The practice of snacking is often unfairly vilified — we tend to associate snacking with stuffing our faces with salty potato chips or downing a dozen cookies in the break room. Snacking doesn’t have to mean this, though. In fact, snacking in a healthy manner is key to a healthy lifestyle, and it can help curb cravings and binging on unhealthy foods!

Here are three ways that healthy snacking trends will allow you to live better and avoid those pesky cravings.

Healthy Snacks Help You Feel Full

By choosing snacks that help you feel full, you won’t feel famished at lunch or dinnertime and wind up stuffing yourself in an unhealthy manner. Try choosing high-fiber snacks like granola, oats, hummus or low-butter popcorn. Fiber helps you feel full, so getting this nutrient into your system between meals is a great way to tide yourself over.

Healthy Snacks Help You Focus

Snacking in a healthy manner throughout the day helps to maintain your focus between meals. It also helps to keep your blood sugar level up. This means you’ll be able to continue concentrating on whatever you’re doing, rather than zoning out and wondering what’s for dinner.

Healthy Snacks Give You Something to Look Forward To

When you don’t snack at all throughout the day, you’re just winding down the clock until lunch or dinner. Having a healthy snack on hand is a great way to give yourself something to look forward to while banishing the craving for unhealthy food. Choosing options like low-sodium nuts or seeds — Harvard Medical School recommends almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, cashews, and peanuts — is a great way to give yourself something delicious to look forward to without the need for binging later.

Healthy Snacks Mean You’re Making Your Own Choice

By choosing your own healthy snack and bringing it with you to work or wherever else your day takes you, you’re choosing the snack you want. That means you don’t have to resort to that leftover cake in the break room and instead enjoy the whole-grain crackers and fresh grapes you brought from home.

 

What healthy snacking trends are your favorite? Give some of the options suggested above a try for healthy snacks that help you avoid those afternoon cravings.