Rethink that Snack

I was reading an opinion piece concerning adorable Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver (Jamie, if I wasn't a happily married gal, you could cook for me anytime!) when I came upon this interesting factoid regarding snacks:

Oliver wants to change the way low-income communities approach meals. The problem is that the evidence suggests meals aren't driving the rise in obesity -- snacks are. A 2003 paper by economists David Cutler, Ed Glaeser and Jesse Shapiro looked at an array of different ways to measure caloric intake, and found that most meals aren't getting much bigger. Dinner, in fact, might be getting a bit smaller. The big increase in caloric intake actually came between meals. In 1977, Americans
reported eating about 186 calories outside of mealtimes. By 1994, that had rocketed to 346 calories. It's likely even higher now. That difference alone is enough to explain the changes in our national waistline. And it won't go away if we begin cooking dinners but still are purchasing 20-ounce bottles of Coke at
the office.

You can read the entire opinion piece here: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/10/what_the_naked_chef_jamie_oliv.html

I have to admit to being a bit of a "grazer." I like to much all day. Recognizing that this was unlikely to change, I made a conscious effort to change what I was munching on. I now usually have carrots, grapes or something similar to snack on throughout the day.