Healthy Swaps: Snacks and Drinks

In this week’s Healthy Swaps we are looking at Snacks and Drinks:  What are some healthy alternatives to common choices?

Snacking generally isn’t recommended. You’ll often hear that you should stick to three meals a day and never snack between meals. But sometimes it’s impossible for you to ignore hunger cravings.

That doesn’t mean your snacks should be chocolate bars or crisps. The first step to achievable weight loss is to make small changes to your diet. This means fewer foods with high calories, sugar and fat content.  Choosing healthier foods can be easier than you think. By making a few small healthy changes you can make a big difference to your diet.

Crisps and Cakes – 👎  Fruit and Veg – 👍

A typical large bag of crisps contains 53% of the daily recommended amount of fat and 55% of the RDA of saturated fat. They are also incredibly high in salt content. Cakes meanwhile are calorific and high in sugar.

You should avoid these unhealthy processed snacks and instead turn to fresh fruit or veg for a quick snack. People who include more fruit and veg in their diets are likely to have a reduced risk of some chronic diseases. Some other great reasons to eat fruit and veg are:

  • They provide nutrients vital for health and maintenance of your body: Vegetables contain high amounts of essential vitamins such as Vit A, Vit C, Folic Acid and Pottasium.
  • They are high in fibre: Dietary fiber from vegetables, as part of an overall healthy diet, helps reduce blood cholesterol levels and may lower risk of heart disease.
  • Most vegetables are naturally low in fat and calories – Fibre-containing foods help provide a feeling of fullness with fewer calories.
  • They are a delicious! Check out these 30 ideas for quick no-cook fruit and veg snacks


Swap Chocolate and Sweets for Dark Chocolate

If you really need to buy a sweet snack, go for the pure, unadulterated dark chocolate. Dark chocolate with a high cocoa content is actually quite nutritious. It contains fibre, a lot of minerals and is high in antioxidants, with a comparably low amount of sugar with other chocolates.

Eating dark chocolate in moderation may help lower blood pressure, lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as improve brain function.

But be careful. Not all dark chocolate is up to scratch – choose high quality organic dark chocolate with over 70% cocoa content

Swap Fizzy Juice for Freshly Squeezed Fruit Juice

It’s been well documented that fizzy juice isn’t a good idea. Extremely high in sugar and ‘empty calories’ it’s a great thing to cut out your diet.


Instead, why not have a small glass of freshly squeezed juice? Drinking a glass of freshly squeezed juice is not only refreshing and delicious, but provides numerous health benefits that often get lost in the processing that commercial fruit juices undergo. Juice cartons also often contain large amounts of added sugar and sweeteners which add extra calories to your diet. While there are natural sugars in fresh fruit, it is a small amount and is outweighed by the nutritional benefits. Fresh juice is full of vitamins, fibre, minerals, antioxidants, and low in calories.
Juice also provides your body with a large amount of water, which aids the body in producing energy, keeping your metabolism active and promoting the health of your skin.

Swap Energy Juice for Black Coffee

When looking for a quick caffeine fix, many people will turn to energy drinks. But researchers from the World Health Organisation have raised serious concerns about the high sugar and caffeine content in energy drinks. Potential risks associated with energy drink consumption include:

  • Caffeine overdose (which can lead to a number of symptoms, including palpitations, high blood pressure, nausea and vomiting, convulsions and, in some cases, even death)
  • Type 2 diabetes – as high consumption of caffeine reduces insulin sensitivity
  • Late miscarriages, low birthweight and stillbirths in pregnant women
  • Neurological and cardiovascular system effects in children and adolescents
  • Poor dental health
  • Obesity

Why not ditch the energy drinks and drink a black coffee instead. A black coffee with no sugar can cut extra calories and sugar out your diet –  and have added health benefits.

Black coffee can give you that extra boost to productivity at work but more importantly has been linked to a lower risk of diabetes, liver and heart disease, as well promoting tooth and gum health.