Foods that are eaten in-between meals or sometimes as a substitute to a meal or as fast foods or foods from vending machines can all be referred to as snacks. Changing lifestyle, a busy, hectic schedule, socializing and easy accessibility to ready-to-eat food has made snacking very important.

Snacking can be a real cause of concern when the snacks are high in sugar, salt and fat, whereas low in micro-nutrients. However, if planned well, snacks can be equally healthy to bridge the gap of nutrient requirement between two meals. Hence, a snack which supplements a meal should be considered healthy.

Here are some instances where simple alterations can increase the nutrient content of snacks:

1). You can add some pulses and lentils in cereal-based vegetarian snacks. It improves the protein quality remarkably

2). It’s also a good practise to add some cottage cheese in your sandwiches, etc for improving calcium and protein.

3). In cutlets, instead of just stuffing patota as a base, you could also add carrot and spinach too. These can offer you B-carotene, calcium and other nutrients.

4). Also, if you eat eggs more frequently, you should coat cutlets with egg. It’ll give more protein.

5). Try and avoid eating too much of other spicy sauces. Tomato Ketchup may finally not be as bad after all because of the presence of lycopene in it. However check for preservatives and sodium content.

Ensure that you don’t indulge in fried snacks, especially weight watchers, and those with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and alike. Instead steamed, boiled snacks are good substitutes. Foods like finger chips, burgers, cakes, cookies, etc are termed junk food, as they’re high in calories, fat and carbohydrates but very low in other nutrients.

They’re getting very popular with children, so it’s a good idea to incorporate with them other foods that are nutrient dense. For example, a burger bun can be made with whole wheat flour. Milk powder can also be added to increase the protein and calcium content. Cutlets can have spinach, carrot and other such vegetables instead of just potato, chicken or fish. It’s difficult to avoid snacking, but definitely we can make the snacks more nutritious and healthy.