for your overall health. Snacking on nuts and seeds can add vital nutrients to your diet and they won’t interfere with the rest of your healthy eating plan. Nuts and seeds are so nutrient-dense that you don’t need to eat a lot of them. Tey are ideal as stand-alone snack or can be sprinkled on breakfast cereals, used in cooking or even to flavour a gourmet dish. Here are some nutty facts:
• Nuts and seeds contain high levels of essential fatty acids (EFAs) – known as good fats
• Eating nuts and seeds can help you lose excess weight
• Nuts and seeds contain amazing amino acids to help form cWe all feel guilty about our snacking habits and think that eating all day is why we put on weight but the good news is you CAN have your snack – and lose weight!

From the start of the year - when we make our new years resolutions – to every Sunday evening before the week commences, we all have good intentions when it comes to eating healthily. So why is it by 11am on Monday morning we simply can’t resist the temptation to snack on something calorific and full of saturated fats to ‘fill us up’ between breakfast and lunch? Even when we try to be ‘good’ and go out of our way to avoid the work vending machine, our willpower takes a bruising when someone walks past our desk offering us something sweet, crisps, chocs or the dreaded chunk of creamy birthday celebration cake. And all of this while you sit innocently at your desk. Or maybe find the snack cupboard calling out your name when you’re in the midst of cleaning the kitchen? The good news is that having three small snacks a day in between three meals is healthy and perfectly normal – as long as the snacks are good, nutritious choices.

Keep cravings at bay
So, why do we snack? Well, the feeling of hunger is triggered by low sugar levels in the blood and by the body dejecting that the stomach is empty - this is teamed with our psychological appetite induced by boredom; seeing other people eat as well as our keen sense of smell. Therefore, in order to stave off hung pangs, sugar levels and stomach emptiness should be kept at the ‘half full’ level so that our bodies don’t go into what’s known as ‘starvation mode’. This usually means reaching for all the wrong foods - high-fat, high-sugar options. Keeping our body sugars at an acceptable level also means that we don’t end up being addicted to sugars and other additives in food - such as salt and saturated fats. When we consume large amounts of excess sugar at one sitting, our sugar levels reach a much higher point than if we had opted for a lower sugar meal or snack. After this peak, if we go hungry for more than a certain period of time, we reach a dip where our bodies feel ‘starved’ of sugars. At this point we start to crave sugar - and we may well choose a big meal to fill us up. Eating large meals puts tremendous stress on our stomach and intestines, often leading to indigestion.

Nuts and seeds for healthy snacking
What you snack can have huge ramifications for your overall health. Snacking on nuts and seeds can add vital nutrients to your diet and they won’t interfere with the rest of your healthy eating plan. Nuts and seeds are so nutrient-dense that you don’t need to eat a lot of them. Tey are ideal as stand-alone snack or can be sprinkled on breakfast cereals, used in cooking or even to flavour a gourmet dish. Here are some nutty facts:
• Nuts and seeds contain high levels of essential fatty acids (EFAs) – known as good fats
• Eating nuts and seeds can help you lose excess weight
• Nuts and seeds contain amazing amino acids to help form co

g machine, our willpower takes a bruising when someone walks past our desk offering us something sweet, crisps, chocs or the dreaded chunk of creamy birthday celebration cake. And all of this while you sit innocently at your desk. Or maybe find the snack cupboard calling out your name when you’re in the midst of cleaning the kitchen? The good news is that having three small snacks a day in between three meals is healthy and perfectly normal – as long as the snacks are good, nutritious choices.

Keep cravings at bay
So, why do we snack? Well, the feeling of hunger is triggered by low sugar levels in the blood and by the body dejecting that the stomach is empty - this is teamed with our psychological appetite induced by boredom; seeing other people eat as well as our keen sense of smell. Therefore, in order to stave off hung pangs, sugar levels and stomach emptiness should be kept at the ‘half full’ level so that our bodies don’t go into what’s known as ‘starvation mode’. This usually means reaching for all the wrong foods - high-fat, high-sugar options. Keeping our body sugars at an acceptable level also means that we don’t end up being addicted to sugars and other additives in food - such as salt and saturated fats. When we consume large amounts of excess sugar at one sitting, our sugar levels reach a much higher point than if we had opted for a lower sugar meal or snack. After this peak, if we go hungry for more than a certain period of time, we reach a dip where our bodies feel ‘starved’ of sugars. At this point we start to crave sugar - and we may well choose a big meal to fill us up. Eating large meals puts tremendous stress on our stomach and intestines, often leading to indigestion.

