Recent studies suggest that junk food accounts for about 50% of the average American’s daily caloric intake. Junk food is the umbrella term that describes ultra-processed foods and drinks, such as fast food, soda, candy, packaged cookies, and salty snack foods. Although there is nothing wrong with enjoying ice cream, chips, or baked goods from time to time, junk food should not be a regular part of your diet. Consuming too much of it can be detrimental to your mental and physical health. 

People who consume more junk food have a higher risk of obesity, fatty liver, depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, and certain cancers. You may understand this reality, but the problem is that junk food is so appealing. The brain encourages you to seek pleasurable experiences, such as enjoying tasty food. This natural encouragement is the brain’s “reward” system. When you eat tasty food, including junk food, you activate that reward system and the brain releases dopamine. This rush of pleasure causes the brain to create more receptors to respond to that dopamine rush. Ultimately, you care more about junk food the more you eat it because you have that reward system in place. 

If you currently eat a lot of junk food and want to kick your habit, the methods in this article may be effective for you. The following tips are evidence-based, so experiment with them to see which ones work for you. 

Fuel Your Body Regularly

You may think that depriving your body of calories or being overly restrictive with food will lead to weight loss. This tactic can actually have the opposite effect, causing you to ravenously eat foods, many of which are unhealthy. There is a complex relationship between calorie restriction and the cravings you have. The research, however, shows that skipping meals or depriving the body of certain foods can increase cravings and snacking. Everyone has different caloric needs, but you should aim to fuel your body with fiber-rich, protein-rich, and nutrient-dense meals and snacks. When you provide your body with these types of foods, you will reduce your cravings for junk food. 

Get Enough Sleep

Whether you want to believe it or not, insufficient sleep can cause you to make poor food choices. Additionally, lack of sleep increases your desire for junk food because it is quick, easy, and highly accessible. Studies confirm that lack of sleep, or irregular sleep patterns, can increase your caloric intake, snacking, and cravings for high-fat, high-sugar foods. In fact, just one night of poor sleep can affect your food choices the next day. A 2019 study found that reducing sleep time by 33% (two to three hours of sleep) caused increased hunger cravings, compared to a normal night of sleep. To protect your food choices, get between seven to nine hours of sleep per night. 

Consider Taking Inventory Of Your Pantry

If you have junk food in your house, especially if you know where to find it, you will likely gravitate towards it. Consider swapping out ultra-processed food products with more nutritious options. Junk food that is palatable and addictive is dangerous to have in your house. The research shows that just looking at tempting foods can stimulate the striatum, an area in the brain that regulates appetite and reward from food intake. Looking at cookies, candy, or chips may lead to snacking, overeating, and eating even if you are not hungry. Do a pantry overhaul to see which foods need to go. Stock your counter with fresh fruit instead of keeping candy in your pantry!

Cook More Meals At Home

Not only does cooking at home save you money, but it can also help you cut back on junk food. Stopping at a fast food establishment, although convenient, is not conducive to your health journey. Cooking at home, especially if you meal prep, can help you decrease your reliance on convenience foods. Additionally, meal prepping is a great way to ensure that you always have healthy food options. Many studies indicate that people who cook more have better quality diets, enjoying more servings of fruits and vegetables per day. They also eat less food than people who dine out often. 

Eat More Filling Foods

Struggling with what to eat? It can be beneficial to learn more about how certain foods impact your body and hunger levels. That knowledge can help you devise a better plan of attack for your meals, and may help you cut back on your junk food intake as well. Most junk foods are high in calories, but they don’t fill you up. Ever notice how you can eat an entire bag of chips and still be hungry? That is why it benefits you to eat foods that are higher in protein, healthy fats, and fiber. Consider eating homemade overnight oats or chia pudding instead of grabbing a donut and coffee on your way to work. You can also opt for a fruit and vegetable smoothie to satiate you until lunch!

Grocery Shop Regularly

If you want to make more food at home and stop eating junk food, a well-stocked kitchen makes that task much more doable. Studies have shown that people who grocery shop regularly have better quality diets than people who don’t. Additionally, those people eat much less ultra-processed foods. When you go to the grocery store, make sure to take a grocery list and stick to it. Avoid going to the store when you are hungry because that will cause you to make impulse purchases that do nothing for your health.

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When you have a dehydrator, or an air fryer, toaster, dehydrator combo gadget, it’s hard not to experiment with different foods. For example, you can dehydrate thin strips of marinated eggplant to transform them into raw vegan bacon. You can dehydrate thin pear or apple slices and sprinkle them with cinnamon to make pear or apple chips.

