sanck foods

What is a snack food? “snack” as “a light meal, food eaten between regular meals, food suitable for snacking.” A leftover from last evening’s home or restaurant meal, an afternoon bowl of breakfast cereal or cookies and milk for children returning from school in midafternoon are all properly named “snacks.”

However, what if there are only a few “regular meals” during the day? Scheduling regular meals could be challenging when parents (or a single parent) and children leave home at different times for work and school, especially when lunches are primarily eaten away from home and when activities for the children occupy weekday evenings and sometimes weekends as well. Our society sometimes lacks a structured time schedule for meals. Food is often purchased at drive-through windows and consumed alone in vehicles. Often, office workers take coffee and sometimes microwave popcorn to their desks at lunchtime. Snacks are then a convenient food for people on the go. Snacks are mainly eaten for craving and should not be considered a “meal.”

In general, snacks should have several characteristics, such as being safe and free of hazardous chemicals, other toxic substances and pathogenic organisms as defined by several federal laws and enforced by various agencies. Snacks are typically prepared commercially in large quantities by continuous processes; they are usually seasoned with salt and often with additional flavorings. Current regulation requires that snacks be shelf stable as well, requiring no refrigeration for preservation, packaged in a ready-to-eat fashion, typically divided into bite-size pieces, easily handled with the fingers and may have an oily or dry appearance depending on customer expectations for the specific product.