The night is a long time to get by without the familiar growl in the stomach. At home, you might dig into the refrigerator for the clandestine midnight snack but what about the workplace? With more people working night shifts, nocturnal nutrition is fast becoming an issue.

Maintaining a healthy diet schedule can be challenging when your natural body cycle is turned upside down working for odd hours and rotating shifts.

To maintain the stamina, workers eat between meals but depending on the tidbits, snacking outside one’s structured meal schedules can prove to be healthy or harmful. According to a recent study conducted by a snack-manufacturing company, 85 per cent of the Indian working population consumes at least one snack a day. So how does one ensure healthy snacking, especially at midnight?

According to Kanupriya Khanna, chief dietician, Fortis La Femme, “Snacks if packed with nutrients can supply our bodies with energy”. Also “during odd hours, they can fill your nutritional gaps if you make the right choice,” she adds.

According to doctors, consuming food after nine at night can be harmful to the body as the metabolism interferes with our circadian rhythms and results in gastric problems. But there’s little choice for those working the graveyard shifts. Only, instead of random snacking, a snack schedule needs to be worked out for late hours. The plan should include what one will eat, how much and the portion as well. A very important thing people tend to forget is that snacks should supplement structured meals, not replace them. Besides, snacks need to be timed between food and with each other so they don’t interfere with the structured meals.

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