Children and adults can both benefit from healthy snack foods. Adding snacks to your diet can increase your nutritional intake, ward off hunger, reduce fatigue and help you avoid giving in to unhealthy food temptations throughout the day. Choosing your snacks wisely is important. Not all prepackaged snacks are healthy. Understanding what to look for in a snack will help you make healthy snack-time decisions.
Calories
Healthy snacks should not add an excessive calories to your diet. Choose snacks that contain between 100 and 200 total calories. Then, adjust your meals throughout the rest of your day to allow for the additional calories in your diet. Eat smaller meals to avoid unwanted weight gain.
Fiber
Fiber is an important component of a healthy snack. Look for foods that contain high amounts of fiber -- 5 g or more per serving. This amount of fiber will reduce your hunger and provide you with sustained energy, because fiber is slowly digested by your body. Fiber-rich snacks include foods made with whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
Eating fiber-rich snack foods will help ensure you meet you daily fiber needs, which range between 25 g to 35 g. Also, adequate amounts of fiber can help lower your cholesterol or keep it at healthy levels, which reduces your risk of heart disease.
Protein
Healthy servings of protein at snack-time can help increase your energy level. Pick snacks containing healthy proteins, such as peanut butter, nuts, seeds, beans, tofu, soy products, reduced-fat dairy products and lean meats. Steer clear of proteins containing high amounts of saturated fats, calories and cholesterol.
Snacks to Avoid
Avoid highly processed foods when looking for a healthy snack. Generally, processed foods contain unhealthy amounts of sodium, sugar, refined carbohydrates and trans fats. Sugars and refined carbohydrates can cause your blood sugar levels to quickly spike and then dip, leaving you feeling hungry again. Also, trans fats and sodium can have a negative effect on the health of your heart, raising your cholesterol and blood pressure.
Avoid snacking on processed meats, such as hot dogs or sausage. Keep highly processed chips, crackers and sweets out of your snacks.
Healthy Beverages
You can compromise a healthy snack with an unhealthy beverage. Avoid beverages containing high amounts of sugar, caffeine or fat, such as sugary soda, sweet tea, sugary sports drinks, juices and calorie-rich coffee drinks. Drink healthy low-calorie beverages with your snack. Water is an optimal beverage to drink with your snack, but other healthy choices include diet drinks and unsweetened tea.
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