In the case of this recipe, you thinly slice Brussels sprouts and place them in the dehydrator to transform them into chips. This is a great way to use Brussels sprouts, especially if you bought a two-pound bag and don’t know how to use all of them before they go bad. Thinly slicing and dehydrating the Brussels isn’t exactly exciting, especially for your taste buds. That’s why we dressed them in a blended sauce made from grade A maple syrup, cashews, coconut aminos, lemon juice, and sea salt and pepper.

The blended dressing, although not quite cheesy, takes these Brussels sprouts chips to another dimension of flavor. The dressing crisps up during the dehydration process, which can take a long time, so make sure you start the process at night or in the morning. It will most likely take about 16-20 hours, but you can check them earlier to see if they are nice and crispy.

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For many Americans, the predominant feasting days are Thanksgiving, Christmas, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Super Bowl Sunday. The Super Bowl, also known as the big game, is not just an ordinary watch party to cheer on football teams. It is a day to enjoy everyone’s favorite snacks, comfort foods, and drinks. The spread is almost more important than the game, commercials, and halftime show. 

Super Bowl Statistics

During Super Bowl Sunday, an estimated 48 million Americans order take out. 60% of those take out orders are pizza, which is partially attributed to all the advertisements. Plus, pizza is an easy entree that can feed a lot of people. In addition to pizza, chicken wings and chips and dips are the most popularly ordered foods. Did you know that an estimated 1.25 billion chicken wings are eaten during Super Bowl Weekend? That equates to nearly 162.5 million pounds of chicken, proving that this weekend is responsible for 7% of chicken sales for the year. 

Food and beverages account for the majority of spending on the game. Total spending on food, drinks, apparel, and decorations for the 2024 game is expected to reach $17.3 billion, which equates to $86.04 per person. An analytics survey found that a record 200.5 million U.S. adults plan to watch the big game. The game is important to 44% of viewers, with the halftime show being most important to 19% of viewers. Commercials interest 18% of viewers, and some people bet more on commercials than the actual game!

If you want to take a different approach to your game day spread, we’ve got some great recipes for you. The following appetizers and dips may not even make it past the first half! That’s how good they are! Let us know which ones you end up making on game day in the comments. 

Tomatillo Salsa Verde

If you have extra tomatillos, the best thing to do is transform them into a tangy and slightly spicy salsa verde. Once you make your salsa, grab your favorite chips and get ready to dip. Just be warned that this salsa packs a little heat!

Click here to make the recipe. 

The Best Guacamole

Can you have a game day spread without guacamole? When you make authentic guac, you will never go back to the way you used to make it. This dip is the best guacamole ever, and we hope you agree!

Click here to make the recipe.

Raw Vegan Pineapple Salsa

Not only does the presentation of this salsa look amazing, but it also impresses your taste buds! This salsa is juicy, refreshing, and the perfect combination of sweet and spicy. It’s definitely a dip that you’ll save in your recipe book.

Click here to make the recipe.

Vegan Potato Salad With A Mustard Dressing

This recipe is just as appropriate at a family dinner or potluck as it is on your game day food table. This vegan potato salad is slightly tangy and herbaceous, making it the perfect side dish to accompany the game. 

Click here to make the recipe.

Grilled Sweet Potatoes

If you love sweet potato fries, stop what you are doing and make this recipe before the other ones in this article. This recipe is perfect if the weather permits, because you don’t want to stand out in the cold or snow just to grill some fries. 

Click here to make the recipe. 

Crispy Air Fryer Kale Chips

Churn out a batch of crispy kale chips in a matter of minutes! They are simply seasoned and a great alternative to unhealthy chips. They are especially great if you want to reduce your caloric intake on game day.

Click here to make the recipe. 

Crispy Baked Avocados With A Chipotle Dip

We saved the best recipe for last! We love guacamole, but sometimes you need a break from that tasty dip. Instead, do something incredibly unique with avocados. This may be your new favorite appetizer or healthy snack. You’re welcome.

Click here to make the recipe.

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It’s no secret that bananas are some of the most popular fruits in existence. People love to incorporate them into smoothies, add them to yogurt, or enjoy them raw. They provide key nutrients, including vitamin C, vitamin B6, potassium, manganese, fiber, and magnesium. Bananas can be a great pre-workout snack to boost energy levels, but the same applies if you need to get over an afternoon slump.

