The Search For Healthy Vending Machine Snacks

It's lunch time and you are hungry

It's lunch time and you are hungry. You didn't bring any food with you. You don't have time to go out. You consider the vending machine. How can you pick some healthy vending machine snacks?

The nutritional labels on most items can be very helpful in making good choices. The catch is that you usually have to buy something before you can read the label. If you want to be scientific you could build a snack health database, or a scrapbook of nutritional labels. Or, you could just try to remember what is in what.

Diabetics are trained to be very careful about sugar levels. This is good advice for anyone. Large amounts of sugar tend to cause wide swings in blood sugar level from sugar high to crash. The term empty calories is quite appropriate.

What about fat? Fat has lots of calories, but its reputation in general is not as bad as it was a few years ago. Avoid trans fat, also known as partially hydrogenated oil or fat, at all costs. This was hailed as a breakthrough in food technology a few years ago, but have been found to be very unhealthy.

Vegetable oils are in most cases monounsaturated or polyunsaturated. They are general considered healthy in reasonable amounts. Butter and meat contain saturated fats, which are not as healthy, but do not need to be totally avoided.

The key word for fats in general is moderation. Too much fat is too many calories. However, some fat can be beneficial. Fat helps you feel full, and it tastes good. Fat in food can moderate the affect of sugar in the food by slowing down the processing of sugar, which reduces sugar highs and lows.

Salt tastes good. Food processors know this so they add salt, sometimes lots of salt, because they are competing on taste among other things. Eating too much salt may increase your risk of high blood pressure. Moderation is the key here.

In general, whole, less processed foods are preferable to highly processed foods. If you are fortunate enough to have a vending machine with nuts or raw fruit, those can be excellent choices. Granola or trail mix tends to have less processing than pastries or candy bars, so those would both be worth considering.

Caffeine is shown on the ingredients list, and you might be surprised at where it can be found these days. It is primarily a beverage supplement, but some solid foods also have caffeine. Caffeine is not necessarily a problem when taken in moderation, it does appear to make one a bit smarter. Caffeine addiction is pretty wide spread; too much caffeine can also cause highs and lows, shakiness, and high blood pressure.

Well, good luck with that lunch, or snack. Of course your taste and food preferences are key here. But reading the nutritional labels can be helpful in your search for healthy vending machine snacks.

healthy vending machine snacks

by: Stefanie Schwartz.

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