It's 3PM, and you're dying of hunger. Time for a little snack. You run down to the snack bar downstairs from your office and see a whole aisle of low-calorie snacks. Guilt-free satisfaction, right?
Oh, if only it were that simple. What's the food-to-air proportion in those bags? Are they more like balloons with a few rice chips thrown in? Will you have to do math to figure out how many calories you really are eating? And will they fill you up or just provide you with the sensation of eating something without actually making you feel satisfied? And what kind of funky chemicals will you have to swallow as the price you pay for cheap, low-calorie food?
I can't wait to peek inside a few of those bags. Let's open up some of those sad sacks.
I photographed the "official" serving of several packaged snacks. My hand is shown not because I've always wanted to be a hand model (although that is true), but to show scale.
100 Calorie Snack Taste Test
I wrote about snacking on fruit, but I just want to mention again how well that works. Really, I promise. Do it for a week and see how you feel compared with how you usually feel when you eat these sad sacks. And then, on Friday, treat yourself to a truly decadent treat. I'll take a Robicelli's pumpkin caramel cupcake, thank you!
Do you snack on "Sad Sacks" or on real food?
Written by Adriana Velez for CafeMom's blog, The Stir.
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