Part 1 – Snacking, Mindless Food Consumption
By: Marlene Lesson, MS, RD, LDN, CDE
Former Nutrition Director, Structure House
Research shows that all of us tend to significantly underestimate how much we eat. We are much more likely to be unaware of how much we eat in between meals.
Snacking is Impossible to Regulate
Regulating how much we eat is much more difficult when we are consuming food by the handful which is often the case with snacks. Also many of our favorite snack foods are high-calorie density (nuts, pretzels, chips, etc). Even the low-fat, fat-free snack foods (Snackwell cookies, baked potato chips, energy bars) are not very filling for the number of calories. Mother Nature’s snack foods (fruit, yogurt, vegetables) are much more satiating for the amount of calories than snack foods from our food manufacturers.
Continuous snacking or grazing is the greatest pitfall. Research shows that people who are able to control weight may eat as many as four or 5 times a day. However, for long-term success, eating occasions should have a beginning and an end. Snacking, in particular, should not be prolonged. Limiting eating to 3-5 discrete times each day helps control weight. The rest of the time we should do our best to forget about food. Food should not be an issue 24 hours a day.
Food for Nourishment
The more often we eat the more opportunities we have for using food for reasons other than nourishment. Much of our eating in between meals may be for emotional reasons rather than nourishment. Ideally, we might work on finding non-food related ways for dealing with our issues. We also may need to explore ways of filling our lives with other pleasures so we are less likely to turn to food.
Many habitual grazers are not accustomed to eating regular meals, particularly well-balanced meals. Some are not used to the taste of healthy meal-time foods like vegetables. Research suggests that we need to try something new 15-20 times before we begin to develop a taste for it. So we need to be patient with ourselves in our efforts to learn to enjoy the taste of a wide variety of healthy foods. Greater emphasis on eating at meals rather than throughout the day encourages healthier food preferences.
According to research, how much we eat is not usually determined by how hungry we or by how good the food tastes. More often we are influenced by the cues and signals in our environment that encourage us to overeat. By deciding to engage in eating at only a limited number of preset times each day, we can eliminate much of our mindless food consumption.
