HEALTH HORIZONS : NUTRITION : Malice’s Restaurant : The products offered by vending services are mostly nuggets of salt, sugar and fat. But when merchandisers offer a few lighter and healthier choices, their sales are anemic.
Lunch seems so long ago, and dinner won’t happen for three more hours. Already, your stomach beckons. The noise down below starts as a low murmur. It slowly turns into a grumble that wrests your office mate from his afternoon slumber. Quieting the creature becomes a priority. Where you gonna go? Off to the nearest vending machine.
And there you stand, jingling the quarters in your pocket with anticipation, your eyes darting from package to package. Now hunger pangs turn into guilt pangs. You’ve promised to be nice to your health. You really want to eat less sugar, less fat, less cholesterol and less salty stuff. So what to choose? Funyuns, Snak-Ens, Zagnuts and Chew-Ets swim before your eyes.
“The questions is, which will do the least damage? That’s what it boils down to,” said Jayne Hurley, a registered dietitian and associate nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.
Vending is booming, with automated sales in 1991 expected to top $25 billion. The industry has a 55-year-old trade association, two magazines and an annual convention, held this year in Chicago, which attracted 8,000 participants and 250 exhibitors hawking everything from soup to nuts to panty hose. In the United States, there is one machine for every 42 people, according to the National Automatic Merchandising Assn.
None of this means that food items sold from machines are any more healthful than they used to be. That makes your midafternoon impulses a real dilemma, especially if you’re trying to treat your body better. Despite packages that say “No Cholesterol,” some token granola bars in earthy-looking green wrappers and bags of nut mixes scattered among the chocolate bars, snacks from the nearest metal monster are still considered junk food. They are mostly nuggets of salt, sugar or fat.
But can we really blame the suppliers and operators? Frito-Lay stopped selling most light products from vending machines because they didn’t move. (“Apparently people who consume products from vending machines want real chips,” says Frito-Lay spokeswoman Beverly Holmes.) The nation’s largest vending distributor, Vending Service of America, only carries light microwave popcorn for special orders. (“If you’re a popcorn eater, you crave the salt,” said San Francisco Bay Area general manager Jeffrey Duerr. “There’s nothing like the butter and salt.”)
Vending customers react like microorganisms to stimuli--the color of the package they’re familiar with, the smell of popcorn cooking in the microwave or a “comfort food” from long ago, said Tim Sanford, executive editor of New York-based Vending Times magazine.
“If someone goes up to a machine and sees a granola bar and a Hershey bar, they’re going to go for the Hershey bar 9 1/2 times out of 10,” said Pandel Stoichess, Northern California sales manager for national vending operator Delicor Food and Beverage Service. “Right now our customer is more health conscious. But . . . Snickers is still our No. 1 seller.”
So-called healthful products have barely made a dent in vending sales, merchandisers say. And even the products that appear in vending machines under the guise of good health are nutritionally questionable.
Granola bars? Still high in sugar and fat, said Denise Rector, assistant director of community programs for the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the American Heart Assn. Trail mixes? Loaded with nuts and sometimes chocolate, both high fat ingredients. Microwave popcorn? A bag of the regular version has more calories, fat and sodium than many chocolate candy bars.
“It’s really a juggling act,” Rector said. “In choosing, you have to ask yourself, what’s the lesser of the evils?”
Excessive fat in the American diet is still the major concern of health organizations. The average American eats a diet of 38% fat, despite evidence linking grease-laden fare to colon cancer, breast cancer and the nation’s No. 1 killer, cardiovascular disease. Obesity also causes high blood pressure. The American Heart Assn. recommends a diet of no more than 30% fat; other groups want guidelines dropped to 20% or 25%. Pritikin opts for 10%.
What does a 30% fat diet mean? If you eat 2,500 calories a day, no more than 825 calories--or 91 grams--should come from fat.
But nearly a third of that daily allotment can come from one 3.5-ounce bag of regular microwave popcorn, which has about 27 grams of fat. One Snickers bar has 13 grams of fat. Three Oreos--half the typical vending machine package, and who eats only half?--has six grams. Those 15 almonds in your itty-bitty airline snack bag have eight grams.