When it comes down to choosing the right bananas for the dehydrated banana chips, you should consider purchasing ones that are slightly yellow. The banana peel should have some green in it, so as to avoid mushiness. You can also purchase bananas when they are mostly green, but revealing a little yellow. Make sure they are plump and firm so that you can slice them easily. Avoid bananas that are too soft and brown because that will make it hard to slice them evenly for the chips. 

In order to successfully execute your banana chips, slice them and then spread them evenly across your dehydrator sheets. Make sure that the bananas are evenly spaced out on the sheets so that there is no overlap. The last thing you want is uneven dehydration. Ideally, cut your bananas into eighth-inch thick slices. You can use a mandolin slicer or a stainless steel wire butter slicer to ensure equal cuts. After dehydrating them, you’ll be left with your new favorite snack!

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The unofficial start of summer is nearly here! Memorial Day is the first long weekend just before the summer solstice and people are ready to gather and celebrate. There’s no better weekend to socialize outside and make delicious food than Memorial Day Weekend. That’s why this article brings you seven amazing, healthy recipes that will surprise your taste buds with bold flavors. 

The sad reality is that most people will abandon their diets and wolf down all sorts of unhealthy foods over the weekend. According to statistics, there are roughly 800 hotdogs eaten every second on Memorial Day. That means that about 72 million hotdogs are eaten on this day alone. Perhaps this is because roughly 57% of people engage in barbecuing, but maybe it’s because Americans are inherently unhealthy. 

If you are looking to stay on track with your health goals, however, there are tasty recipes you can make that won’t cause a caloric overload. Make the following recipes this coming holiday weekend and let us know how you like them. 

Cowboy Caviar

The name most likely comes from the fact that cowboys live in Texas and this is a common side dish/dip in the state. The black beans represent the “caviar” in this dish. We apologize that there isn’t a better explanation.

Click here to make the recipe.

Watermelon Mango Salsa

Indulge in this sweet, zesty, and slightly spicy watermelon mango salsa that embodies the flavors of summer. Don’t be afraid to add more diced jalapeño if you crave the spice!

Click here to make the recipe. 

Grilled Marinated Eggplant

You cannot have a Memorial Day Weekend without a proper grilled dish. Eggplants are often underutilized, but this recipe brings them into the spotlight. Just make sure that you marinate them long enough to absorb the flavors.

Click here to make the recipe.

Chile Lime Grilled Corn On The Cob

Here’s another great recipe for all you grill fanatics out there. Crank up the heat with this grilled chili lime corn. It is a delectable side that is perfect for a picnic or Memorial Day celebration.

Click here to make the recipe.

Crispy Air Fryer Kale Chips

Skip the hydrogenated oils and chemicals in processed potato chips and churn out a batch of crispy, kale chips in a matter of minutes! They are simply seasoned and a great alternative to unhealthy chips.

Click here to make the recipe.

Melon Ball Salad With A Minty Lime Dressing

Refresh your palate and hydrate the body when you enjoy this Instagram-worthy melon ball salad that has a zesty, minty dressing.

Click here to make the recipe. 

Lovely Lavender Lemonade

It’s not quite summer, but this lemonade may put you in that summer state of mind. Adding a sweet and lovely flavor to a classic lemonade, lavender may help to reduce stress levels, headaches, and decrease anxiety symptoms.

Click here to make the recipe. 

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Craving banana bread but don’t feel like baking or consuming more than a cup of sugar? These sweet little energy bites are exactly what you need. You can make them with only six ingredients in just 10 minutes. Not only are they vegan and gluten-free, but they are also great snacks for kids and adults alike. Keep them in the fridge and enjoy when ready, or make a big batch and store them in the freezer, taking them out whenever you want a snack.

Although this recipe calls for walnuts or pecans, almonds work too. Feel free to mix and match the nuts you enjoy for this recipe, so long as they total one cup. For the oats, we chose rolled oats, but you can use gluten-free oats if you don’t eat gluten. And to keep it vegan, the chocolate chips have to be dairy-free. If you cannot find dairy-free chocolate chips, you can use chopped dark chocolate, but the chocolate chips are recommended.

When it comes time to make the banana bread bites, start by adding the nuts to the food processor. Pulse until you achieve a crumbly consistency. Then you can add rolled oats, dates, banana, cinnamon, and vanilla extract and blend until grainy and broken down. At that point, add the chocolate chips and pulse until you get a sticky, dough-like consistency, stopping to scrape down the sides as needed. Form the mixture into little bite-size balls with your hands and refrigerate them to harden. You can place them in the freezer to accelerate that process, which helps you enjoy them quicker!

