Snacks, Snacks, Snacks!

One of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to my eating habits is constant snacking. And for some reason I always tend to gravitate towards the saltier foods, like popcorn or chips. As I looked through What to Eat by Marion Nestle, I felt like her section titled "Snack Foods: Sweet, Salty, and Caloric". Some of my favorite snacks include pretzel thins, Cheez-its, goldfish, pita chips, jello, candy, and more. Within the pages of this section, Nestle covers different aspects of snacks, including the business/ advertising side and the health side of different types of common snacks.

As I read through Nestle's findings, she says, "The most popular snacks among teenagers in the early 1980s included baked goods, dairy desserts, and salty snacks, but also included more nutritious foods like milk, fruit, fruit juices, and bread" (Nestle 360). This information was very interesting to me because it doesn't seem like much has changed as time goes on. My biggest problem is that I like to eat the salty snacks, rather than the milk and fruit. That lead me to reading the subsection titled, "The Salt Problem".

In this subsection, Nestle begins by explaining that a product is only allowed to contain 480 milligrams of sodium per serving (Nestle 365). I have noticed that when I eat a snack that comes out of a large bag where you have to dish your self the amount that you want, like a bag of chips, I often am eating more than just a serving.  "In 2005, the Dietary Guidelines advised Americans to 'Consume less than 2,300 mg of sodium per day' (the equivalent to about 1 tsp of salt)" (Nestle 365). All of this information inspired me to look into the salt in some of my favorite snacks. I looked at Cheez-Its and Stacy's Pita Chips.

When I eat Cheez-Its, its always so hard to stop because they are so salty  and delicious. As I read through the nutritional information on the side panel of the Cheez-Its box, One serving of Cheez-Its is 27 crackers(about half of what I usually eat in one sitting). In each serving their is 230 mg of sodium, which is 10% of the amount that you should be consuming on a daily basis. This means that each time that I go and have a bowl of Cheez-Its, I am consuming 20% of the amount of sodium that I need to be eating everyday. 

Another one of my favorite snacks is Stacy's Pita Chips. Every time that I eat them, it always crosses my mind how salty they are. The serving size for these salty baked chips is 9 chips. Although I usually consume around 3 serving in one sitting, the ratio of salt per serving doesn't change. In each serving of Stacy's Pita Chips, you will find that their is 270 mg of sodium, which is equivalent to 11% of your daily amount needed. This means that each time I eat pita chips, I am consuming about 33%, or 810 mg of sodium in one sitting. Wow!

This section was definitely eye opening for me. Not only did I discover the amounts of salt/sodium that I am consuming through my snacking habits, but I also realized how poor my portioning of food is. I am going to not only take steps to slim down my portion sizes of snacks, but also swap out my salty snacks for healthier ones, like fruits. 

Question: What's your favorite thing to snack on? Would you consider it to be healthy or junk food?

Works Cited: Nestle, Marion. What to Eat. New York: North Point, 2006. Print.