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A snack food (commonly called a snack) is seen in Western culture
Western culture

File:Clash of Civilizations map.pngWestern culture are terms which are used to refer to cultures of European origin. This terminology originated as a way of describing what was different about the Graeco-Roman culture and its descendants, in contrast to the older neighboring civilizations of the Middle East, which in many ways continued...
 as a type of food not meant to be eaten as a main meal
Meal

A meal is an instance of eating, specifically one that takes place at a specific time and includes specific, prepared food.Meals occur primarily at homes, restaurants, and cafeterias, but may occur anywhere....
 of the day – breakfast
Breakfast

Breakfast is a meal eaten after a long period of sleep, most often eaten in the morning. The word came about because it means breaking the fast after one has not eaten since the night before....
, lunch, or dinner
Dinner

Dinner is the name of the main meal of the day. Depending upon regional locale and tradition, it may be the second or third principle meal of the day....
 – but one rather that is intended to assuage a person's hunger
Hunger

Hunger is a feeling experienced when one has a desire to eat. The often unpleasant feeling originates in the hypothalamus and is released through receptors in the liver....
 between these meals, providing a brief supply of energy for the body. The term may also refer to a food item consumed between meals purely for the enjoyment of its taste.

Traditionally snacks were prepared from ingredients commonly available in the home, often leftovers, sandwiches made from cold cuts, nuts, fruit, and the like.






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A snack food (commonly called a snack) is seen in Western culture
Western culture

File:Clash of Civilizations map.pngWestern culture are terms which are used to refer to cultures of European origin. This terminology originated as a way of describing what was different about the Graeco-Roman culture and its descendants, in contrast to the older neighboring civilizations of the Middle East, which in many ways continued...
 as a type of food not meant to be eaten as a main meal
Meal

A meal is an instance of eating, specifically one that takes place at a specific time and includes specific, prepared food.Meals occur primarily at homes, restaurants, and cafeterias, but may occur anywhere....
 of the day – breakfast
Breakfast

Breakfast is a meal eaten after a long period of sleep, most often eaten in the morning. The word came about because it means breaking the fast after one has not eaten since the night before....
, lunch, or dinner
Dinner

Dinner is the name of the main meal of the day. Depending upon regional locale and tradition, it may be the second or third principle meal of the day....
 – but one rather that is intended to assuage a person's hunger
Hunger

Hunger is a feeling experienced when one has a desire to eat. The often unpleasant feeling originates in the hypothalamus and is released through receptors in the liver....
 between these meals, providing a brief supply of energy for the body. The term may also refer to a food item consumed between meals purely for the enjoyment of its taste.

Traditionally snacks were prepared from ingredients commonly available in the home, often leftovers, sandwiches made from cold cuts, nuts, fruit, and the like. The Dagwood sandwich
Dagwood sandwich

A Dagwood sandwich is a thick, multi-layered sandwich made up of a wide variety of meats, cheeses, and condiments. It was named after Dagwood Bumstead, a character in the comic strip Blondie , who frequently makes enormous sandwiches....
 was originally the humorous result of a cartoon character's desire for large snacks.

With the multiplication of convenience stores, packaged snack foods are now a significant business. Snack foods are typically designed to be portable, quick and satisfying. Processed
Food processing

Food processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food or to transform food into other forms for ingestion by humans or animals either in the home or by the food industry....
 snack foods are designed to be less perishable, more durable, and/or more appealing than prepared foods. They often contain substantial amounts of sweetener
Sweetener

A sweetener is a food additive which adds the basic taste of sweetness to a food; artificial sweeteners are sugar substitutes....
s, preservative
Preservative

A preservative is a natural or synthetic chemical compound that is added to products such as foods, pharmaceuticals, paints, biological samples, wood, etc....
s, and appealing ingredients such as chocolate
Chocolate

Chocolate comprises a number of raw and processed foods that are produced from the seed of the tropical cacao tree.Chocolate has become one of the most popular flavors in the world....
, peanut
Peanut

The peanut, or groundnut , is a species in the legume Fabaceae native to South America, Mexico and Central America. It is an annual plant herbaceous plant growing to 30 to 50 cm tall....
s, and specially designed flavors (such as flavored potato chip
Potato chip

A potato chip is a thin slice of potato deep frying or Baking until crisp. Potato chips serve as an appetizer, side dish, or snack food. Commercial varieties are packaged for sale, usually in bags....
s).

