a tin of trail mix at the office, I’ve consistently had a snack on hand. Just last week I threw a clementine in my purse before leaving for a coffee shop, just in case I got hungry en route. All this to say, snacking and me are close pals. And I know I’m not alone. Whether it’s on-the-go, during a work break, or late at night to accompany a TV show, snacking is a shared human experience. And it’s not a new phenomenon either. This habit has long been ingrained in many cultures, specifically a pre-dinner snack, like British tea time, French goûter, and Filipino meh-rien-da. But in the past few decades snacking has transformed into something we do wherever and whenever. And with our lives becoming increasingly time-constrained, grabbing a quick bite in between meals, or in place of meals, seems like a necessity. But this habit is starting to affect our health - causing unintended weight gain and contributing to the rise of chronic diseases. So is snacking inherently unhealthy? Or is there something else to blame for its bad reputation?
Religion, work life, location, culture and food security have long guided when and how often we eat. The 3-meal-a-day ritual we’ve come to subscribe to only really took hold during the Industrial Revolution. Prior to the late 1700s people rarely ate three meals a day. And if you want to rewind the DeLoren even further back, our human ancestors didn't give a hoot what time it was - they ate what they found, when they found it. But now that many of us are privileged enough to meet our caloric and nutritional needs every day the necessity of a snack is lessened. Now snacking still remains a good tool to quiet a rumbling tummy or halt creeping fatigue, but the reality is, most of our motivations to snack are not driven by nutritional demand. Social settings, boredom, fatigue, stress, or lack of self-control when something sweet is on the table (my personal downfall) are all common reasons why we snack. And it’s these types of motivations that get us in trouble.
A Youtube series I’ve been digging lately is called Snacked - an interview-style segment where celebrities showcase their favourite bites. Whether it’s pro skater Tony Hawk, K-Pop group Twice, or comedian Hasan Minhaj, their snacks all have one thing in common - they are what we would culturally refer to as junk food. Now, the gravitational pull towards high-sugar, high-fat, and high-calorie snacks can be partly blamed on biology. Especially during periods of boredom, stress and fatigue we are biologically wired to seek short-term satisfaction. And a great way to achieve this is by eating hyperpalatable foods aka the packaged candies, cookies, and chips we know and love. Now the reason why in these states we open up a bag of chips over baby carrots boils down to neurochemicals and hormones. And taking centre stage is dopamine - the feel-good chemical produced by our brain.
Hyperpalatable foods are often processed foods designed to be ultra tasty and keep us coming back for more. From a nutrition POV they are often packed with sugar, salt or fat. Unsurprisingly, eating hyperpalatable foods activates the pleasure centre in our brains, and subsequently causes a flood of dopamine to be released. This surge in feel-good dopamine excites our nervous system, helping us to temporarily tackle boredom and provide short-term stress relief. In addition to the gratifying effects of a dopamine flood, other chemicals in our body are also released when we eat these high-sugar, high-fat and high-calorie foods. Sugar in particular is known to trigger the release of opioids - our body’s natural painkillers. But this stress-relieving effect of a sugar-induced opioid flood has a pretty big downside - addiction. Anti-sugar wellness advocates, aka the internet’s fun police, often love to compare sugar to classified drugs. It’s a pretty extreme comparison but there is an ounce of truth to it - the more sugar you regularly consume, be it in drinks, meals, or snacks, the harder it becomes to cut back. And this can be particularly problematic if you’ve already built a habit of consuming high-sugar snacks on the regular. Of course it doesn’t help that being bored, stressed or fatigued is also associated with loss of motivation to stick with healthy habits. And to make matters worse, stress and fatigue also cause a surge in our cortisol levels, which can disrupt our hunger hormones - making us feel ravenous even if we don’t actually need to intake more energy. So in summary, with the same conviction as the Witch who convinced Snow White to eat the poisoned apple, states of boredom, stress, and fatigue all influence our hormones and neurochemistry to lead us towards the land of Oreos and Doritos.
Now this biological drive to eat less healthy snacks wouldn’t be so bad if we could simply avoid being bored, stressed, and tired. But when was the last time you felt simultaneously engaged, relaxed and well-rested? Hard to even remember right? And considering that 24 hr drive throughs, vending machines and food delivery apps all contribute to a food landscape where hyperpalatable food is available everywhere at all times, it’s no wonder we have difficulty choosing more nutritious snacks. And observational research confirms this. Our globally preferred snack choices are not veggies and unsalted almonds - it’s chips, candies, and cookies.
As someone who uses parties as both a social and snacking opportunity, I’m not going to say you should never eat ultra-processed, hyperpalatable snacks again. These kinds of foods all have their time and place. I mean, imagine never getting popcorn at the movies? Or forever refusing your colleague’s fresh baked cookies. But the frequency at which we snack on these foods, and the fact that we often do so when we’re not even hungry, is problematic. The main health outcome that results from our modern snacking habit is unintended weight gain. And continued overtime this can put us at risk of developing chronic diseases like type two diabetes, hypertension, cancer and depression.
