To Your Health
August, 2024 (Vol. 18, Issue 08) |
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Skip the Dip
By Editorial Staff
Trying to cut the calories as part of a healthy weight-loss plan and think a little dip won't make a difference? Think again. While cutting out unhealthy snacking (chips, etc.) is a great start to any weight-loss strategy, if you're still pairing a salty snack with dip, you could be sabotaging yourself. Here's why:
When people are served a salty snack with a dip, they tend to eat more – considerably more – than if they'd just been served the snack. How much more? How about 77% higher caloric intake compared to just eating the snack alone. Not coincidentally, speed of consumption also increased when pairing the snack (in this case, chips) with the dip.
In outlining their study, researchers postulated that adding dip to chips might decrease consumption (based on the premise that people might eat less of the snack when adding dip to the mix); but obviously that didn't happen. They ate the same amount of chips regardless of whether dip was available. In other words, the calories from the dip made all the difference.
Of course, dip is what can make certain healthy foods that aren't necessarily on your "favorites" list more palatable: cucumber, carrots, broccoli, etc. This study certainly shouldn't make you shy away from those foods, which are low in calories and high in vitamins and minerals. The moral to the story: be aware that adding dip = adding calories, pure and simple.
