Americans spend $10 billion a year on salted snack foods such as potato chips, pork rinds, popcorn, and the like. And we spend at least that much more on sweet snacks.

We need snacks, don’t we? I read somewhere that it’s difficult to get all the nutrients a person needs without snacks.

That bit of wisdom came out of a study done on children. It holds up only when children don’t get nourishing, well-balanced meals, or when they aren’t hungry enough at mealtime to eat the calories they need.

Most Americans, children or adults, have no real idea what it’s like to be hungry. From birth kids are fed almost constantly. The habit carries on through the years. We have become a nation of grazers.

But “grazing” is supposed to be a good way to lose weight! You don’t get hungry, so you don’t overeat.

Actually, the calories gained from snacks and beverages can add up to more calories than some people should eat all day!

Suppose, for instance, you have a midmorning snack of coffee with cream and sugar and a jelly doughnut. Add a mid afternoon snack of a soft drink and a candy bar, plus a late afternoon snack of a cup of coffee with cream and sugar and three cookies. Top it all off in the evening with a typical TV snack: a soft drink, 10 potato chips, and five cheese crackers. If this sounds familiar, you’d better watch out—all that snacking added approximately 1,500 calories to your day! Now you know why the old saying is still true: The bigger the snacks, the bigger the slacks. Many people, as a matter of fact, have gained control of their weight simply by cutting out snacks.

But many people need a “pick-me-up” snack to get through the day!

That’s because they eat refined, fiber-poor, sugar-rich meals, without enough complex carbohydrates (starches) and fiber. A breakfast of presweetened dry cereal and orange juice, for instance (or coffee and doughnut), is quickly digested. The sugars rush into the bloodstream, push up the blood sugar, and provide a temporary high.

But it doesn’t hold for long, and when the blood sugar drops, there is that weak, all-gone feeling that cries to be relieved by a beverage or snack. And the cycle repeats itself.

A breakfast of whole-grain cooked cereal, whole-wheat bread, and a couple whole fresh fruits, on the other hand, will furnish plenty of steady energy all morning long. A similarly high-complex-carbohydrate, high-fiber lunch will do the same for the afternoon.

Are you saying that we don’t need snacks?

The snack habit is just that, a habit. With regular, adequate meals there will be much less need for snacks.

What’s more, people have fewer digestive problems when they eat simple meals of mostly high-fiber plant foods and then allow their stomachs to rest for a while. Ideally, meals should be spaced about four to five hours apart.

If you suffer from indigestion, heartburn, irritability, insomnia, mental dullness, gas, or weight gain, it could be because of between-meal snacking. A pattern of three meals a day with no snacking could solve many of these problems.

Any suggestions for a “must have a snack” attack?

Drink a big glass of water. It has no calories and requires no digestion. It passes right through, giving everything a good rinse.

If you must have more, eat a piece of fresh fruit or a handful of raw veggies.

The best way to fight off a snack attack, however is to remember that the calories you save by shunning those snacks will gradually melt off unwanted bulges.

While it may not always be true that once on the lips, forever on the hips, there’s no more doubting the fact that the bigger the snacks, the bigger the slacks.