Nutritional concerns

Snack foods are often subjectively classified as junk food
Junk food

File:Luther Burger Google.jpgJunk food is an informal term applied to some foods which are perceived to have little or no nutritional value, or to products with nutritional value but which also have ingredients considered unhealthy when regularly eaten, or to those considered unhealthy to consume at all....
; they have little or no nutritional value, and are not seen as contributing towards general health
Health

In 1948, the World Health Organisation defined health as ?a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.? ...
 and nutrition
Nutrition

Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with good nutrition....
. With growing concerns for diet
Diet (nutrition)

In nutrition, the diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual or culture makes when choosing what foods to eat....
, weight control
Dieting

File:Feet on scale.jpgDieting is the practice of Eating food in a regulated fashion to achieve or maintain a controlled weight. In most cases the goal is weight loss in those who are overweight or obese, but some athletes aspire to gain weight and diets can also be used to maintain a stable body weight....
 and general health
Health

In 1948, the World Health Organisation defined health as ?a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.? ...
, government bodies like Health Canada
Health Canada

Health Canada is the Ministry of the government of Canada with responsibility for national public health.The current Minister of Health is Leona Aglukkaq, a Conservative Member of Parliament appointed to the position by Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper....
 are recommending that people make a conscious effort to eat more healthy, natural snacks – such as fruit
Fruit

The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. In botany, which is the scientific study of plants, fruits are the ripened Ovary of flowering plants....
, vegetable
Vegetable

The term "vegetable" generally means the Eating parts of plants. The definition of the word is traditional rather than scientific, however, and therefore the usage of the word is somewhat arbitrary and subjective, as it is determined by individual cultural customs of food selection and food preparation....
s, nuts
Nut (fruit)

Nut is a general term for the large, dry, oily seed or fruit of some plant. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts....
 and cereal grains
Cereal

Cereals, or cereal grains, are mostly Poaceae cultivated for their edible brans or fruit seeds . Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore staple foods....
 – while avoiding high-calorie, low-nutrient junk food.

Industry concerns


The snack food industry in market-driven societies such as the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 generates billions of dollars in revenue each year. The market for processed snack foods is enormous, and a number of large corporations compete rigorously to capture larger shares of the snack food market. Consequently, heavy promotions are used to convince consumers to buy snack foods. Processed snack foods are advertised far more than regular nutritional foods (such as fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy products), and the flashiest TV commercials and advertising
Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to Purchasing or to consume more of a particular brand of Product or Service ....
 campaigns are often designed to sell these products.

However, realizing the potential market discovered by companies such as Hansen's Natural, companies like Frito-Lay
Frito-Lay

Frito-Lay North America is a division of PepsiCo which manufactures, markets and sells a variety of corn chips, potato chips and other snack foods....
, PepsiCo
PepsiCo

PepsiCo, Incorporated is a large conglomerate with interests in manufacturing, marketing and selling a wide variety of carbonation and non-carbonation beverages, as well as sodium, sweet and grain-based snacks, and other foods....
, and Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a carbonation soft drink sold in stores, restaurants and vending machines worldwide . It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke or as Cola or Pop....
 are now creating new alternatives for consumers.

