One popular series of candy bar promotes the idea of eating it to stop hunger pangs – if you feel a drop in energy during the workday, you can simply eat one of these candy bars (which has 30 grams of sugar and rhymes with knickers) and go on being productive. Not exactly. Except for the immediate feeling of satiety, the effect on hunger is exactly the opposite.
When you eat a candy bar, which usually contains fast-digesting carbohydrates like sugar and corn syrup, your body will produce insulin as a response to the rise in blood sugar. In many cases, too much insulin will be produced which will cause blood sugar to drop too low.
To raise blood sugar back to normal levels, the body will crave carbohydrates – in effect, making you hungry again. In fact, the purpose of an “oral glucose tolerance test” is to create just such an insulin spike to determine if an individual is diabetic or has insulin resistance.
So, rather than reach for a lump of peanuts covered by milk chocolate and corn syrup, quash your mid-afternoon hunger pangs with a handful of real nuts (peanuts are not nuts, but legumes) such as almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts or macadamia nuts.
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