145. 3 Tips to Master Your Snacking : ‘The How, The How Much and The How To’…of a Snacking Habit

A few weeks ago, we talked about exercise snacking and it got me thinking, it got me thinking about snacks in general. 

How did we even start snacking? Do we need snacks? And what's the best way to snack?

If we do, we talk about this and more on this week's episode of health bite.

As much as you do not want to dwell too much on calorie counting and restricting, given how many of us struggle with our weight and feel stuck trying to figure out how to manage it, it might be a good idea to take a step back and think about how these seemingly small things can be affecting your health goals.

Here’s What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

• The fascinating history of snacking: Uncover the surprising origins of our favorite munchies and question if snacks are a necessity or just a delicious indulgence.
• Master mindful snacking: Understand the "why," "how," and "how much" to make healthier choices.
• 3 tips on how to snack responsibly, and conquer cravings for a healthier lifestyle.

Tips on Mindful Snacking to get you on the path to a healthier you:

1. Snacking to bridge the gap to hunger
2. Re-frame your conventional thinking by choosing the right snacks, consider real food, and making sure it is protein-packed
3. Don't fall for food myths
4. Go with something that’s high in nutrition
5. Mind your portions on snacking

“...remember the job of a SNACK is to address a hunger gap. Snack if and only if you are genuinely hungry. ” - Dr. Adrienne Youdim

We hope this episode helps you navigate your next snack attack with mindfulness and intention. Think about how and why we are using food. And if it's not for hunger, then let's tackle what it is that you're truly hungry for. 

Head over to the show notes, sign up for our newsletter, and download your five actionable bites toward healthy living, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our podcast for more valuable insights.

Remember that your health matters and we want to empower you to take action towards a healthier lifestyle. Until then, I wish you all a happy, healthy, and mindful week ahead! 

#HealthBitePodcast #SnackingHabits #MindfulSnacking #WellnessJourney #HealthAndWellbeing

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Transcript

So, a couple weeks ago, we talked about exercise snacking, and it got me thinking. It got me thinking about snacks in general. How did we even start snacking? Do we need snacks? And what's the best way to snack if we do? We talk about this and more on this week's episode of HealthBite. 

Welcome back to HealthBite. The podcast for small, actionable bites towards healthy living. If you're new to this podcast, head over to the show notes and grab your actionable bite towards healthy living. I'm going to send you five bites to fast track you into the practices that will help you achieve greater mental, emotional, and physical well being that I discuss with you on this podcast and with my patients in my medical practice every single day. 

I'm your host, Dr. Adrienne Youdim, and I'm excited to share with you this week's bite. 

So today we're talking snacks, and you might be surprised to know that how we snack and even how we eat in general is arbitrary. 

You wouldn't know it because influencers out there will have you believe that we were created to eat six times a day, or we were meant to have three meals and two snacks, or fast, or yada, yada, yada, making claims with such conviction that you're hard pressed to reject their advice. 

But even our convention of three meals a day, that's a social construct.

In fact, it only came to be after the industrial revolution, when factory schedules dictated that workers eat at a certain time. People would have to eat before work, after work, and once during the day to refuel. And voila, we had three meals a day. The concept of snacking is equally random, maybe even more so because it wasn't born of necessity, but capitalism, at least to the extent in which we consume snacks today. 

Snacks do have an ancient past. 

So from ancient times, light foods and leftovers were consumed between meals. And these tended to be natural foods, things like grapes, figs, or apples. But in the 19th century, interest in snack foods, in America, of course, shifted from natural foods to prepared commercial foods, those that had high salt and sugar content. 

Do you know what the first snack food was in America? It was peanuts, sold by vendors on the street and later in circuses and fairs, and later yet at sporting events. But snacks didn't really become mainstream until the 1950s. That's when the snack industry got smart and adopted production methods from the auto industry, no less. Yep, from production lines. 