If you’re trying to lower your blood cholesterol, the fat you eat--not just the cholesterol--must go down, nutritionists say. In these days of grazing, snacks play a vital role in our diets. Without a keen eye, they can doom the best intentions. Be wary of labels that say “No Cholesterol.” Most of those products never had cholesterol to begin with, but are still loaded with fat.
Avoid partially hydrogenated oils, which are still an ingredient in products that boast of eliminating tropical oils. Hydrogenating oils means adding hydrogen to a liquid oil to make it more solid, which makes it more saturated. A study last year in the Netherlands indicated that hydrogenated oils--even those made from healthier types--raise total cholesterol and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, as well as lower HDL (“good”) cholesterol.
For a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet --
* Avoid: chocolate bars, nuts, caramels, granola bars, anything coated with chocolate or yogurt (which when used as a candy coating may be laden with saturated oils), chips and crackers.
* Choose: Microwave popcorn (light only), pretzels, fruit and nut mixes in moderation, sweets such as jelly beans, licorice and gumdrops that are mostly sugar, plain cookies like gingersnaps.
Fat and cholesterol are not the only dietary demons, though. Sodium can increase blood pressure in people who are already hypertensive.
In 1989, the National Academy of Sciences recommended that Americans limit their daily intake of sodium to 1,800 milligrams. A pinch of salt equals about 100 milligrams. One measly ounce of pretzels--less than one vending bag--has 470 milligrams. With that, you’ve wiped out more than a quarter of your daily allowance.
For a sodium-restricted diet --
* Avoid: chips, crackers, popcorn, salted nuts, pretzels, filled cracker sandwiches, cookies, snack mixes.
* Choose: granola bars, unsalted fruit and nut mixes, caramels (if you can afford the calories).
When the snack attack demolishes your good intentions to restrict overall calories to lose weight, the vending machine is nothing but a hovering monster filled with venom. Rector said the dieter’s snack should be brown-bagged. Try items such as fresh or dried fruit, vegetable sticks or air-popped popcorn.
What’s the best solution when you’ve got munch mania and the brown bag is empty?
“If you need to have something sweet, try to get something that gets all its calories from sugar,” said Jayne Hurley, the nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
For a calorie-restricted diet --
* Avoid: Chocolate, chips and crackers, granola bars, sandwich cookies, microwave popcorn.
* Choose limited amounts of: Fruit and nut mixes, plain cookies (such as gingersnaps or vanilla wafers), sugar-based candy such as licorice or jelly beans (share the package).
Even at the American Heart Assn. chapter in Los Angeles, the vending machine has an “array of candy bars and high-fat chips,” Rector said. One healthy addition is baked apple chips, which she recommends as a substitute for taming a sweet attack. But Rector is realistic; apple chips won’t take the place of a gooey cookie.
“People are going to say, ‘Yeah, right.’ You’re going to say, ‘Those apple chips taste like Oreos? Thank you, I’ll take the Oreos,’ ” she said.
That’s when sanity needs to be checked. Nutritionists point out that there is no line between good and bad foods. A healthy person can eat most food in moderation, even an occasional bag of greasy potato chips.
“If the individual is maintaining his weight and eats his Almond Joy bar every day, what’s wrong with that?” asked Vending Times Editor Tim Sanford. “People aren’t altogether rational about these things.”
Nevertheless, it is possible to have your cake and eat it too, said Ruth Ward, a nutritionist and former teacher. She is vice president of marketing for Minnesota-based Vendmark, one of the few operators dedicated to healthful snacks.
Her company fills its machines partly with new, light versions of Twinkies, Hostess chocolate cupcakes and low-fat and low-sodium microwave popcorn. Some of these products still have preservatives or sugar, but the cholesterol count is zero and the quantity of fat is reasonable. For example, light cream-filled cupcakes have 130 calories and 14% fat, compared with the regular version’s 180 calories and 80% fat. Vendmark’s customers buy those products just as often as the regular high-fat and high-sodium versions, contrary to the statements of other distributors and suppliers who say there is no demand.
