Healthy snacking can be beneficial to your overall healthy diet, it can help you get all the nutrients you need throughout the day, and it can help you achieve your weight loss goals. When snacking, it is important to choose your snacks wisely. Eating snacks that are fat-free and sugar-free can help you choose healthy snacks, but it is important to remember that they are not the only healthy option.
Basics
Snacks play a role in most people's diet, but snacks play a significant role in children's diets. The calories from snacking that a child eats has increased to more than 120 calories per day, notes the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Choosing fat-free and sugar-free snacks may be beneficial, but there is more to healthy snacking than just sugar-free and fat-free snack foods.
Insight
The fat and sugar contained in foods increases the calories found in those foods. According to KidsHealth, each gram of fat contains 9 calories. One gram of sugar contains 4 calories and a cube of sugar has 25 calories, notes the What's Cooking America website. Therefore, eliminating fat and sugar from your snack foods can decrease your overall calorie intake. Decreasing your calorie intake can help you achieve weight loss or maintain a healthy weight.
Considerations
It is important to take into consideration the wide variety of fat-free and sugar-free snack foods that are available and how some of these foods may not be a great option for snacks. Diet sodas are fat-free and sugar-free, but enjoying them as a snack is not as healthy an option as water. Soda generally contains caffeine, which increases urination and increases your risk of dehydration. Also, some fat-free and sugar-free snacks may be lacking in beneficial nutrients. Eating these foods as a snack may not increase your nutritional intake. Therefore, it is important to choose fat-free and sugar-free snack foods that are beneficial to your healthy diet.
Warning
Although fruit contains a small amount of sugar, fruit is generally considered a healthy snack food. Eliminating your intake of fruit, to maintain fat-free and sugar-free snack foods, is not a healthy option. Fruits provide a significant number of vitamins, minerals and fiber. Therefore, when choosing your snacks, be careful not to eliminate fruit. Instead, choose raw fruits that do not contain added syrup or sugar. It is important to note that the sugar in fruit will not send your blood sugar levels quickly changing from high to low. The fiber contained in fruit combats the sugar by keeping your energy levels steady and helps you feel full longer.
Tips
Drink water with snacks to improve your hydration levels, help you eat less overall and avoid consuming high calorie beverages. Use vegetables, such as baby carrots, sliced peppers, broccoli, cauliflower and grape tomatoes, as snack foods. Avoid dipping or seasoning the vegetables with dips and spreads. These will add fat and possibly sugar. Gelatin is a commonly used fat-free and sugar-free snack food, but it should not be used to increase your intake of healthy nutrients.
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