10 Reasons (and ways) to Eat More Snacks Today

If you ever feel bad about eating snacks, I have good news for you.

Snacks are a good thing.

Of course, they should be filled with whole food-focused goodness. But that’s not even the biggest challenge.

The challenge is rethinking how we think about snacks.

These days, snacking is simply HOW we eat

And if you’ve ever been on a business trip and filled out an expense report, you’ll know what I mean.

Three Meals per day Doesn’t Work

I used to travel for work. Every week, we’d submit expense reports.

There were two basic rules:

1. Individually and as a whole, expenses needed to be reasonable.
2. Each transaction needed to be itemized.

For example:

• 10/23/15; Breakfast; $8.
• 10/23/15; Lunch $15
• 10/23/15; Dinner; $28

Pretty reasonable, right? Three meals per day.

Yet, erratic schedules and busy days make eating like this quite difficult.

Why?

How was I supposed report expenses on the days when I did not have three conventional meals per day? What happens if my first meal is at 12:30 pm? What happens if we go to two different places for dinner? What happens if I want my company or client to pay for a beer? 🙂

The answer was snacks!

Snacking was clearly how I ate.

Little “meal” here. Little “meal” there.

So why try to fit my expense reports into rigid categories when I could be more accurate by listing everything as what they really were? Snacks!

Because let’s face it: we’re all busy and have schedules that vary by day.

So why not embrace the reality. Three meals per day doesn’t work very well anymore.

A day full of (hopefully healthy) snacks is a better approach.

10 more reasons to embrace snacks

As discussed above, snacks are the way most of us eat, most of the time, these days.

So instead of resisting it, let’s discuss more reasons why it’s so great.

1. Snacks are a break from work. Open your drawer and pour out some nuts. What a great excuse to stop working!
2. Snacking is social. Happy hour is not a one of the typical three meals. But aren’t there always snacks going around?
3. Snacking is great for road warriors. I joked above that putting a “snack” on your expense report is a great way to get your company or client to pay for booze. But the best way to survive traveling a lot IS with booze. Wait, what? Did I say booze? I meant snacks. Keep a bag of raw almonds and raisins in your bag to snack on when you need. 🙂
4. It’s easier to identify snacks as healthy (or not). Full meals are complicated to categorize as healthy or not. Snacks, however, are easy. Pretty much, if there’s a nutrition label, it’s a snack you ought to avoid. Whole food snacks, like bananas, don’t have nutrition labels for a reason. They’re not necessary.
5. It’s easier to shop for snacks. You can load up on all kinds of hummus, salsa and other dips that are ready to be scooped.
6. You’ll save money. Meals are expensive. Snacks are not. Plus, when you’re constantly grazing on the fresh stuff at the house, there’s less waste (and waist!).
7. Save time. Snacks are quick. Zero prep or cleanup required for carrots dipped in hummus. Zero.
8. Quick wins. You probably know how easy it is to dip things into salad dressing. But do you know what your store-bought salad dressing is doing to you? Making your own is incredibly easy, quick, and cheap way to get a huge win.
9. Better way to manage body weight. They say more, small meals are better for your metabolism than fewer, large meals. Did someone say meal plan?
10. Sustained energy. Constantly snacking is a great way to keep your energy levels (and blood sugar) high. Sweet.

So we’ve made it abundantly clear that snacks are great and ought to be embraced. Now, let’s talk about some easy, healthy and quick ones that should be in your life today.

10 snacks that you should bring into your life today

Here are a few snacks to get started.

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Now this certainly is not an exhaustive list.

So I will ask: What do you think are good things to snack on?