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On this episode of the Daily Dollop, we're chatting about some important information to consider when it comes to snacking and finding what's right for you. Hey, hey, my name's Kate. I'm a registered nutritionist, and after 20 years in the field of nutrition, I'm tired of seeing people stressed about eating and confused about where to start. And so, I'm changing the conversation.
You deserve to feel confident in your food choices and empower it to maximize your health. Every weekday will dull up an episode into your feed, covering everything from busting nutrition myths, practical food ideas, my thoughts on trending topics, and habits for a healthy life. My promise to you, it will always be sustainable, realistic, restriction-free, and strictly no-woo. Only good science translated into easy, everyday advice.
Let's do this. Welcome back to the Daily Dollop Hot House, everyone. I hope you are having a fabulous Monday so far today, and for the rest of the week, actually, is all about snacking. And I've got some super important information to share about snacking to start off our snacking series, which essentially will help you decide whether you should snack or not.
I'm actually not going to tell you what to do, but what I am going to do is to present you with some information and some research so that you can make that decision for yourself. And I think that this is a really important part of being a health practitioner. Many people find it really refreshing to not be told what to do by their health practitioner, but rather presented with information so that they can make their own decision. But sometimes, depending on where we are in our health journey, that can feel really frustrating because you're like, hey, just tell me what to do, man.
This is frustrating. Should I snack or should I not snack? And I have had this question from clients over the years and for people on social media so many times, and they're genuinely like, please, just tell me what to do. Should I snack or should I not snack?
And frustratingly to them, and I fully get it. But I have to stay true to the profession and to the evidence. I often will answer that question by saying, well, it depends. And that's because it does depend.
Nutrition information requires a context. That context is you, the individual, and whether you should snack or not is dependent on so many different factors to do with you, your life, your appetite, your energy needs, your food environment, your routine. That there just simply isn't a straight answer that I can give you. And in fact, even when you're making the decision to snack or not, you're not going to find that this is consistently one way or the other every single day.
So for example, you might decide, no, snacking is not for me. But maybe some days you don't snack and other days you do. And that's perfectly okay as well. And the most important thing I think with nutrition is remaining flexible.
And that as your life and routine and needs change, that you are renegotiating what nutrition looks like for you. And that you're not bogging yourself down with these specific rules and restrictions in terms of how things have to be because you're changing, you're changing over time. And so what I'd rather do is just present you with some information so that you can, day to day, week to week, decide what is the right thing for you when it comes to snacking. So firstly, it's important to define snacking.
So we all know what we're talking about. And this might seem like a silly thing to do, but when it comes to looking at research and science, one of the most important parts of this process is defining what we're studying so that we can then put some parameters and markers around it so we actually know what's going on. Now, it's actually pretty difficult to define snacking because it looks like different things for different people, but essentially for the most part in the scientific literature and most people's understanding is that snacking is eating in between your main meals. So breakfast, lunch and dinner, snacking is eating in between those times, or potentially eating small meals, small little snippets of food frequently throughout the day, but you can see how it starts to become quite complex where we could define it for different people.
But essentially, yeah, we're talking about eating in between main meals. Here's what the internet says about snacking, which is probably part of the reason why we're so confused because it makes pretty black and white statements about it, and most of those statements are contradictory. So here's what I've read on the internet about snacking recently. Eat regularly.
Five to six more meals per day is good. Then next, snacking is unhelpful. Try to stick to two meals per day. This came from a dietitian, an accredited practicing dietitian, so a qualified person.
They're making black and white statements about snacks, which I thought was very interesting, but I digress. Next thing I saw on the internet, try not to let yourself go too long between eating occasions, so no more than four to five hours, it's normal to feel hungry then. That's actually something that I really like and agree with. But again, it's like a bit of a set rule or regime.
In the next breath, or the next social post, it's fasting is good for you, aimed to only eat during a certain window each day. That's contradictory. Snacks are unhealthy. And then in the next breath, snacks are on opportunity for nourishment.
And honestly, what are you supposed to believe? I feel for anybody who hasn't done tertiary education and can't wade through all of this information and the nuances that nutrition presents to us. So don't worry, I've got you back. I went digging through the science and found an excellent review paper on snacking and health.
And I've summarized the key takeaways from that paper, and I've linked to that paper in the show notes. If you would like to go and read it for yourself, it was a very nice little summary. So here is what I found, and I'm going to touch on some things in today's episode and then keep chatting through them throughout the week. And I've grouped them into kind of topics.
