No snacks? Seriously?

I rarely snack. I prefer to eat larger meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The only time I do snack is if I’m genuinely hungry, I’m trying to use up extra calories, or someone has brought something super tasty into the staff room

BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »

I’ve now read the word ‘snack’ so many times it has ceased to have any meaning!

Maybe it’s an upbringing thing? An age thing - As in what era you were a kid?

When I was young in the 60s and 70s, (and admittedly in the UK) snacking just wasn’t a thing anyone did. Snack foods as we might understand them didn’t really exist. I remember when crisps other than the original blue bag of salt crisps were introduced. There were biscuits, of course, but those were part of a meal at ‘teatime’ not something to be eaten ad hoc.

You ate breakfast, went to school, ate lunch of some sort, then went home for dinner. There was no food available at school, other than school dinner for those who wished to have it. By the time I got to grammar school at 11, there was an ice cream van that pitched twice a week in the summer on the edge of the school field, but as kids very few of us had money with us to frequent it!

Possibly as a consequence I don’t really think of eating between meals. Which is just as well considering my calorie allowance, it’s one struggle I’ve never had to face!

This wasn't my experience at all. I was born in the sixties and ate my way through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I had a healthy breakfast before school, a good lunch at midday, then I would come home and graze(I'd make a Swanson's TV dinner, then cheese, chips, white bread with butter smeared on it, etc.) until dinner time when I ate a healthy dinner. Then we'd all have a bowl of ice cream or some other snack while watching TV. Fortunately, even as a little kid, I was very active, so I was never over-weight.

BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »

I’ve now read the word ‘snack’ so many times it has ceased to have any meaning!

Maybe it’s an upbringing thing? An age thing - As in what era you were a kid?

When I was young in the 60s and 70s, (and admittedly in the UK) snacking just wasn’t a thing anyone did. Snack foods as we might understand them didn’t really exist. I remember when crisps other than the original blue bag of salt crisps were introduced. There were biscuits, of course, but those were part of a meal at ‘teatime’ not something to be eaten ad hoc.

You ate breakfast, went to school, ate lunch of some sort, then went home for dinner. There was no food available at school, other than school dinner for those who wished to have it. By the time I got to grammar school at 11, there was an ice cream van that pitched twice a week in the summer on the edge of the school field, but as kids very few of us had money with us to frequent it!

Possibly as a consequence I don’t really think of eating between meals. Which is just as well considering my calorie allowance, it’s one struggle I’ve never had to face!

Rather an exaggeration!
I was born in 1960 and grew up in the UK and snacks weren't as common as now for sure but yes they were still part of normal life.
Certainly we didn't have as many in the house but most parades of shops had a sweet shop / tobaconist full of snack items - not as many choices as now I would agree. Bakers had buns and cakes for snacks....
But in my family sweets or crisps for a snack were expected to come out of the children's pocket money and involve a walk to the shops rather than being in a drawer or cupboard at home.
Biscuits were in the cupboards and were very much a snack item to tide us over until mealtime and not part of a meal.

Snacking after school was common when we got home, especially for me and my brother who were extremely active. My brother in particuar was like a "Food Hoover" and 3 meals a day clearly wasn't enough.

My Grammar school had a popular and well frequented tuck shop as well as a canteen selling snacks and full meals.

Weakling!

(kidding. you do you. your body is not the same as mine.)

My main 'snack' is milk before bedtime, because the tryptophan in whole milk gets converted to melatonin.

Sometimes I'll have fruit in the afternoon if my lunch wears off, but it has to fit within calorie targets.

I just read a pop-article about a recent study that found that people today are 2-3% fatter than people eating and exercising the same amount in the 1970's. They're not sure why--looking into hormones and pesticide residues in food, changes in gut microbiome (due to use of antibiotics in people and especially in agriculture), artificial sweeteners as possible causes.

My personal intuition is that it could be corn, which has been selectively bred and sometimes engineered to be higher in sugars, which in the case of corn usually means fructose. Today's corn is quite different from the corn in the 1970's and corn products find their way into all kinds of other foodstuffs.

Another possible thing that I've never seen studied (so it's just my personal speculation) is that rising CO2 levels in the air may be contributing to obesity.

Where does the weight go when you lose it? I suspect a lot of people haven't pondered that question or if they have, probably guessed that you poop it out. But the weight you lose--the chemistry that was locked up in fat--is mostly lost as CO2 through respiration (grossly simplified as there are some losses of 'calories' in pee and poop, and also CO2 balance in the body is part of acid-base balance, which gets into kidney function and bone mineralization and...it's complicated).

So it makes sense to me since there's twice the CO2 in the air now as was in the environment where humans evolved (or were placed by God, YMMV), that it would be harder to efficiently dump CO2--harder to offload the metabolic byproducts of burning fat.

But as stated, that's my personal speculation, nobody has studied it that I know of. I think it could be a factor though only a partial explanation.

I have a whole diary category dedicated to the snicky-snacks. They help me not go overboard at meals! For some, I think it's easier to not snack at all than to snack healthily.

Is healthily a word? I think I need coffee.

whmscll wrote: »

I think the increase in obesity is directly linked to 1) the proliferation of junk food 2) much larger portion sizes 3) the crap that is now fed to farm animals 4) more TV commercials for stuff like stuffed crust pizza, packaged snacks, etc. 5) demanding, stressful workplaces where it’s expected that you work really long hours, which limits time available to exercise, prepare healthy meals at home and engage in relaxing hobbies and time with our loved ones.

I think you just indicted the entire American way of life! 😝

Agree, esp. #3 & #5.

I'm not really hungry between meals, so I don't snack. My 2 meals a day are rather filling. I was never really a snacker and always preferred a real meal.