Health Options
Add fruit and veggies
to snack arrayEveryone knows that February is the shortest month of the year, but did you also know that February has been proclaimed Potato Chip Month and Snack Food Month by the Snack Food Association and the National Potato Promotion board?
Webster's dictionary defines snack as "a light meal between regular meals." What's your definition of snack food? Does your definition include fruits and vegetables? Not likely. What about a single slice of toast with sliced cheese or a fruit preserve?
Today's image of snack foods includes salted, savory, fried and/or sweet tidbits. They are usually high in calories for their small size, and are typically marginal in nutritional value.
With few exceptions, these tidbits wouldn't be considered part of a real "light meal," either by your mother or your own conscience. Somehow the formal definition of a snack doesn't reflect the reality of what people consider a snack today.
Although the first snack food in America was likely popcorn, by far the best-known snack and first commercially produced snack food was the potato chip. The story goes that George Chrum, the cook on duty at Saratoga Springs resort in New York, created these paper-thin fried potatoes because railroad magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt found his french fries too thick and returned them to the kitchen. Thus, Saratoga chips were created -- now called potato chips.
Over the next 50 years, commercially produced pretzels, popcorn and oil-roasted peanuts would all be introduced into the American diet and represent the savory and salty snacks we know today.
A walk through any supermarket indicates there are as many sweet snacks bought as there are savory. Cookies, cakes, candies, muffins, ice cream sandwiches, sodas and fruit drinks are a significant portion of what we eat. These sweet treats also typically pack lots of calories in relation to nutrients and other beneficial food components.
The act of snacking goes hand in hand with passive activities such as watching television or movies. Consequently, this month is likely to be very successful for snack-food producers and potentially rather inflating to waistlines.
The Super Bowl served as snack-season kickoff. This will be followed by two weeks of televised Olympics. This is peak season for world-class couch potatoes to serve and consume tons of typical high-calorie snacks.
So how many calories can be consumed over an evening of watching sports? If the snack is a typical potato chip, an average person can easily consume 200 calories in five minutes. Add to that another 100-200 calories from a beverage while your attention is glued to the television. Now repeat this behavior once or twice hourly each day during the Olympics and enough calories can be consumed snacking to gain one-fourth to two-thirds pound of fat per day, if this is in addition to normal eating.
And to make things worse, your brain may not even register that you've eaten.
Here are a few tips to help you snack sensibly.
1. Decrease portions and calories eaten at main meals throughout the day.2. Make television time a meal by starting with a large salad (and low-calorie dressing) and some sliced fruit.
3. Make plenty of low-calorie snacks available (carrots, celery, pretzels), along with the high-calorie ones.
4. Choose lower-calorie versions of your favorite snacks, such as baked or reduced-fat versions of chips.
5. Use tomato or fruit salsa for dips.
6. Have some low or non-calorie beverages available, such as Celestial Seasonings cinnamon iced tea.
Health Events
Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S., is a food and nutrition consultant
and owner of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.
She is also responsible for the nutritional analyses
indicated by an asterisk in this section.Alan Titchenal, Ph.D., C.N.S., is a sports nutritionist in the
Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Science,
University of Hawaii-Manoa.