The fine art of grazing! Hands up all those who thought that sensible eating meant keeping to three meals a day? Traditionally, there has been a belief that sensible eating meant sticking to three square meals a day. Perhaps this stems from images of an erratic eater. You know the one, the person who skips breakfast making up for it with snacks during the day and then feasting before sleeping at night—certainly not the ideal pattern! New evidence suggests that the people who graze properly, eating small amounts of food throughout the day at frequent intervals, may actually be doing themselves a favour.
A recent study which compared people eating a diet of three meals a day with those who had three meals and three snacks showed that snacking stimulated the body to use up more energy for metabolism compared to concentrating the same amount of food into three meals. It’s as if the more fuel you give your body the more it will burn. Frequent small meals stimulate the metabolic rate.
The problem with grazing is that most snacks turn out to be high fat foods like cakes, chocolate, snack bars, crisps or pastries. Another criticism of grazing has been that for people who eat too much, increasing the number of times that they face food is tempting disaster. Overeating is less likely to occur if the foods eaten are carbohydrate rich and have a low G.I. factor. Using these foods, you will feel satisfied before you have overconsumed!
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