Healthy snacks for the working day: how to stay alert in the afternoon

Afternoon tiredness is not always about sleep. Often the reason is that several hours pass between lunch and dinner, and the only thing in between is coffee and something sweet. A well built snack evens out your energy and reduces the kind of hunger that drives the evening grocery run.

Nutrition recommendations describe an adult's day as a regular meal rhythm: breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus one or two snacks when needed. A regular rhythm keeps blood glucose steadier and curbs hunger, which shows directly in how well you concentrate during the working day.

The formula for a good snack

A simple guideline has three parts: a snack is vegetables, wholegrain and protein. Vegetables bring fibre and volume, the wholegrain part gives longer lasting energy, and protein gives the fullness that carries you to the next meal. For a smaller appetite, two parts out of three are enough.

The fibre recommendation is at least 25 grams a day for women and at least 35 grams for men, while actual intake is on average clearly lower. A snack is an easy place to close the gap: wholegrain bread, oats, berries and vegetables lift the daily fibre amount without any separate effort.

Protein is recommended to make up 10 to 20 per cent of daily energy, and 15 to 20 per cent from the age of 65. In practice that means spreading protein through the day instead of saving it all for dinner: cottage cheese, quark, eggs, legumes or nuts cover the snack part.

Sugar, coffee and the afternoon dip

A sweet snack lifts your energy fast, and it drops just as fast. The World Health Organization recommends keeping free sugars below ten per cent of daily energy, with further benefit below five per cent, roughly 25 grams a day for an adult. One sweet pastry and a couple of soft drinks fill that easily.

This does not mean pastries are off limits. It is about what the default choice is. When a ready snack travels with you to work, sweet things stay an occasional pleasure instead of being the only option at four in the afternoon.

How snacks appear without separate cooking

The easiest way is to make snacks at the same time as other food. Chop vegetables into a box at the start of the week, boil several eggs at once, and deliberately leave one portion of dinner in the fridge. Tex-Mex Frittata with Minced Meat and Cherry Tomatoes, for example, also works cold the next day with bread and something fresh.

Take two small snacks from home instead of one big one, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. Hunger then does not grow too big at either point of the day, and lunch stays reasonable too.

Remember to drink

Part of the afternoon dip comes from drinking too little water. Keep a bottle at your desk and have a glass with your snack. Coffee is best timed to the morning so it does not disturb the night's sleep, which is in the end the most effective source of energy.