Nuts and seeds for healthy snacking
What you snack can have huge ramifications for your overall health. Snacking on nuts and seeds can add vital nutrients to your diet and they won’t interfere with the rest of your healthy eating plan. Nuts and seeds are so nutrient-dense that you don’t need to eat a lot of them. Tey are ideal as stand-alone snack or can be sprinkled on breakfast cereals, used in cooking or even to flavour a gourmet dish. Here are some nutty facts:
• Nuts and seeds contain high levels of essential fatty acids (EFAs) – known as good fats
• Eating nuts and seeds can help you lose excess weight
• Nuts and seeds contain amazing amino acids to help form c

sugar levels in the blood and by the body dejecting that the stomach is empty - this is teamed with our psychological appetite induced by boredom; seeing other people eat as well as our keen sense of smell. Therefore, in order to stave off hung pangs, sugar levels and stomach emptiness should be kept at the ‘half full’ level so that our bodies don’t go into what’s known as ‘starvation mode’. This usually means reaching for all the wrong foods - high-fat, high-sugar options. Keeping our body sugars at an acceptable level also means that we don’t end up being addicted to sugars and other additives in food - such as salt and saturated fats. When we consume large amounts of excess sugar at one sitting, our sugar levels reach a much higher point than if we had opted for a lower sugar meal or snack. After this peak, if we go hungry for more than a certain period of time, we reach a dip where our bodies feel ‘starved’ of sugars. At this point we start to crave sugar - and we may well choose a big meal to fill us up. Eating large meals puts tremendous stress on our stomach and intestines, often leading to indigestion.

Nuts and seeds for healthy snacking
What you snack can have huge ramifications for your overall health. Snacking on nuts and seeds can add vital nutrients to your diet and they won’t interfere with the rest of your healthy eating plan. Nuts and seeds are so nutrient-dense that you don’t need to eat a lot of them. Tey are ideal as stand-alone snack or can be sprinkled on breakfast cereals, used in cooking or even to flavour a gourmet dish. Here are some nutty facts:
• Nuts and seeds contain high levels of essential fatty acids (EFAs) – known as good fats
• Eating nuts and seeds can help you lose excess weight
• Nuts and seeds contain amazing amino acids to help form c

as salt and saturated fats. When we consume large amounts of excess sugar at one sitting, our sugar levels reach a much higher point than if we had opted for a lower sugar meal or snack. After this peak, if we go hungry for more than a certain period of time, we reach a dip where our bodies feel ‘starved’ of sugars. At this point we start to crave sugar - and we may well choose a big meal to fill us up. Eating large meals puts tremendous stress on our stomach and intestines, often leading to indigestion.

Nuts and seeds for healthy snacking
What you snack can have huge ramifications for your overall health. Snacking on nuts and seeds can add vital nutrients to your diet and they won’t interfere with the rest of your healthy eating plan. Nuts and seeds are so nutrient-dense that you don’t need to eat a lot of them. Tey are ideal as stand-alone snack or can be sprinkled on breakfast cereals, used in cooking or even to flavour a gourmet dish. Here are some nutty facts:
• Nuts and seeds contain high levels of essential fatty acids (EFAs) – known as good fats
• Eating nuts and seeds can help you lose excess weight
• Nuts and seeds contain amazing amino acids to help form c

for your overall health. Snacking on nuts and seeds can add vital nutrients to your diet and they won’t interfere with the rest of your healthy eating plan. Nuts and seeds are so nutrient-dense that you don’t need to eat a lot of them. Tey are ideal as stand-alone snack or can be sprinkled on breakfast cereals, used in cooking or even to flavour a gourmet dish. Here are some nutty facts:
• Nuts and seeds contain high levels of essential fatty acids (EFAs) – known as good fats
• Eating nuts and seeds can help you lose excess weight
• Nuts and seeds contain amazing amino acids to help form complete and digestible protein
• Snacking on nuts and seeds will boost your intake of vitamins A, B, C and E
• Nuts and seeds are rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium, selenium and manganese

Types of seeds
Chia – Flax – Pumpkin – Sesame – Sunflower

Types of nuts
Almonds – Brazil – Cashews – Filberts – Hazelnuts – Chestnuts – Pecans – Pine – Pistachios – Walnuts

Get wise to grazing
Eating three healthy meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner and three nutritious snacks in between should help to overcome the cycle of craving bad sugars. This process is also known as grazing. Good times to eat snacks are between breakfast and lunch, lunch and 5pm, and 5pm and dinner. By grazing in this way, our bodies will not experience fluctuating sugar levels. We can also aid our digestive system which plays an important part in keeping our metabolism working.

Snacking healthily can help to keep the lbs off in many ways:
• It stops us from overeating at any one sitting.
• It increases our metabolic rate which helps us to burn up the food we consume.
• It keeps our energy levels up throughout the day so we can concentrate fully on our work – or have enough steam in us to race after the kids all day long.
• It provides us with extra energy to help us exercise.

Best snacking tips
So what should we be snacking on? Go for snacks that fill you up and that are nutritious for you. There are loads of ideas to try. These include:
• Wholegrains – full of fibre that fills us up and is good for the hearts too
• Vegetables – again, full of fibre and rich in nutrients which help to heal and enhance our bodies
• Pulses – such as chickpeas, lentils, beans – these are high in fibre and proteins which keep us fuller for longer

Apart from the usual things we see advertised – crispbreads, cut up veggies and so on – there are more exciting snacks you can write on the shopping list to add variety during your week. How about trying sliced red peppers dipped in hummus or some carrot sticks and low-fat Thousand-Island dressing? These are great for you and have lots of life-giving nutrients.

Good Food for a Healthy Diet