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Show Doctor in the Kitchen by Laurence M. Hursh, M.D. Consultant, National Dairy Council WHY NOT NIBBLE? Do you nibble, or do you still eat the standard three meals a day? It could be that most people would answer that question by saying they nibble meaning that they do indulge in some be-tween-meal eating. But a true nibbler is one who eats smaller meals and eats, say, five or six times a day. This is the pattern that some nutritionists are recommending. Research Findings Research at the University of Illinois and elsewhere indicates that nibbling makes energy available avail-able to the body in amounts that can be used up. Meal eating, by comparison, can give the body more than it needs at that particular parti-cular time, encouraging the body to store energy for future needs in the form of fat. Thus weight is added to the body. Nibbling, like the schools of new economics and new politics, offers a change. And presumably, if you don't eat too much food each day in total, nibbling can offer an evener environment of ''feeling good" rather than "feeling "feel-ing full", and weight control. Early man, experts point out, could get along on less frequent but larger meals. Early man's physical activity (sometimes just in finding his food) was much greater. But today our energy requirements re-quirements are less and, most of all, food's availability is almost endless. We might take advantage of the very fact of availability and eat less but more often. After all, wherever you are, one does not have far to go to obtain food. Trouble is, a lot of people have allowed food's availability to make them gluttons. It's time for them to change. Work habits, too, favor more nibbling. Coffee breaks, for example: ex-ample: These moments should contribute to your daily food intake in-take of a variety of nourishing foods. They should not simply be an excuse for a stimulant. A restaurant res-taurant that serves coffee also offers salads, glasses of milk, cottage cot-tage cheese and crackers, or delicious de-licious bowls of soup, or milk shakes. Even food vending machines ma-chines offer snacks that can be counted as part of the food you should have during the day. Also At Home At home on weekends, or for the homemaker and children every day, you could easily eat more often and choose foods that are from the milk group, the meat - fish - poultry - egg group, fruits and vegetables, and breads and cereals. Also, in watching how much you eat figura those hor d'ouvres at a neighbor's parly as one of your small meals. Happy nibbling! |