Types of snack foods

  • lollipop
    Lollipop

    A lollipop, pop, lolly, sucker, or sticky-pop is a type of confectionery consisting mainly of hardened, flavored sucrose with corn syrup mounted on a stick and intended for sucking or licking....
Other snack foods
  • cheese puffs/cheese curls
    Cheese puffs

    Cheese puffs, cheese curls, or corn curls are a puffed grain snack, coated with a mixture of cheese or cheese-flavored Powder . Common brands include Cheetos and Cheezies ...
  • cheese
    Cheese

    Cheese is a food consisting of proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cattle, Water Buffalo, goats, or sheep's milk. It is produced by Coagulation of the milk protein casein....
  • cracker
    Cracker (food)

    A cracker is a type of biscuit that developed from military hardtack and nautical ship biscuits....
    s
  • cookies/biscuits
    Cookie

    In the United States and Canada, a cookie is a small, flat-baked treat, containing milk, flour, eggs, and sugar, etc. In most English-speaking countries outside North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have different meanings?a cookie is a plain bu...
  • doughnut
    Doughnut

    A doughnut is a sweet, deep-fried piece of dough or batter . The two most common types are the torus-shaped ring doughnut and the filled doughnut, a flattened sphere injected with jam, jelly, cream, custard, or other sweet filling....
    s
  • fruit
    Fruit

    The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. In botany, which is the scientific study of plants, fruits are the ripened Ovary of flowering plants....
    s
  • easy-to-eat vegetable
    Vegetable

    The term "vegetable" generally means the Eating parts of plants. The definition of the word is traditional rather than scientific, however, and therefore the usage of the word is somewhat arbitrary and subjective, as it is determined by individual cultural customs of food selection and food preparation....
    s (e.g., apple
    APPLE

    This article is about the satellite APPLE. For the fruit apple, see Apple. For other uses see Apple .The Ariane Passenger PayLoad Experiment , was an experimental communication satellite with a C-Band transponder launched by Indian Space Research Organisation satellite on June 19, 1981 by Ariane 1, a launch vehicle of the European Spac...
    s, orange
    Orange

    Orange may refer to:*Orange , colour that takes its name from the fruit*Orange , citrus tree*Osage-orange, ornamental plant in the mulberry family Moraceae...
    s, carrot
    Carrot

    The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange or white, or red-white blend in colour, with a crisp texture when fresh. The edible part of a carrot is a taproot....
    s)
  • instant noodles
    Instant noodles

    Instant noodles are dried or precooked noodles fused with oil, and often sold with a packet of flavoring. Dried noodles are usually eaten after being cooked or soaked in boiling water for 3 to 5 minutes, while precooked noodles can be reheated, or eaten straight from the packet....
  • jerky
    Jerky (food)

    Jerky is meat that has been cut into strips trimmed of fat, marinated in a spicy, salty or sweet liquid and then dried with low heat or occasionally salted and sun-dried....
  • mixed nuts
    Mixed Nuts

    Mixed Nuts is the title of a feature-length film comedy, released to theatres in the United States on December 21, 1994. The film is notable for its many colorful characters and intertwining storylines, but was neither a critical success, nor a commercial success at the box office....
  • peanut
    Peanut

    The peanut, or groundnut , is a species in the legume Fabaceae native to South America, Mexico and Central America. It is an annual plant herbaceous plant growing to 30 to 50 cm tall....
    s
  • popcorn
    Popcorn

    Popcorn or popping corn is a type of maize, which explodes from the kernel and puffs up when heated. Corn popping was originally discovered by Native Americans in the United States, but became popular as a snack food during the United States Great Depression....
  • trail mix
    Trail Mix

    Trail mix is a combination of dried fruit, grains, Nut , and sometimes chocolate, developed as a snack food to be taken along on outdoor hikes....
International snacks
  • shrimp chips
  • Hello Panda
    Hello Panda

    Hello Panda is a brand of Japanese biscuits , manufactured by Meiji Seika. Each biscuit consists of a small hollow shortbread layer, filled with either vanilla, strawberry, peanut butter or chocolate filling; chocolate is the most commonly available variety....
  • Pocky
    Pocky

    ' ' is a Japanese snack food produced by the Ezaki Glico of Japan. It was first sold in 1966, and consists of a cookie stick coated with chocolate....


Gallery


See also

  • Canapé
    Canapé

    A canap? or canape is a small, prepared and usually decorative food, held in the fingers and often eaten in one bite. Because they are often served during cocktail hours, it is often desired that a canap? be either salty or spicy, in order to encourage guests to drink more....
    s
  • List of snack foods
    List of snack foods

    A list of snack foods is shown below. For more information, see snack foods....