“A light snack”
That’s the New York Times crossword puzzle clue for the word nosh. Growing up near San Francisco, I always thought that nosh was a “Jewish word”. I certainly never heard it used by anyone outside of my own family. Obviously nosh is now very much a part of every-day English.
“Nosh” according to Webster’s Dictionary:
v.i. to snack or eat between meals
v.t. to snack on
n. a snack
Yiddish nashn, Middle High German naschen, Old High German nascon to nibble or gnaw
Here in Israel, the verb has been Hebraisized to לנשנש – to nosh.
We’re all familiar with noshing. You grab a cookie on your way through the kitchen. The children get antsy and you distract them with a piece of candy. There’s a little something in your purse “just in case”.
If the nosh is nutritious and reasonable in quantity, it may be just fine. Some of us actually do better with frequent between-meal snacks, rather than three large-sized meals. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of total calories and the quality of those calories.
Noshing is problematic when it becomes mindless – eating for distraction, comfort or boredom, for example:
That’s the New York Times crossword puzzle clue for the word nosh. Growing up near San Francisco, I always thought that nosh was a “Jewish word”. I certainly never heard it used by anyone outside of my own family. Obviously nosh is now very much a part of every-day English.
“Nosh” according to Webster’s Dictionary:
v.i. to snack or eat between meals
v.t. to snack on
n. a snack
Yiddish nashn, Middle High German naschen, Old High German nascon to nibble or gnaw
Here in Israel, the verb has been Hebraisized to לנשנש – to nosh.
We’re all familiar with noshing. You grab a cookie on your way through the kitchen. The children get antsy and you distract them with a piece of candy. There’s a little something in your purse “just in case”.
If the nosh is nutritious and reasonable in quantity, it may be just fine. Some of us actually do better with frequent between-meal snacks, rather than three large-sized meals. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of total calories and the quality of those calories.
Noshing is problematic when it becomes mindless – eating for distraction, comfort or boredom, for example:
Eating without thinking if you’re really hungry or not.
Eating because there are cookies just sitting in the pantry.
Eating because there’s half a chocolate bar left and you might as well finish it.
Filling up on empty calories can leave you (and especially your children) feeling too full for the food that’s really good for you. And if you nosh too much, you’re likely to be getting more calories than you need. Especially if you’re trying to lose or maintain weight.
What can you do?
Buy healthy, low-calorie snack foods.
Portion out large-sized packages of snack food into individual servings; never eat right out of the box.
Don’t buy snack foods that you know will be a temptation. Once they’re in the house, it’s too hard to resist eating them.
Bake only for Shabbat and special occasions.
Sit down and relax while noshing. Don’t eat “on the run” or while doing something else.
And most important – ask yourself if you’re really hungry. Think before you put something into your mouth!
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