With the change of economic model, the topic that the terraces and bars are for the summer has fallen into disuse, as more and more establishments have terraces equipped with heating systems to maintain the terrace installed once the winter season arrives.
And it is that the Spaniards (and also tourists who visit us) we like the terraces and stay with family or friends to take our appetizer at noon or go out at night and enjoy the city and its cuisine (although snacks are usually “standard” in the vast majority of bars and establishments).
The hour of the aperitif, sacred
In these last weeks that we are having crazy time with ups and downs of temperatures, anyone who looks a little into the streets can see the same image: bars that stretch everything that can the placement of their terraces in order to attract the as many customers as possible and thus increase your income.
For this reason, there are more and more establishments that use heaters in their terraces to keep them throughout the year and avoid abrupt drops in their income in winter periods.
Our favorite moment: the weekend aperitif
If the Spanish have a favorite time to have an aperitif, either with friends or with the family, it is undoubtedly the noon of the weekend. Whether it’s Saturday or Sunday, the weekends the terraces, especially if the weather and the cold respect in this time, are filled with people. And of course, the appetizers are the star.
Classification of snacks according to your nutritional information
The following classification of the most commonly consumed snacks in our bars has been established based on the amount of saturated fat, carbohydrates and salt that they contain.
Posts one to three on our snack list
| MARKET STALL | APPETIZER | HYDRATES | SATURATED FAT | SALT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Olives (green stuffed anchovy, black without bone, black with bone …) | 1’3 grams (approx) | 3 grams (approx) | 1’5-4 grams |
|
2 |
Pickles (mussels, cockles, pickles, chives …) | 2’5-8 grams | 0’1-3 grams | 0’8-3 grams |
|
3 |
Sausages (sausage, chorizo, cheeses …) | 0’8-3 grams | 9.5-5 grams | 1’7-4’5 grams |
In the first place of our classification we can find olives, because of their low content of saturated fats and carbohydrates. In this case, you should be careful with the dressings of the olives , which are those that can confer more or less salt (reaching in some cases up to four grams of salt per hundred of product, when the recommended limit for an adult is five grams of salt daily). Even so, olives are our winning option as “healthier appetizer” .
In the second place, we could place appetizers such as mussels , cockles naturallyand sardines in olive oil or pickles like pickles and chives, although in the case of pickles, chives and cockles the carbohydrate content is superior to mussels and sardines. On the contrary, the saturated fat content of the snacks located in this second position is practically non-existent.
In the third place of our nutritional classification we would place sausages such as sausage, chorizo and cheese and foods such as pepper pate and sobrassada , characterized especially by their content in saturated fats as well as a medium-high salt content .
The worst appetizers from the nutritional point of view
| MARKET STALL | APPETIZER | HYDRATES | SATURATED FAT | SALT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Nuts (nuts, pistachios, almonds …) | 7’9-9’8 grams | 6-8.5 grams | 0’3-1’8 grams |
|
2 |
Salty snacks (assorted salted crackers, fried potatoes, fried corn …) | 57-72 grams | 4’9-13’5 grams | 2-8 grams |
Taking into account the content of saturated fats, carbohydrates and salt, the worst place in our classification of appetizers is the salty snacks and nuts(although we will make a nuanance afterwards regarding nuts). Appetizers such as crackers, fried corn or assortments of bark type snacks and hooks exceed 60 grams of carbohydrates per hundred of product, being also hydrates of little nutritional value.
And regarding nuts , we must point out something important: despite having as a general rule a high content of carbohydrates, nuts such as pistachios, walnuts or almonds are often highly recommended for their nutrient content as healthy fatsin certain types of diets, always taking into account the amount ingested so as not to trigger the calories.
Caloric classification of our appetizers
The salty snacks, the ones that get fatter
In the first place of our caloric classification of appetizers we find salty snacks(having qualified in the previous point the topic of dry nuts and calories, here we will not mention them). These snacks are characterized by high contents of carbohydrates and high amounts of salt , sometimes bordering the recommended intake limits in just one hundred grams of product.
In addition to being the most caloric (in some cases over 600 calories per hundred grams), they are the worst nutritional quality we can find, so they stand with the dubious honor of our first (and by far) .
In the second caloric stand, sausages
If among the salty snacks we could see that some of them exceeded 600 calories (and many of them over 500), in the case of sausages we can see that none of the 300 calories per hundred grams of product, although in this case the nutritional quality is noticeably higher than in the case of the salty snacks of the first place. In spite of this, we must monitor the content of saturated fats and salt present in the sausages.
Pickles and some canned snacks, the healthiest from the caloric point of view
If we had to opt for a type of snack from the caloric point of view (which does not mean we can eat the amount we want), it would be the pickles and certain “canned” snacks such as olives, mussels or sardines in olive oil , pickles or chives. In this last position of the classification, the limit would be found in sardines in olive oil, with a caloric content of 200 calories per hundred grams of product, while pickles and chives have between 27 and 38 calories per hundred grams .