Healthy snacks to keep cravings at bay

Snacking, or eating between main meals, is a common habit that around 86% of adults do at home. Snacking happens for a number of reasons, including:

• Hunger – snacking to acquire satiety from food
• Boredom – snacking to pass time
• Availability – the snacks are accessible and readily available to consume
• Addiction – snacking to meet an addiction to a substance such as sugar
• Social pressure or culture – snacking to appease others, or because it has been socially normalised
• Procrastination – snacking to avoid doing something else

Although snacking is not inherently ‘bad’, it is often seen as a bad habit because of the foods that people choose to snack with, and how often they snack.

Often, it is easier to reach for a snack that is nutritionally poor (for example, highly processed, or high in sugar or saturated fats), because these snacks are conveniently packaged and provide a short term high. Therefore, snacking becomes a bad habit due to the intake of unhealthy food, leading to dietary imbalance and potential weight gain.

Snacking on a regular basis can have the same effect. However, while consuming an unhealthy snack every once in a while may not do much harm to your body, doing so regularly may have unwanted side effects.