But it’s not just an over consumption of calorically dense and nutritionally poor foods that can make snacking an unhealthy habit. Research shows that many people around the world now skip meals in favour of snacks, mostly because they feel they no longer have the time to sit down and eat. And this is troublesome because meals are often higher in nutrients that our snacks lack, such as protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals. This means that people who replace meals with snacks are not only at risk of decreasing the intake of nutrients they need, but are also at risk of further increasing the intake of salt, sugar, and fat, nutrients we tend to already overconsume. This imbalance can eventually lead to a state of overnutrition - a type of malnutrition related to the development of obesity and associated health issues.
But like I said at the start of this episode, the act of snacking isn’t inherently bad - it’s the choice of what we snack on, and our motivations for snacking, that can lead us down a detrimental path. At its core snacking is a useful strategy to intake calories when our body needs it. If you feel hungry or have low energy in between meals, snacking on a piece of fruit, handful of nuts, or a single-serving of yogurt, is a great way to meet that energy demand. Snacking can also be a helpful way for folks with small appetites, like children or those recovering from illness, to get all the nutrients they need in a day. And planful snacking can also help people meet nutrition goals, like eating 5 fruits and veg a day. There are also specific individuals who need to snack to maintain their health and well-being. For example, diabetics who need to control their blood sugar levels and competitive athletes who require additional energy to support their recovery and training. But purposeful and planful snacking takes effort. So how do you start?
Step one is often the hardest: understanding why you snack. Identifying your individual motivation is necessary to help create strategies to tweak your behaviour. And in addition to asking yourself “why?” you snack, throw in a where and when question as well. After all, our food choices are influenced by our mental state, environment, and lifestyle so all aspects need to be evaluated. For example, does your snacking kick into high gear during moments of stress? Is it triggered by social situations? Or is it a Tuesday thing when you’re rushing from work to doggy day care to soccer practice in a matter of hours. Once you have your shortlist of snacking activators, the next step is to talk to a professional or research some ways to help shift your habit into a healthier direction.
In parallel, another way to help you snack smarter, and just eat better in general, is to listen to your body. And I mean, really listen. Now, I’m going to get all hippie woo-woo for a second but bear with me. Actually eating when you’re hungry, and stopping when you’re not, is a behaviour that most of us don’t engage in. Despite learning to literally scream for food as an infant, somewhere along our growth many of us get out of tune with our hunger cues - especially when tasty treats are accessible on the daily. Learning to listen to our bodies better and consume a snack or meal only when we’re hungry, and stop when we’re satisfied, is a really important way to prevent overeating.
Getting in tune with our hunger cues also helps us better control the portion size of our snacks and meals - an issue many of us struggle with. I think we’ve all heard of the tip to portion out ice cream into a bowl instead of inhaling it straight from the pint. But how often do you actually do this, or better yet, do it but then go back for seconds or thirds? I for one cannot be trusted to follow the bowl method. So being in tune with your body is a great way to learn how to just eat enough so that your craving is satisfied. It may seem like Jedi-level skill, but this method of intuitive eating is definitely attainable.
Once you’ve got a grasp on listening to your hunger cues, the final step in obtaining your smart snacking Girl Scouts patch is to choose satiating snacks. Protein, fibre and fat all keep you full, so make sure that your snacks contain at least two of these nutrients. Combos like yogurt and granola, an apple with nut butter, carrots and hummus, and cheese and wholegrain crackers, all meet this satiation principle. But also keep in mind that sometimes you’ll want to snack simply because of a craving for a particular flavour or texture, not due to hunger. And it’s OK to satisfy these cues too. Personally I manage my daily sweet craving with fruit - which may sound like a boring nutritional scientist recommendation, but in my books, nothing beats the citrusy joy of a fresh clementine. And while I’ve generally shifted my snacking habit towards more nutritious choices, I also recognize that eating dried figs is not the same as candy. Sometimes that Sour Patch Kids itch just needs to be scratched and so I allow myself to occasionally indulge in those hyperpalatable snacks too.
Overall it’s key to remember that snacking is an important and delightful part of our lives, but how we snack today isn’t particularly healthy. Our preference for snacking when we’re not hungry, and choosing foods high in calories, sugar, and fat, can lead to unintended weight gain, overnutrition, and other related health issues. But with busy and stressful lives, a biological hardwiring for hyperpalatable foods, and an environment that serves snacks on demand, it takes effort to change our ways. Fortunately, we have tools to help. Self-evaluation of our motivations, learning to listen and respond to our hunger cues, and building bites that truly satisfy, are all strategies to help us snack smarter. And speaking as a reformed cookie monster I’m here to tell you that purposeful snacking can still be nutritious, satisfying, and oh-so-delicious.
That’s been the bite for today. Stay hungry.