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If you are familiar with salsa, you know enough to understand that there is usually a red one and a green one. This is basic salsa knowledge, the red one being a tomato-based salsa, while the green one is typically made from tomatillos. These salsas have several variations and you can easily find bottled versions of them in the grocery store. Those bottled varieties contain excess sodium and preservatives, unlike this tomatillo salsa verde.

Some people have specific methods to make salsa verde. There are many people who boil the tomatillos prior to blending them with other raw ingredients. If you prefer a little char flavor in your salsa, you may not want to go that route. While it is possible to broil the tomatillos, onion, garlic, and chiles, this recipe cooks everything in one pan. As soon as you see that the tomatillos are sufficiently browned or blistered all over, transfer all of the ingredients to a blender, blitz until smooth, and then pour into a vessel for serving.

Keep in mind that you cannot enjoy this salsa with chips right away. Well, you can, but the temperature of the salsa is not enjoyable. Nobody wants to eat hot salsa, but they do want to eat spicy salsa. Fortunately, this salsa doesn’t have a huge kick, but the heat lets you know it’s there. Cooking the serrano peppers with the rest of the ingredients helps tame the spice, so don’t be afraid. Just let the salsa cool in the fridge for a couple hours before you enjoy it.

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We’ve all heard of the term “stress eating,” and there is a lot of truth behind it. Stress, and the hormones it unleashes, pushes you to eat unhealthy, high-fat, sugary foods. Because these foods are often low in nutrients, they keep you coming back for more. That’s why you can easily sit down with a bag of chips and keep eating until you’re tilting the bag to pour crumbs onto your face. 

Stress eating is very difficult to stop, and it can lead to overeating. This is bad news if you want to maintain weight, and it can make losing weight a lot harder. In the short term, stress can shut down your appetite. The nervous system sends messages to the adrenal glands to increase production of epinephrine, an adrenaline hormone. Epinephrine triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response, which is a revved up physiological state that can be beneficial at times. 

When you experience stress chronically, though, the adrenal glands start to release cortisol. This stress hormone increases appetite and can drive your desire to eat, and you don’t typically go for healthy foods in this stressed state. Once a stressful episode is over, your cortisol levels should decline, but they won’t if stress doesn’t go away. Should you find yourself in a state of stress, though, employ the following tips to help tame your stress eating.

Eat At Regular Intervals

When you go a long time without eating, you’re much more likely to grab whatever food crosses your path and shove it in your face. The stress of not eating combines with the stress of your need to eat, which doesn’t end well for your health. When you’re hungry, you are more likely to overeat, especially if you had a stressful day. Instead of stuffing your face in one sitting, try to eat balanced meals and snacks every three to four hours. Not only will this help you avoid intense hunger, but it also helps you control your portions. You want to feel satisfied, not stuffed to the point of no return. 

Create A Safe Space For Eating

What does this mean, exactly? Well, too often do people eat standing up, walking around, in front of the TV, or scrolling on their phones. Where you eat determines how you eat. Try dining at the kitchen table or in the dining room. The main goal is to be away from a fridge full of food while you’re eating. Once you establish an eating environment, put the food away after you serve it up. This will help limit your trips back to the kitchen to get seconds and thirds. If chips and cookies are out and in your field of vision, you’ll most likely grab them for a snack, especially if you’re anxious or stressed. Designate an eating area and don’t distract yourself during the meal. 

Aim For Balance

We aren’t just talking about adding more greens on your plate, although that is never a bad thing. When you experience a lot of stress, it is very common to eat a meal that contains a lot of unhealthy fats and sugar. In a state of stress, you probably aren’t eating a buddha bowl with roasted sweet potatoes, quinoa, and homemade slaw. Believe it or not, sugary or fatty foods can numb your emotions and spike your blood sugar before sending them to an extreme low. You’ll feel hungry all over again even though you just ate. Instead of inhaling a bag of potato chips, eat a balanced meal or snack that contains protein, healthy fats, and fiber. These meals take longer for the body to digest, so you’ll feel full for a lot longer. Plus, you won’t experience the blood sugar highs and lows!

