Monthly Archives: May 2018

Healthy Snack Vending Machines

New York City, Enjoy a Healthy Snack Today

Healthy Vending Machine Snacks in New York City

It may be summer outside, but don’t forget to include a bit of dark chocolate in your healthy snack. The key is to use dark chocolate made with a high-cocoa content, low unhealthy-fats, and very little sugar. A few different ways to enjoy a dark chocolate snack in the summer include: dark chocolate ice cubes, fruit dipped in dark chocolate, homemade dark chocolate ice cream, and dark chocolate pudding or mousse in addition to the traditional bar of dark chocolate.

Why dark chocolate? Because dark chocolate contains antioxidants, caffeine, endorphins, and serotonin which offer many health benefits. According to research presented at the Experimental Biology 2018 annual meeting, “consuming dark chocolate that has a high concentration of cacao (minimally 70% cacao, 30% organic cane sugar) has positive effects on stress levels, inflammation, mood, memory and immunity” as well as cognition.

Let’s take a look at how caffeine, endorphins, serotonin, and antioxidants play a role.

Caffeine

As many New York City employees know, caffeine can provide an energy boost when one is feeling tired. But caffeine does more than just decrease fatigue. Caffeine offers a short term mental boost, improves memory, and even helps decrease pain sensitivity in some individuals with chronic pain.

Endorphins & Serotonin

While endorphins are a group of hormones secreted within the brain and nervous system, and serotonin is a chemical and neurotransmitter, both have a similar effect. They can both improve a New York City employee’s mood. Endorphins create feelings of pleasure, and serotonin elevates one’s mood.  

Healthy Vending Machine Snacks in New York City

Antioxidants

Understanding the impact of antioxidants is a bit more complicated. There are many different types of antioxidants. Several of the ones that come into play with dark chocolate include flavonoids (flavanols, flavonols (source of the antioxidant qualities), epicatechin and procyanidins) and polyphenols. Flavonoids, a type of antioxidant, improve cognitive function, help absorb UV light, increase blood flow to the skin, improve skin texture, increase skin hydration, fight inflammation and oxidative stress—improving blood flow, improve cardiovascular health, reduce insulin resistance, and decrease cravings for sweet, salty, and fatty foods. Those are a lot of benefits!

The benefits from antioxidants are often seen in New York City individuals when three to four ounces of dark chocolate made with 70 percent to 80 percent cocoa are enjoyed each day. Don’t forget to avoid dark chocolate made using processing methods such as fermenting, alkalizing, and roasting as they cause important flavonoids to be lost.

Can your New York City employees find a healthy dark chocolate snack in their office break room? Offering healthy vending machine options is one way that your organization can support your employees’ health. And don’t forget to include New York City students. They could also benefit from healthy snack and beverage vending machines in their lunchroom. For more information about adding vending services to your place of business or school, contact Healthy Vending at 917.572.3671. We look forward to working with you.

Healthy Vending Machine Choices

Healthy Vending Machine Alternatives in New York City

Healthy Vending Machine Options in New York City

Vending machines are here to stay. As of 2018, there are 1.3 million snack vending machines in the United States that offer primarily high-calorie snacks. This is a problem for the almost 40 percent of adults and 18 percent of children who are considered obese. Obesity, a serious medical condition, is known to cause heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high triglycerides and cholesterol, metabolic syndrome, stroke, and multiple types of cancer.

One way researchers are trying to convince New York City consumers to eat healthier is to include a 25-second time delay on vending machines that encourages the consumer to make a healthier choice before the vending machine releases the traditional snack from the vending machine. Brad Appelhans, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Rush University Prevention Center and lead investigator of the study relayed that the “delay yielded a 2 percent to 5 percent increase in the proportion of total purchases from healthy snacks.” The success of this approach stems from the fact that humans prefer immediate gratification, and immediate gratification influences choices and behavior.   

But this isn’t the only way to encourage New York City consumers to make healthy choices. Rather than creating an environment where individuals need to be psychologically encouraged to make healthy decisions, Healthy Vending provides only all-natural and organic beverage and snack alternatives that are great tasting and enjoyable.

Healthy Vending Machine Options in New York City

With vending machine technology that allows consumers to read the nutritional facts about a specific healthy snack or beverage before making a selection, New York City consumers can feel certain that they have made a good choice. Their wallets will also be happy as the majority of our healthy snacks and beverages are equal in price to unhealthy traditional options. It’s a double bonus—a happy waistline and a happy wallet.

Don’t forget to include students. They also need healthy vending machine snack and beverage choices while at school. Rather than hoping that they will make a healthy beverage choice, offer great-tasting beverages that don’t have large amounts of sugar or artificial sweeteners to go with a healthy snack. Together, Healthy Vending and your New York City school district will customize a list of healthy options to ensure that all items sold meet or exceed the minimum nutritional standards established by the USDA School Food Service Program.

Help your New York City employees or students make healthy vending machine choices. Be upfront with them about your break room goals and the importance of their health. To learn more about combining everything and creating a healthy office break room or school lunchroom, contact Healthy Vending at 917.572.3671. We look forward to helping you customize the perfect solution.