Salty VS. Sweet The Snack Showdown

Snacking in moderation can be a great way to keep your mind focused, maintain energy levels, and supply your body with needed nutrients throughout the day. When snack cravings occur, a lot of us tend to crave one type of snack over another. But do you know why you might crave certain snacks at certain times? There are many different explanations as to why we hanker these snacks. Let’s take a closer look at why we crave salty and sweet snacks.

Salty snacks like chips, pretzels, and crackers are very common snacks we all reach for from time to time. Many times when we are craving something salty it’s because:

• Our bodies are low on key minerals like calcium, sodium, magnesium, or zinc.
• We are dehydrated.
• We are experiencing a hormonal fluctuation due to changes in stress levels.
• While not very common, excessively craving salty snacks can be due to a sluggish adrenal gland.Choosing a healthier salty snack option can not only help ease your cravings but give your body needed nutrients. At Tropical Foods we have several options that you can offer your customers as a healthier salty snack like our York’s Harvest™ Garden Chips® line, Bartender’s Blend™ snack mix, Five Star Nut Mix®, or The Big Cheese® in our Grabeez® snack cup.

While many might crave salty over sweet snacks, the phrase “sweet tooth” is a thing for a reason. Just like our cravings for salty snacks, our bodies have a reason for why we might suddenly crave a sweet snack:

• Low blood sugar.
• Low serotonin levels.
• If your diet is low in fat, you could put too much strain on the body and cause insulin resistance, during which sugars are not being carried effectively throughout the body. This stress on our bodies leads to a need for sugar.
• An increase in emotional stress.
• Even if you eat a healthy, balanced diet and have normal serotonin levels, you might still be feeling that you “need” sweets after dinner due to psychological conditioning: Dessert was always what rounded out and finished a meal, so you feel like something is missing if you don’t have it.There are several sweet snack options to from Tropical Foods that are also a healthier choice when your sweet tooth is demanding your attention. All-Natural flavored yogurt pretzels are a great sweet snack that come in a resealable stand up bag to save multiple sweet tooth snack attack pangs. Other great snack option are our ReCharge® Dark Chocolate Energy Boost snack mix, Sweet Caroline® snack mix, honey roasted almonds, and banana chips.

Having a snack in between meals is not a bad thing as long as it’s in moderation. Understanding why our bodies crave different snacks is key to understanding what our body is telling us it needs to maintain a balanced healthy life. So don’t ignore your cravings, understand what might be causing them and enjoy your snacks!