Eat Mindfully

One study in 2017 monitored participants who meditated for 45 minutes a day, almost every day of the week. They also performed other mindfulness practices, including eating a meal mindfully once a day. The results indicated that adopting a daily mindfulness practice was able to curb stress-induced or anxiety-provoked eating. When you focus on eating and exist in the present moment during your meal, you eat with a purpose, putting your fork down between bites and breathing before each meal. You can take time to analyze whether or not you’re actually hungry when you eat more mindfully.

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If you’re trying to eat healthier, that means you are probably paying closer attention to nutrition labels and ingredients. Nutrition labels are not entirely user-friendly, which is why many people don’t read them correctly. Certain terms, values, or serving sizes may be unrecognizable, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for. One could argue that deciphering a nutrition label is like trying to make sense of a college calculus textbook. 

You don’t have to experience confusion every time you read a nutrition label. These labels have a lot of useful information, and you really only need to pay attention to a few key things. As a general rule of thumb, if you see ingredients that you cannot pronounce, the food is most likely processed or ultra-processed. The packaged food items are harmful to your health, but healthier foods also have nutrition labels. This guide aims to help you read your way to a healthier lifestyle. But first, here are a few nutrition terms to understand:

• Calorie-free: 5 calories or less per serving
• Low calorie: 40 calories or less per serving
• Reduced calorie/fat: At least 25% less calories/fat than the original product
• Low fat: 3 grams (g) or less of fat per serving
• Fat-free: Less than 0.5 g of fat per serving
• Low-sodium: 140 milligrams (mg) or less of sodium per serving
• Very low sodium: 35 mg or less of sodium per serving
• Low cholesterol: 20 mg or less of cholesterol per serving
• Sugar-free: less than 0.5 g of sugar per serving
• High fiber: Contains 20% or more of the recommended daily value (DV) of fiber per serving

The Serving Size

This is where your health journey begins. Before you dive into a bag of chips or open a carton of orange juice, take a close look at how many servings exist in the food you’re eating. The rest of the information, i.e. calories, cholesterol, fat, sugars, and protein, will pertain to the serving size. Single-serving packages are easy to understand, but multi-serving packages require a bit more attention to detail. If you take a large bag of potato chips, for example, there are probably 14 servings or more in the entire bag. That’s bad news if you eat the entire bag in one sitting. Most of the time, serving sizes are measured out in cups, tablespoons, or ounces. 

Calories

This is the biggest number you’ll see on a nutrition label, and it’s the first number as well. Many people only pay attention to this number, disregarding the rest of the nutrition label. The number of calories matters, but where the calories come from is of more importance. A healthy snack bar may have as many calories as a candy bar, but the sugar is lower and the fats are healthier. Pay close attention to the calories in relation to the serving size as well, because eating two or three servings from a multi-serving food item doubles or triples your caloric intake of that food. 

Percent Daily Value

The daily value (DV) indicates how much of your total allotment of that particular nutrient you get per serving. If a serving of unsalted nuts contains 20% of the DV of fat, then you know how much more fat your body needs for the rest of the day. As a general rule of thumb, 5% or less is low and 20% or more is high. 

Fats

Most nutrition labels list total fat, saturated fat, and trans fat. Ideally, you want to make sure that you eat foods that are low, or completely free, of trans fats and saturated fats. Trans fat is added to processed, packaged foods like cookies and crackers. It is an artificial fat that makes snack foods taste good, but it also extends their shelf life. Saturated fat exists in hot dogs, burgers or whole milk. Eating foods that are high in saturated fat can increase your risk for heart disease. You want to focus on healthier, monounsaturated fats!

Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a fatty substance that comes from foods like shellfish, butter, meat, whole milk, and egg yolks. The body requires some cholesterol to make hormones and vitamin D, but eating too much of it can cause plaque to build-up in your arterial walls, increasing your risk for heart disease. Always aim low when looking at the cholesterol on nutritional labels. 

Sodium

Most American adults exceed the DV of sodium by about 1,000 to 1,500 mg. Current guidelines state that you should consume less than 2,300 mg of sodium per day, which equates to about one teaspoon of salt. A lot of the sodium you eat comes from packaged and processed foods like pretzels, chips, frozen pizza, and jarred sauces and dressings. Keep salt levels under control by making sure you have less than 300 mg of sodium per serving. 

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates (carbs) exist on nutrition labels in three forms: sugar, starch, and fiber. The first two elevate blood sugar, while the third does not. If you are counting carbs, you most likely need to watch out for refined carbs, which tend to come from white foods like pasta, bread, etc. Complex carbs from whole grains and vegetables, for example, are much healthier and better for your diet. In fact, most dietitians say that complex carbs should comprise 50% of your daily caloric intake!

