Become a Sly n’ Savvy Snacker
We’ve all done it: stared at the items in a vending machine hoping the one snack we’re eying is somewhat healthy. Then we drop our coins, grab our treat and gaze at the nutritional label, unsure of what the numbers and percentages mean. Maybe one day we get a low fat snack. Another day it’s a low cal snack. Then one time we’ll get the peanuts and tell ourselves they are made of the healthy fats. How do we know how healthy our snacks are?
A team at Nationwide Children’s Hospital has developed an incredible tool to test exactly how nutritious your snack choices are. The Snackwise® method is a nutrition rating system that’s available to anyone with online access. At Snackwise®, you can input key information about your snack and it will analyze the contents based on 11 parameters. From the website:
Snackwise® distinguishes itself from most nutrition rating systems as it not only considers calories, sugar, sodium and fat, but also ensures that snack foods contain desirable nutrients like protein, fiber, calcium and other key nutrients that are needed in the diet.
I plugged in the values for a bag of Planters Sweet & Nutty Trail Mix that I had in my car from the weekend’s road trip. I knew based on fat grams alone, it might not be the greatest choice, but I was curious to see the details from Snackwise®. Since the UPC code wasn’t already in their database, I did have to enter the 11 values manually. They gave me a red light for this product. Ouch! That means I should choose this one rarely. The other possibilities are yellow for choose occasionally and green meaning it’s the best choice.
The Snackwise® calculator is free. If you would like to pay a small subscription free, you can save the information about your favorite snacks (saving you the time of always manually entering the info). You can also see a lengthy list of snacks that have already been evaluated for their nutritional content.
Written by Alexandra M. Haller for Her Active Life. | Permalink | Have something to say? Add a Comment!
Section: Her Nutrition, Healthy Eating, Weight Control, Her News
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