“People want to be healthy,” Ward said. She said she believes that everyone wants to learn more about good nutrition. “If the companies don’t offer (healthy snacks), there’s not a demand for them.”
In the end, vending operators--the folks who fill the automatic merchandisers down the hall--are the ones who decide what goes in and what comes out based on customer requests.
“This is not brain surgery,” said Roger Nunn, director of marketing for Golden Valley Microwave Foods, the maker of Act II Popcorn. “We’re in the snack business.”
Even snack sales representatives succumb to sales tricks, one distributor said: Tossing a bag of microwave popcorn in the oven, letting it cook, then leaving it there so its odor wafts through nearby offices. Willpower goes down. Sales go up.
SNACKS FROM VENDING MACHINES
We’ve chosen some of the more common munchies found in vending machines, as well as several that might be better choices in each category. We’ve calculated the calories, sodium and cholesterol based on one serving equaling one bar or one package. We all know we eat the whole thing, not just three/fourths of that potato chip bag or a third of the popcorn. The best bites still come from home.
CANDY:
Item Total % Sodium Cholesterol (serving) Calories Fat (mg) (mg) Snickers 280 45 155 5* (2.1-oz. bar) M & M Plain 246 43 51 5* (1.69-oz. pkg.) Milky Way 270 35 136 5* (2.1-oz. bar) Hershey’s Milk 230 55 35 15 Chocolate/Almonds (1.45-oz. bar) Kraft Caramels 105 26 64 1 (1 oz. or 3 squares) Y & S Twizzlers 200 2 190 0 (2 ozs.) Good & Plenty 200 0 NA 0 (2 ozs.) Starburst Fruit 240 19 30 0 (2 ozs. or 12 pieces)
CHIPS/CRACKERS:
Item Total % Sodium Cholesterol (serving) Calories Fat (mg) (mg) Lay’s Potato Chips 150 60 380 0 Original (1-oz. bag) Cheetos Crunchy 188 54 388 0 (1.25-oz. bag) Fritos Chili Cheese 240 56 450 0 (1.5-oz. bag) Gardetto’s Snak-Ens 233 40 600 0 (1.75-oz. bag) Rold Gold 165 8 750 0 Pretzels Twists (1.5-oz. bag) Austin Cheese Peanut 200 45 350 0 Butter Crackers (.4-oz. pkg.)
COOKIES:
Item Total % Sodium Cholesterol (serving) Calories Fat (mg) (mg) Oreo Chocolate 228 38 277 8 Sandwich Cookies (1 & 5/8 ozs. or 6 cookies) Grandma’s Oatmeal 330 32 570 10 Apple Spice (2.75 ozs. or 2 cookies) Lorna Doone Shortbread 210 45 220 15 (1.5-oz. pkg) Nilla Vanilla Wafers 130 28 90 25 (1 oz. or 7 cookies.) Ginger Snaps, Nabisco 180 15 240 0 (1.5 ozs.)
MISCELLANEOUS:
Item Total % Sodium Cholesterol (serving) Calories Fat (mg) (mg) Corn Nuts 240 30 340 0 (2 ozs.) Act II Microwave 466 51 450 0 Popcorn (One 3.5-oz. bag, or 10 cups popped) Quaker Chewy Honey and 125 29 93 5* Oats Granola Bar (1 oz. or 1 bar) Planter’s Peanuts 170 80 220 0 (1 oz.) California Naturals 270 47 24 0 Fruit and Nut Trail Mix (2 ozs.) Sunflower Kernels 160 79 135 0 (1 oz.) Trail Mix with Milk 260 48 30 5* Chocolate (2 ozs.)
* estimated value.
NA not available.
Sources: Nutritional breakdowns provided by each company; “ The Food Book, “ Dell Publishing; USDA Nutritive Value of Foods; “ Complete Guide to Sodium “ by Barbara Kraus, Signet Books; Nutrition Action Health Letter, Center for Science in the Public Interest.