Fiber 

When you eat more fiber, you can stay fuller for longer and avoid blood sugar spikes. That means that you’re less likely to crave unhealthy snacks between meals. The American Heart Association recommends that you eat at least 25 g of fiber per day, but this may depend on specific dietary needs. A good rule of thumb is to eat about four g of fiber per serving for grains and three g of fiber for packaged foods and bread. 

Sugars

Finally, we’ve reached sugar. Sugar can have several names on an ingredient list, including high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar, sucralose, fructose, and glucose. Due to the recent nutritional label update, you can easily spot the total sugar and added sugars in a given food product. It also included the percent DV of added sugars per serving. You should aim for most of the sugar you eat to come from natural sources like fruit, as opposed to processed foods. And while artificial sweeteners are zero-calorie, they are highly sweet and don’t get included in the total sugar count. Try to limit your sugar consumption to no more than 10% of your daily caloric intake.

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There are several reasons that result in a poor night of sleep. Your partner snored all night, stress from work kept you up, too much light entered the window, or you looked at screens for hours leading up to bedtime. What did you eat in the evening before bed, though? Although you may not think that food is the culprit, certain foods that you eat at night can affect your sleep in a major way. 

Eating right before you go to bed is never a good idea, as eating too close to bedtime can take a toll on the digestive system. Since getting a good night’s rest is integral to your overall health, you may want to consider avoiding certain foods before you hit the hay. It can be a challenge to take a break from your favorite evening snacks, but try it out to see if your sleep improves. Avoid the following foods before bed if you want to improve the quality of your sleep. 

High-Fat Foods

Your affinity for a late night ice cream pint may have to come to an end if you want to enjoy restful sleep. Additionally, a late night stop at a greasy taco truck or salty burger shack isn’t doing your sleep any favors. Fatty foods take longer to digest because the body has a harder time processing them. Because the digestive system is working hard, it keeps the body awake, or the digestive process disturbs your sleep. A 2016 study found that a diet rich in saturated fat led to less restorative sleep, so just keep that in mind moving forward. 

Alcohol

Another late night food item ruining your Zzz’s is alcohol. Alcohol actually makes you feel sleepy, which is why a lot of people like to unwind and relax with a cold one or glass of wine. Even though it may help you fall asleep, studies show that the quality of sleep after drinking alcohol is not great. The reason for this is because alcohol acts as a diuretic, leading to more midnight trips to the bathroom. Alcohol also makes it more difficult to reach REM sleep, which is the final stage of sleep that regulates mood and improves memory retention. Plus, the more you drink at night, the less rested you feel in the morning because of hangovers and reduced activity levels. 

Chips

Although they seem innocent, chips are greasy, high-fat, high-sodium, processed snacks that can ruin your sleep. Studies show that greasy foods like chips can actually increase the likelihood of nightmares. Not only will you feel awake because your digestive system is in overdrive, but you may wake up in a panic because of nightmares. If you must snack on chips, do so in the afternoon so that your body has enough time to digest them. 

Dried Fruit

Dried fruit is an excellent healthy snack to power you through the day, but it isn’t a wise snack choice before bedtime. The high fiber content in dried fruit can rev up the digestive system in an uncomfortable way. While trying to go to sleep, you may experience painful gas and bloating. Plus, the high sugar content of dried fruit can lead to an unwanted sugar rush that can keep you up longer than you want. 

A Late Night Cup Of Coffee

This seems self-explanatory, but having a cup of coffee too close to bedtime can wreck your sleep. Oftentimes, a restful night of sleep is preceded by a specific routine, which varies from person to person. A cup of coffee is never in that pre-sleep routine, and if it is then it shouldn’t be. Caffeine also hides in chocolates, soft drinks, energy drinks, tea, and other food sources besides coffee. So if you consume these items before bed, you are probably too alert to fall asleep. 

Spicy Foods

Sleep experts say that a spicy curry is one of the worst meals you can eat in the evening because it can ruin sleep. Eating spicy foods can increase the risk of heartburn and acid reflux, both of which interfere with sleep. The discomfort you feel when you lie down can be so intense that going to sleep is impossible. Capsaicin, the compound that exists in spicy foods like hot peppers, may be the culprit behind your sleep troubles. As you relax before bed, the body’s core temperature starts to drop. Capsaicin can interfere with this process by raising your core temperature, leaving you feeling wide awake.

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