A new study out with some interesting results. What happens when you add extra calories to people’s diets by making them snack on lots of candy? Do the same changes occur when the snack is something else, say fat and protein from peanuts, instead of just sugar? 
A research team in Sweden asked just that, and published their results this week. They had subjects consume 20 calories/kg of snacks, (in addition to their regular food intake) either as candy or as peanuts, for 2 weeks. Take another look at that number – it’s a lot of snacking! For a 68 kg person like me, that’s over 1300 calories of candy or peanuts in addition to their regular food intake! We’re talking deliberate overfeeding. Or as they say in scientific circles, hyper-alimentation.
As I would expect (and most people would), the subjects gained weight (0.8 kg on average in the candy group, 0.3 kg in the peanut group). But the fascinating part was that the negative metabolic effects of overloading with sugars didn’t happen with overloading fat and protein calories. The candy feeding led to increased LDL cholesterol, increased insulin levels, and increased waist circumferences, none of which were seen in the peanut-chomping group. Furthermore, the peanut group showed a significant increase in basal metabolic rate (BMR), indicating that the extra proteins and fats were turning up the body’s calorie-burning activities. (This could explain why the peanut group gained less weight).
So what do we learn? It’s known that a diet high in fast-digesting carbohydrates can lead to impaired metabolic function over time, presumably due to the impact of such foods on blood sugar levels. While the diet imposed in this case is extreme, in just 2 weeks of candy-pushing they already saw negative health effects upon cholesterol levels and glucose handling. As you can imagine, extending over a longer time frame, these indicators produce cardiovascular disease and diabetes. How about that peanut group? Well, we can see now say that the negative effects of a high-glycemic diet cannot the attributed to excess calories alone, because the peanut group ate just as many calories and the candy group. (Peanuts are a very low glycemic food, for the record). The sole variable here was the composition of the extra calories, lots of sugar carbohydrate in the candy group vs. or lots of protein and fat in the peanut group.
Don’t like peanuts? Got an allergy or kid with an allergy? No sweat. Other low glycemic snacks include other nuts (almonds, walnuts, pistachios), seeds (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds), vegetables with guacamole or hummus dip, dairy foods (cottage cheese, string cheese, plain yogurt), or edamame (green soybeans.) Got an intractable sweet tooth? Save your sugared indulgences for once-in-a-while treats, and use them to follow up a healthy, balanced meal. In addition to moderating the blood sugar spike, being fed will also help you keep the portion size in check.
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This is good stuff…as a former professional snacker it was not easy to give up the junk snacks. The pumpkin seeds have been a nice “treat” if you will between meals to mix things up. And thanks for slipping in the additional resources for those of us with peanut allergy families.
you know who you are