Tuesday, 6 May 2008

Dictionary.com describes a snack as being "a small portion of food or drink or a light meal, especially one eaten between regular meals"; Wikipedia.com says it is "seen in Western culture as a type of food not meant to be eaten as a main meal of the day (breakfast, lunch, dinner) but one that is intended rather to assuage a person's hunger between these meals, providing a brief supply of energy for the body, or as a food item consumed between meals purely for the enjoyment of its taste." I'm sure you didn't actually need the definition of a "snack". I'm sure everyone is familiar with the concept. But sometimes it is worth getting down to basics and considering something once it has been broken down to it's bare minimum.

It's interesting that in the latter definition (and I think this is the key point), a snack is something undertaken purely for enjoyment of it's taste. This is the key to why snacking leads many of us to make unhealthy choices. We are interested in hedonistic pursuits, in scratching our itch, or feeding our sugar monster in order that he carry us across the finish line of the workday (I know I'm susceptible to a chocolate muffin or a bag of "choc nibbles" of an weekday afternoon).

It is Mother Nature's cruelest trick that those things which are bad for us, are also those which taste so good. But there are healthy snack foods out there. Snacking can still be hedonistic, it can still pep us up, it can still scratch our itch without adding gunge to our narrowed arteries or inches to our expanding waistlines.

MCS Wellbeing, in conjunction with Herbalife weight management products, provide healthy snack foods which include healthy snack bars, milkshakes, and even a replacement for nuts and crisps, in the form of roasted soybeans, for those with less of a sweet tooth. Why not check out the product here today and help yourself to cut down on the wrong food when the cravings peak?

Labels: healthy snack foods