Top 5 worst snacks
Just get to know the worst snacks that are ruining your diet. Why are these products unhealthy? How to deal with snacking between meals? How to prepare for shopping so as not to be tempted by a candy bar? We encourage you to read!
Long breaks between meals and a poorly balanced diet can cause hunger and a desire for a snack. In such moments, it is difficult to resist temptation. If you decide to eat something, make sure it is a nutritious product, not the worst snacks, which are empty calories.
Snack – what is it?
A snack is any food that is eaten between main meals, such as breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Very often, it is not a full meal, just a product that we happen to have on hand. And what you have at hand determines whether your snack will be nutritious, or just an additional amount of calories without a positive impact on your diet and health.
Worst snacks — avoid these items!
The worst snacks can be called all those products that are not recommended in any diet, i.e., traditional sweets and salty snacks. The former mainly consist of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, are usually low in dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Salty snacks are characterized by a high content of fats, especially saturated fatty acids, and a large amount of salt, which, when overused, does not contribute to health. All these products are highly processed and contribute to the development of obesity and many other lifestyle diseases.
Chips and crisps
Chips and crisps are very popular additions during sports events or movie sessions at home or in the cinema. Unfortunately, despite the apparent pleasurable time, they do not support maintaining a healthy diet. These salty snacks are a concentrated source of saturated fats, salt, and trans fats. Moreover, during the production of chips and corn crisps, acrylamide is formed, its high consumption is toxic to the nervous system and increases the risk of cancer.
Sweets
Sweets, as the name suggests, mainly consist of sugar. Very often, the sweetening substance can also be high-fructose corn syrup or fructose syrup. Such sweets usually do not contain any vitamins, minerals, or dietary fiber. High consumption of sweets leads to the development of overweight and obesity, carbohydrate disorders such as type 2 diabetes, or insulin resistance.
Candy bars
There is a whole range of candy bars on store shelves, from traditional to keto and high-protein. Unfortunately, most of them in a small portion can provide even 400 kcal! Very often, seemingly healthy bars with the addition of nuts or cereals also contain sugar and other sweetening substances, and very often at the forefront of the composition. In the compositions of candy bars, we will also find palm oil, which very often occurs in a hardened form. During the hydrogenation of this oil, trans isomers are formed, which affect cell membranes, increase the level of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood. These changes lead to lipid disorders.
Breadsticks and crackers
Wheat salty snacks, like chips, also provide the body mainly with saturated fats and salt. Their ingredients also include sodium bicarbonate and other food additives, which, apart from giving structure or preserving products, don’t offer any nutritional value. Although breadsticks and crackers are salty, they often contain sugar as well. As a result, such a snack will not provide a long-lasting feeling of fullness but will only contribute a significant load of empty calories to the diet, landing them in the worst snack category.
Fast foods
Fast food snacks can replace a huge meal with their calorie content. Burgers, fries, breaded meat are among the worst snacks. They often look innocent, but their nutritional value can be very surprising. A burger can provide even 1000 kcal! The bun, often containing significant amounts of sugar, and the meat or vegetarian meat substitute, usually fried in deep fat, can fill the entire daily fat requirement. The addition of sauces, whose main ingredients are often oils and sugar, are also not recommended. Combined, they make a caloric bomb, which unfortunately will not provide a long-lasting feeling of fullness and will additionally contribute harmful trans fats to the diet.
Snacking – how to deal with it
Emotional hunger
Sometimes our stomach doesn’t really demand food. Extreme emotions in many people trigger a very strong need to reach for food, which is not related to physiological hunger. How to distinguish emotional hunger from physiological hunger and how to deal with it, you can read here.
Regular meals
Eating regular meals helps program our body and learn not to feel hungry between meals. It’s worth listening to your body and checking whether it serves you to eat 3 larger meals or if you prefer to eat less but more often. Regular meals regulate the secretion of the hormones leptin and ghrelin, which affect the regulation of hunger and satiety.
Shopping
When going shopping, remember to be full. Hunger in a place with a huge selection of unhealthy snacks will not be your ally. Go shopping prepared, have a list with you. The right shopping list will reduce the risk of reaching for a product that you don’t need.
Control your diet with Fitatu®
Diet control is easier with Fitatu®. In the app, you can plan regular meals and the appropriate number of calories for each of them. Moreover, if you decide on a snack, you can check its composition and caloric content in the app before eating. With Fitatu® Premium, you can create a shopping list, which will protect you from buying the worst snacks.
Fitatu® App
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