I was thinking about how I used to eat the other day.
I think about it a lot really.
It’s my job to put myself in the shoes of my clients and think about my past mindset to help them with changing their current one.
I also feel like snacking has evolved in the period that I’ve been alive.
I’m pretty sure snacking really got a hold on our household in the 1980’s.
By the time I had my own children in 2000 I was of the mind that my children needed a snack at every opportunity to keep their energy levels topped up!
It makes me cringe when I compare what I gave them to what I now know I should have been giving them. Unknowingly mainlining huge amounts of sugar into them with things like raisins, apple juice and high fibre cereal bars.
Looking at how I used to snack also feels like a different lifetime.
All my snack decisions were based on my beliefs about food.
If I was dieting (Slimming World over and over) then it had to be a Muller Light. They’d fill me up and help cravings while being super low in calories and free of Syns! It wasn’t unheard of for me to eat 7 in a day.
If I wasn’t dieting, I’d still be mentally flicking through the list of ‘better treat’ choices. Like a Milkyway (low in calories), or a pack of Belvita breakfast biscuits as I believed them to be full of fibre.
If I ate crisps in a controlled or uncontrolled (between diet phases) way, they would be Walkers French Fries or Sunbites. I just had to look up whether these still exist. They do! Again, decisions based on calories and fibre content.
So, that was the running theme. And that still is the running theme with the people I work with. Obsession with calories and fibre.
But no inkling with regards to the impact the additives have on the human body.
No clue about the lack of fat replaced with bulking agents raising blood sugar.
No idea about what the human body needs to ingest to trigger satiety and use to repair and rebuild itself.
These days it’s rare that I even need to snack as the meal(s) I eat fill me up.
But if I do, my go-to’s are:
- Coffee with Jersey cream.
- Peanuts roasted in olive oil and heavily salted.
- Chicken liver pate or sliced chorizo on a low carb roll.
- Pecan brittle (photo above).
Fibre still plays a role but unprocessed, fat, protein and flavour trump everything else.
If it has a low impact on insulin response, it’s in.
If it is low calorie or concocted in a factory, it’s out.