So you all know about Fritos corn chips, right? It's not my favorite, but funny enough, something that my husband, Dr. Bruce, gravitates towards all the time. I think he actually has some in his drawer at work and in the operating room. But they took a popular Mexican street food called fritas or fried things, and they turned it into mass-produced, mass-marketed snacks by the 1930s. In 1950, they used Henry Ford's assembly line to mass-produce the snack and many others to make them mainstream. And that's how it all began. Pretty interesting, right?   

Many have linked the rise in obesity and the obesity epidemic to the rise in snacks. 

There's a well-known researcher actually by the name of Barry Popkin. I remember hearing him at a conference many, many years ago. He showed that the average portion of salty snacks increased from 132 calories to 225 between the years of 1977 and 1996. The average soft drink went from 144 calories to 193 calories. And this trend only increased with time, particularly as snacking has replaced real eating. 

Actually in 2021, 64% of consumers said they preferred snacking over meals, with their preferred snacks being salty snacks and candy options. Think about that, we're no longer eating, we're just snacking. And while I hate to play the calorie game, it's eye-opening to just be aware of what this may mean to our bottom line. So let's consider a healthy option, terra chips, for example. Do you know these chips? People think they're healthy because they're vegetable chips. So consider that one serving of these veggie chips is 150 calories. Not bad, you may think, until you realize that one serving is 14 chips. When was the last time you ate 14 chips? A standard bag of Terra chips, and I don't know if you've seen them, they come in small little black bags. They're smaller than your average Ruffles or Doritos potato chips. A standard bag of Terra chips is over a thousand calories. And while you may say, I've never consumed an entire bag, can you imagine maybe having consumed half? Probably because half the bag is air, right? There you have it, over 500 calories right there. 

So again, I don't want to encourage calorie counting and restriction, but with so many people struggling with their weight and feeling stuck about how to manage that, it might be helpful to just consider our patterns and see how these seemingly really small things may be undermining us. 

Keeping in mind that snack foods in particular have been purposefully created to be high fat, high salt, and high sugar, a combination that makes them most palatable, habit-forming, and difficult to resist. I mean, you've heard the adage, no one can eat just one. Yep, that pretty much sums it up. 

But there is a reality that sometimes we do need to fill the gaps of meal time and address genuine hunger. 

So how can we do that? How can we snack responsibly? Here are some strategies that I share with my patients every day and ones that I try to keep in mind myself. Number one, remember the job of a snack is to address a hunger gap. So this may be a no-brainer, but snack if and only if you are genuinely hungry. Not because someone told you it will boost your metabolism, that is bogus, it will not. And not because you are tired or bored, two really common reasons that we snack mindlessly. So tip number one is to address the true hunger. And if it is not genuine hunger for nutrients, then give yourself what you're truly hungry for, a change of state, a change of activity, rest, whatever it is, I promise it will be more satisfying. 

So now that we've determined that you are genuinely hungry, then snack with an item reliably manage your hunger and get you through the gap. Now depending on how hungry you are, this may look more like a meal and that's okay. Typical snack foods will not quench your hunger, at least not in the portions that are suggested. So don't opt for conventional snack items. 

Consider real food, like the remainder of your lunch salad or even your lunch sandwich, a few pieces of leftover chicken, maybe some eggs. It may not sound like a snack and that's okay because I'm asking you to reframe conventional thinking to give yourself what you need and to address your hunger head on. Now perhaps you are looking for something small and bite-sized. 

Keep in mind that protein is the most satiating macronutrient. 

So consider something like a cup of yogurt or some hard boiled eggs. It's not fancy, it's not sexy, but again, your job is to manage the gap and to do it in a way that's not going to affect your bottom line.

If you're looking for something crunchy or savory, consider making garbanzo snacks out of roasted chickpeas. There are so many quick and easy recipes you can find online. Or maybe have veggies like cucumber or jicama with salt and lemon, even chili powder or Tahin. It's not quite chips, but try it. It's actually pretty satisfying as a crunchy, salty snack. And another twist on veggies and dip is adding ranch powder to plain Greek yogurt. So you can find ranch powder in the supermarket. It's super low calorie, just a bunch of herbs and zest. Mix it into a thick and creamy Greek yogurt, which is high in protein, and dip into it with your veggies. It's much more satisfying and much more nutritious than a ranch dressing. 