But here's what I found straight up. Whether snacking impairs or promotes health has to do with the types of food selected to snack on. So this is not surprising, right? You guys are like, yes, Kate, of course, what you eat is important.
Right, I agree too. The main takeaway, essentially, is what you choose to eat is essentially more influential to your health than how often you eat. So that's very important. So if you are making decisions about whether you're a snack or an aunt or you eat three meals a day, whatever, you need to know that it's neutral.
So how frequently you decide to eat is not a predictor of health. It is what you're choosing to eat on. And potentially how frequently you eat may affect what you choose to eat in some way, but it's not causal, right? So there are no rules.
And it's actually not evidence to base to say so otherwise. So people who were saying you should fast and you should only eat one meal a day or that dietitian that I came across that was saying you should only eat two meals a day. Right, that's not evidence based. So they're just essentially putting a bunch of structure around their advice to help you achieve a particular result.
But when it comes to long-term health, it doesn't matter how frequently you eat. Also, I think in terms of food timing, when it comes to deciding for you, rather than thinking about what particular experts are saying and who you're deciding to trust, it's really better to find what works for you and your routine when it comes to timing. So basing food timing on what's going on in your life, because you might be in meetings all day or you might be in the car traveling. Thinking about your routine is really important.
The ultimate timing, I believe, based on the evidence for you to eat is when you feel hungry, when you can eat according to your current situation. You're able to eat and then whether you've got food available to you or not, all of these are important factors that influence when you can eat. The next thing I found from my research is that much of the research on snacking is inconclusive or contradictory because we all define snacking differently and it's difficult to control for all the variables. This is super interesting and important to know.
And this means that we really can't make any hard and fast statements about snacking and say that it causes particular things about our health because the research is actually contradictory and inconclusive. And if you think about the complexities of life, how we eat, all the variables that go into the way that we choose food, not to mention all of the lifestyle variables, that affect our health, this makes a lot of sense. So as a result, any black and white blanket statements that you see about snacking that's shared on the internet by qualified people or not, you need to understand that it's not backed up by evidence. They essentially made it up because the evidence doesn't exist as it's just too difficult a topic to study and get consistent evidence on.
So to all the snack demonises, they just need to shush. The next thing that I found is that snacking leads to an increase in eating frequently. Great. That's no surprises there.
So most people will be like, yeah, if I snack, I'm eating more regularly throughout the day. So that snackers tend to be people who eat more regularly. So they eat at regular intervals as opposed to people who are just eating like one or two meals a day and that they're not eating very regularly at all. The last thing I found for today's episodes is that existing evidence suggests that increased eating frequency may not compromise diet quality and may actually be associated with a high nutrient intake.
Assessing energy intake and nutritional quality at the individual level is important. So as someone who has worked with clients and individuals on their nutrition for a long time, this is something I frequently recommended based on the evidence and it's great to see in this recent review that this is still the case. So my main take home message is see snacking as an opportunity for nourishment and as a way to get more nutrients into your diet and essentially do it in a way that suits you best. And really, if you're feeling a bit confused or a bit stuck or you've got some complexities in your routine and life and with your nutrition and the way you're thinking about food, get a nutrition professional on board like, you know, some non diet dietitian or someone on my team so that they can help optimize this for your individual situation.
And one of the key challenges that people face when it comes to eating is that they are trying to eat according to a set of like and white rules. And I do meet so many people who are trying not to snack, but it's clear they're hungry at certain points in between meals. And so planning to have something to eat around this time is often very helpful for them, but they don't. And so they're unprepared.
They're either snacking on foods that they don't want to snack on or they're overeating at their next meal, or maybe they're trying to fast and they find themselves binging when they eventually eat, or they're snacking on foods that don't give their body sufficient energy to actually genuinely satisfy their hunger. And it's this sort of flow on. So I've developed a series of habit building modules on snacking that walks you through the fundamentals of choosing food for long-term health, understanding hungry versus non hungry eating and creating and nourishing snack. The goal is that you are empowered to choose what's right for you with how you eat and then feel confident in those choices that you're making and you're happy that they're supporting your long-term health.
So you can download Ailer Health and start the nourish your body pathway and build habits that stick long term. That is it for today's episode. We will catch you in the next one with some more info on snacking. The Daily Dollar Podcast is proudly brought to you by Ailer Health.
Build food confidence and learn how to choose foods that are right for you and your body. Download the app today and build habits at that last. As always, you can find out more about our chat in the show notes. You can also join the conversation over in the Ailer Health community group on Facebook.
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