We were raised in a lifestyle of three meals a day: a big breakfast, a smaller lunch, and, of course, a full dinner. Tied to multiple historical traditions in our country and others, we have a history of eating 3 meals a day. That is not how all parts of the world and cultures work. Depending on your goals and calorie budget, we want to introduce the idea that snacks can be substituted for traditional meals.
Big Meals Can Mean Big Calories
As we looked to reduce our calorie intake we faced a big challenge in our three full meals a-day diet. When growing up, we were trained to eat what were known as three square meals (considered high-calorie and hardy). While in decline, we still have a cultural norm around it. Remember, food isn’t just about the intake of calories. For some, it is also a time for family and socialization.
Not Everyone Does It
The reality is not all cultures share this type of meal. In other cultures, the day’s main meal may historically be mid-day. This was the case with the Canadian half of our family. Other cultures such as Greek and Spanish may share later meals or multiple smaller meals. Our mention of that is to point out that there is variance in our world in styles and times of eating.
Getting Past Old Habits
For our goals, we started to question what a full meal was and how to create a similar nutrition profile with items that many consider snacks. For us raised where a meal has a main dish and sides that shift can be hard to break through mentally. A meal could be a ham sandwich and chips with pickles or a steak with green beans and baked potato. This differs from what we would call snack items such as cheese, trail mix, and even beef sticks. In the snacks as a meal model, there is no primary entree to build the meal around. There is only the balance of items such as those recommended in the USDA’s MyPlate.
Do we need to have a full meal main and side dish prepared by ourselves or others? More and more people are saying no, however, the 3 a day is a simple way to break up caloric intake evenly over our waking hours. More importantly, how we change our perception about meals can have a large impact on our calorie budget. As America has become more of a snack culture, the challenge has become that those snacks are not healthy choices.
Change the Portion, Not the Balance
This is where snacks get a bad name but they don’t have to be. We aren’t saying to eat chips, candy, and soda as a meal replacement. If we revisit the idea of a meal with sides its origin was a balanced plate. This is not different from the idea of tapas or the USDA’s MyPlate. We can drive that need for the big three in a diet through snacks without the challenging portion sizes.
Why is this concept important? How do snacks as meals benefit us? When homemade or created from from foods we already have on hand they can:
- Allow flexibility in meal schedules.
- Use existing staples such as cheese, nuts, fruits, and crackers already on hand.
- Align our intake of food to our nutrition needs and calorie budgets.
- Help manage hunger spikes without over-eating.
Snacks Aren’t Evil, Choices Can Be
What foods are we talking about? Are we talking potato chips, clam dip, and pizza rolls? No. But you do you if that is what you like, is in your calorie budget, and fits your nutrient needs. Our guess is they won’t. What we are talking about is more about balanced food created or on hand at home. Here are a few examples of meals:
- Tuna salad, crackers, pickles and cheese.
- Jerky, trail mix, dehydrated broccoli florets, yogurt.
- Beef sticks, granola bars, fresh vegetables such as carrots or cucumbers.
- Hard-boiled eggs, tortillas, cheese and salsa.
- Smoked fish, crackers, cottage cheese, celery.
Each of the above has a mix of items that contain the big 3 and can be kept readily on hand. Are they healthy? Healthy is a subjective term based on your needs and life choices. Many of the items discussed can be produced at home to have better control over ingredients. The more important thing is that they can all be created from items that can be kept on hand, and are mostly shelf-stable or refrigerate/freezer-friendly.
Are We Saying Eat UHP Foods?
We understand that items such as beef sticks, jerky, and even fruit-flavored yogurt are now considered Ultra-High Processed Food. These new guidelines include granola bars, ham, ice cream, and candy. Our approach to dealing with these guidelines is to keep all things in moderation. We know that there is mercury in Tuna therefore, not being in an at-risk group, we may only have it twice a month.
We also produce items like jerky, bread, and granola bars so we can control much more of our food supply. You do you because it’s your body. You will make me give up my homemade jerky, ice cream, and candies when you pull them from my cold dead hands. We want to live simply and still eat better more often than not.
We’re Deconstructing a Meal
In truth, all of the above are very similar in concept to deconstructed meals. Let’s take the first one with tuna. Isn’t this simply a tuna melt which is tuna salad, bread (a starch, but we use crackers), pickles, and cheese (which makes it a melt)? Doesn’t the one with hard-boiled eggs and tortillas seem a lot like Hueveo Rancheros? That is the point.
By using a snack approach to balanced meals we can reduce the amount of time we spend cooking. To do this look at a meal and break it down. Can you substitute different parts of the meal for other items? If you can’t then can you use the ingredients on hand together as a full meal? Balance is the key.
Many of us have one-off items such as grabbing an apple as a snack. The challenge is balance. This is not to say we don’t enjoy a bag of chips or cookies once and a while. Our blog’s premise is not about right or wrong or healthy or not. We want to reduce the barriers to simplifying getting to your goals by pointing out alternate ways of getting your Daily Required Intake or DRI. When we hear snacks there is a perception it isn’t healthy.
Wrapping Up
We have discussed many aspects of snacks as meal replacements. As with all health and food-related topics, it is your choice. We assert that eating 3 big meals a day, even if homemade, can be outside our caloric needs. The timing of the meals may or may not be the best for your body and lifestyle. Rather than sitting down to a full plate of food, it may help to just grab some roast deli chicken crackers, cheese, and some trail mix instead.