The effects of snacking have been widely debated, with some suggesting that snacking makes you gain weight while others don’t agree. Despite the many studies that have investigated the relationship between snacking, nutrition, and health outcomes, it's still unclear whether or not we should be snacking. What is clear is that making smarter snacking choices, such as choosing foods that don't trigger large blood fat responses and blood sugar peaks and dips, is likely to be better for our overall health.
Our go-to snacks will be different but have a few things in common
There is a huge amount of variation in how everyone responds to the same foods. This means that the best snack for one person may not be ideal for another. Here are a few things that you can keep in mind as you create your go-to snacks. Snacks that score 50+ will usually include:
Gut-friendly dietary fiber
Healthy fats
High-quality carbs
Unprocessed or less-processed ingredients
Find your go-to healthy snacks using the ZOE app
The ZOE app lets you search for any food (including branded products), see your personalized score based on your unique biology, and find the ones you enjoy the most. You can use the ZOE app as your guide as you discover snack foods and ingredients that score 50+.
First, start with your favorites
List five snacks that you generally choose to eat and search for them in the ZOE app. If you're stuck for ideas, here are a few examples of snacks that might include 50+ ingredients for you:
Hummus and crunchy vegetables
Baba ganoush and wholegrain pita chips
Sliced apple with almond butter
Plain yogurt with mixed berries
Mixed unsalted nuts
If they score less than 50 for you, use the app to search for similar snacks that you could eat as an alternative. If they contain any ingredients that score less than 50, play around with swapping them out with options that score well for you.
Then, add these 5 snacks to your ZOE app and save them to your ‘My recipes’ or ‘My foods’ list by selecting the ❤️ icon.
Next, discover new snacks
You can also use the explore function in the app to help discover new snacks by food or meals that score 50+. The lists are structured to show all high-scoring foods at the top, so you can work through the list from top to bottom to find the best foods for you.
We should update the image to reflect what our members would see in the app. I’m sure we might be able to ask design to create a more suitable image then the one above (I just grabbed this as a screenshot from my app)
Go to the ‘Home’ section in your ZOE app and scroll down to ‘Browse foods’. Select ‘Snacks’ and add five of your favorite options to your ‘My foods’ section.
Now, select the 'Snacks' category under 'Browse meals’ and add five of your favorite meals to your ‘My recipes’ section. You can even use the filter at the top of your screen to refine your search i.e. high-protein or high-fibre options. Potentially update this to reflect the AI meal generator once it’s released to 100% of our members.
After completing the exercises above, you should have 15 great snack ideas that are great for your body! You can use this list to fall back on if you find yourself hungry between meals and aren't sure what to eat.
Get ready for the week
Now that you have a great list of favorite snacks that score well for you, why not plan ahead by adding them to your weekly grocery shopping list and prepping a few of them ahead of the week? You could even portion them off into containers that you can grab whenever you like.
...and if you haven't planned ahead
The best part about the ZOE app is that you can take it wherever you go. You can use the app to scan the barcodes of products in the supermarket to find the best option for you.