And speaking of chickpeas, hummus is also a good option. If you're looking for something sweet, consider adding cacao powder or even some chocolate whey powder to a vanilla Greek yogurt. I was stuck on this for a long, long while, and I really loved it. And if you have protein powder, that's also a great way to manage the gap. A high protein shake. I like to put instant coffee decaf in our chocolate whey del powder to make it kind of Frappuccino-ish. Sometimes I will add PB2, which is a desiccated organic peanut butter powder, to our vanilla whey protein to get kind of a peanut butter taste. 

But again, if you're genuinely hungry, go for something high protein and something that will truly satiate you. But I want you to watch for snacks that are really energy dense and that don't give you a lot of volume while they give you a lot of calories. Things like nut butters or nuts and seeds themselves are snacks that people frequently consume, but they can add up really quick, especially if you're using it to quench that hunger. And cheese, that's another one. I definitely don't think cheese is a great snack unless it's cottage cheese. 

Finally, don't fall for food myths like fruit juice or juice based smoothies, acai bowls, trail mix, granola.

All of these quote health foods are more sugar than they are nutrients despite their bogus health spin. Next tip, go to something high volume, high nutrition. Some of the most nutrient dense foods have the lowest energy density, meaning you get a lot of nutrients from the food, but they aren't high in calories. So I talk about arugula a lot just because it's a mind blow. 30 vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, but only five calories per cup. 

So this is more than just saying eat your veggies. This is saying that veggies can give you lots and lots of nutrients without affecting your budget. 

Snap peas is another great option. Carrots, I personally love cauliflower. I steam and roast them and I always have them in the fridge. If you're curious, try truffle zest. You can get that on Amazon. It makes everything taste truffly and decadent, including your veggies. So use the nutrients and low energy density of these foods as a way to take advantage of volume so you feel full. 

Again, go back to what are we trying to accomplish by eating a snack? 

And don't forget about legumes. We talked about chickpeas, but soybeans are another good one. protein, lots of fiber to slow down the gut and help you feel full. And last but not least, don't vilify fruit. Use it to satisfy your snack attack. In general, I say head to the fridge and not the pantry. And that makes sense, right? What you get from the fridge is whole foods, less processing, meaning less processed with salt, fat and sugar, which puts you in that habitual loop, that hamster wheel that keeps you going back for more and more. 

What about snack timing? Snack timing is also important. And in general, front loading your food is better than back loading. 

What I mean by that is that if you consume bigger, heavier meals for breakfast or even lunch, it is much better to your metabolic health and the way that we metabolize food than if you were to skip all day or go super light all day and then really back load your food intake with a heavy meal. Not to mention the negative effect that has on your digestive health, and it also impacts your sleep. The same goes for snacks. In fact, a study showed that greater morning snacking was not only associated with greater fruit and vegetable consumption, which has benefits that are far more or far outweigh your weight.

We know that high fruit and vegetable consumption also impacts your physical health, but it's even been shown that five servings of fruits and vegetables per day increase your creativity and productivity in the workplace. 

Pretty crazy. As opposed to evening snacking, which is associated with more processed foods, a higher intake of fast food, things like French fries, soft drinks, and not surprisingly, late snackers have a higher weight and BMI. It's also been shown that evening snacking is also associated with a higher percentage of the time of eating while distracted, suggesting that mindless snacking, aka boredom, fatigue, is what typically happens when we snack in the afternoon or in the evening. So again, think about how and why we are using food. And if it's not for hunger, then let's tackle what it is that you're truly hungry for. 

And last but not least, mind your portions. This is not an all or nothing proposition. If you're really jonesing for that salt, fat, and sugar, then manage your portions, maybe with a prepackaged snack pack or by eating something more wholesome first. 

In the end, it's all about being mindful and considering the why, the how, and the how much. Well, I hope this episode helps you manage your next snack attack. 

As I mentioned, if you're new here, head over to the show notes, sign up for our newsletter, and download your five actionable bites. I'll see you here again next week. And until then, I hope you have a happy, healthy, and mindful week. Until then.