John Myers
There is no single right time to snack. But although sweets should only be on the menu in moderation, it can make sense to give them a permanent place in it. If you feel like eating something sweet and give in to the craving for a balanced main meal, you may be consuming fewer calories and can prevent cravings. This trick can also be used to teach children to be more aware of sweets.
Small children who are just getting to know sweets should eat them as consciously as possible. A good time to snack is after a meal. They then embrace the sugary dessert as part of an otherwise balanced and healthy meal and learn that the treats aren’t always readily available. Parents should therefore avoid comforting, calming, or even occupying their offspring with sweets. Otherwise chocolate, gummy bears, and the like can quickly become an unhealthy habit.
Snacking right after a meal is not only beneficial for children. This point in time can also be helpful for adults for various reasons. If you eat a healthy and balanced meal first, you will not be hungry afterward, but at most have an appetite for sweets. This minimizes the risk of ending up consuming more sugar and calories than you actually want and should.
In addition, ideally, sufficient dietary fiber is consumed with the main meal, which keeps you full for a long time. The advantage: the sugar in sweets causes the blood sugar level to rise quickly, but is quickly broken down again. A rapidly falling blood sugar level can soon trigger hunger or even ravenous hunger attacks – these are avoided with a balanced main meal. You can find out more about the background of appetite and satiety here.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with snacking at a different time from time to time, as long as you eat a balanced and healthy diet overall. For example, you should make sure that you cover a maximum of ten percent of your daily energy requirements with sugar. For most adults, this amount is between 50 and 60 grams of sugar per day. A bar of chocolate contains about 60 grams of sugar. However, because sugar is hidden in numerous foods such as finished products, you should not eat a bar of chocolate every day.
So that you can still allow yourself one or two small desserts without exceeding your sugar requirements, you should watch out for hidden sugars in your main meals and snacks. Sweet drinks such as lemonades or fruit juices can be replaced with water or unsweetened fruit teas, for example, and you can reduce or omit the sugar in tea or coffee. Spread a thin layer of jam on your breakfast bread and prepare your own muesli from fresh fruit and oatmeal. Ready-made sauces and dips also contain a lot of sugar, it is healthier if you make ketchup yourself, for example.
