Do you feel guilty when snacking in between meals? Do you think being healthy is sticking to your regular meals? Well, if scientists get the final call, you’re doing the wrong thing, instead of sticking to your diet, you’re actually putting on weight.

A new report shows that a new generation of snack products are emerging that contain functional ingredients. These use fat and sugar replacers and are developed with new cooking processes to make them healthier. Recent innovations include drinks to replace snacking occasions, satiety promoting products and vitality boosting snacks.

Scientists say the sensation of hunger is caused by low sugar levels in the blood and certain hormones in your body which trigger the hunger signals. This adds to the psychological effects of appetite. By keeping your stomach emptiness on a medium level, you won’t feel hunger, and consequently reduces the overall gain of weight. Scientists say it’s sensible to keep a five-six snacks-a-day diet. By doing this you will feel less stressed, less hungry and therefore you won’t gain as much weight.

A further advantage to snacking is that it helps maintain the body’s natural levels of insulin. Keeping blood insulin levels as constant as possible means constant metabolic rate and energy. The best way of doing this is to have regular small snacks of similar amounts of protein and carbohydrate (by weight) with about 20% of the total in fats (not animal fat, and less than half of the total in dairy fat), depending, of course, on your own physical/medical condition.

Instead of starving yourself, you should eat yourself in shape. By having the right products you will notice that there is no need to be hungry, a dieter’s dream, right?