American eating habits have always changed with the times. The Industrial Revolution brought about the three-meals-a-day pattern. At the turn of the 20th century, packaging innovations introduced snacks to the mainstream. Giant supermarkets offered consumers a seemingly endless array of bright and shiny goods.
And a major shift in how millions of Americans work during the pandemic has opened up new snack categories — good news for breakfast vendors, but not for our health.
The US snack market was It grew from 116.6 billion USD in 2017 to 150.6 billion USD in 2022 and is predicted to grow to 169.6 billion USD in 2027.
“Snacks are ubiquitous today,” said Sally Lyon Watt, CEO of market research firm IRI. “It’s a lifestyle.”
Until recently, though.
From three square meals to snacks at any time
It may be commonplace today, but historically, eating three meals a day “wasn’t really the norm,” said Ashley Rose Young, a food historian at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History. Thanks to the industrial revolution, the factory schedule dictated the workers’ diet, and the practice was introduced in the United States.
“You want to eat a meal before you go to work to fuel you through the day,” Young said. Then it will be “a midday break, to recharge your energy… and then a meal after work”.
As foods became standardized in the United States, new laws on nutrition emerged—and with them, new attitudes about snacking.
In the 19th century, snacks like peanuts were sold by street vendors, and stigmatized as being associated with the working class and the poor, Abigail Carroll wrote in 2013 about American snacking and eating habits in “Three Squares.” “As food — especially dinner — became more social, more polite, and more rigidly defined, snacking became contagious,” she writes.
But food vendors saw a business opportunity in snacks — if they knew how to get them off the street and into the home. To do this, they need better packaging to keep something closed and fresh.
Eventually, a group of entrepreneurs cracked the code and opened the door to the rest of the industry. Their product? Cracker Jack.
Snacking hits the spot.
Frederick and Louis Ruckheim, German brothers living in Chicago, developed a delicious popcorn and peanut snack. In 1896, they traveled with him from town to town sharing samples and spreading the word about the product, Carroll reported. In order to make Cracker Jack last longer, they worked with a man named Henry Eckstein, who developed a special wax coating for the bags they sold. In the years that followed, companies like Nabisco and Kellogg’s developed that technology or adapted it for their own products. , kicking the door open for others.
Over the years, other changes in American culture and technology have made snacking on the go more appealing, said Young, the food historian.
And since millennials started shopping for themselves, the trend has picked up even more.
Snack today
Boomers and Gen Xers tend to snack in the afternoon or evening, says IRI’s Watt, who has been tracking snacking trends for decades. Millennials, however, snack in the morning.
“Millennials are really starting to change which way [people] said Watt. You definitely start to see them eating small meals and or snacks…throughout the day.
Then the epidemic hit, and another change happened, Watt explains: People started eating more late-night snacks.
This is partly because of the way people lived during the outbreak. With kids stuck at home during traditional work hours, some parents put in extra work hours at night and reach for snacks to refuel. Others have developed new routines that involve staying up later.
Now, with people returning to the office and a more regular work schedule, they are less interested in late night snacks. But food vendors will continue to try to market food for that time frame. “I don’t think they’re falling apart,” Watt said.
Not all snacks are the same.
So what does all this snacking mean for our health? It depends on what you consider a snack.
“Whole fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, protein sources, or knowing how much to snack on — sometimes it can help them meet some of the recommendations and guidelines,” says registered dietitian Jessica Bihunik. and Assistant Professor of Clinical Nutrition at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.
Snack vendors offer so-called “better-for-you” options, which may be lower in sugar or come in smaller packages for portion control. For some, such options can be very helpful when it comes to weight control, Bihuniak said, adding that people should be mindful of portion sizes because small packages can still have more than one serving.
When it comes to packaged items on the shelf — even those that claim to be better for you — consumers should read the nutrition facts on the packages.
“They did something to the shelf to make it stable,” Bihunik said. “The important part there is to look at food labels,” she said, and watch for sodium content, added content and saturated fat. Your healthiest option is probably something that doesn’t come in a package, like fruit or crunchy vegetables.
It is less clear when and how often to eat. For some, snacking is easier than making time to sit down, Bihunik said. But as long as you make the right food choices, “I think that’s totally fine.”
