Healthy Snacks Keep Portion Sizes Under Control

What do Planters nuts, the South Beach Diet and Nabisco all have in common? Each has a new line of single-serving snacks that can help you deal with one of the biggest obstacles to weight control – portion control. Anyone who eats on-the-run needs to know about these and the many other products that do the measuring, counting and weighing for you, so you’ll only eat what you should, and not another bite more.

People of all ages, races and economic status are getting heavier. Many factors contribute to the escalating rates of overweight and obesity around the world. One of them is that the amount of food we eat has been gradually morphing into larger sizes. Our dinner plates and glasses are bigger, encouraging us to fill them with more food and drink. Restaurant servings are both bigger and bargain-priced, making it easier for us to eat more when getting meals away from home. And even though the average household size in America is shrinking, people are shopping in warehouse stores that sell food in containers large enough to feed small villages. Who really needs a plastic tub of Twizzlers® on their pantry shelf or a box of cereal as big as a suitcase?

With such an abundance of food, it’s not difficult to take the few extra bites that can add up to the 100 extra calories a day that will produce another ten pounds at the end of a year.

Sizing Up Servings

Under ideal dining circumstances, most veteran dieters can adequately estimate the quantity of each food item on their plate before digging in. They’ve learned to use tricks such as comparing their food to standard objects. For example, experienced eaters know the size of a deck of cards represents a 3 ounce portion of meat, a tennis ball is equivalent to a cup of pasta or rice and the first joint on the thumb is about equal to a tablespoon of butter, oil or dressing. They have also learned that the foods you can’t easily slice or mound can simply be counted before eating, like potato chips, slices of pizza and M&M’s.

But when you’re not paying attention to what you’re eating, which is always the case when snacking, you’re going to eat more than you intended and more than you’ll recall later. Take note, a study of 30,000 Canadians found that their daily caloric intake from snacks was actually greater than that from their lunch and dinner!

That’s where the single-serving products come to the rescue. If you’ve filled your purse, backpack, desk drawer, gym locker and car console with pre-measured, pre- counted, pre-weighed foods, you need only keep track of how many of them you’ve grabbed throughout the day (maybe by saving the empty packages?) and you’ll be far less likely to exceed your daily caloric allotment.

New research shows the number of snacks we eat in place of meals has increased by 500 million since 2002. Since most people rarely eat sit down to eat meals, let alone eat anything that involves the use of utensils, it makes good sense to choose portable foods that can deliver good nutrition in those portion and calorie-controlled packages. For example, that missed bowl of cereal can become a cereal bar while getting dressed, a container of yogurt topped with fresh fruit can yield to a smoothie when commuting to work and dinner at the dining room table might be replaced by a micro-waved meal at your desk.

Where One Size Fits All

Without the nutritional advantages provided by eating “three squares a day,” every time you do eat should be viewed as a mini-meal where you can maximize your nutrient intake. Like an infant who is on a demand feeding schedule, there should be no difference between the quality of the foods you select at “meal times” from those you choose at “snack times.” Make them all an opportunity to grab some good nutrition, while choosing the right serving size to keep your calories in check.

Here are a few products that I can highly recommend.

Planters® Go-Nuts Almonds and Go-Nuts Heart Healthy Mix - Six pouches per box, the Almonds are a one ounce serving with 170 calories and the Heart Healthy Mix, containing peanuts, almonds, pistachios, pecans and hazelnuts, provides 160 calories.

Planters® Trail Mix - Six varieties, including Golden Nut Crunch and Spicy Nuts and Cajun Sticks, available in approximately one-ounce pouches packed six per box and providing 140-180 calories each.

South Beach® High Protein Cereal Bars – Available in five varieties, including peanut butter and maple nut, all with twice the protein and 25% less sugar than leading cereal bars and providing a good source of fiber all for 150 calories. Packed five per box.

South Beach® Chicken Salad Kits – Everything you need to make it fresh when you want it, portioned out right down to the mayonnaise and walnuts, all for under 300 calories.

Nabisco® 100 Calorie Pack Snacks – Available in 9 familiar varieties of their cookies, crackers and crisps that let you indulge for just 100 calories at a time. Packed six per box or an assortment pack with six each of three different snacks.

Nabisco® 100 Calorie Packs Chewy Granola Bars – Three options for 100 calorie chewy granola bars packed six per box.

You’ll always know when enough is enough if buy the right serving size. Then you can sit back and enjoy the whole thing.

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Robyn Flipse, MS, RD Author, Fighting the Freshman Fifteen available at www.FreshmanFifteenBook.com

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