People now have better living conditions and don't lack food, so many people have an extra meal, especially a late-night snack. Of course, eating a moderate late-night snack is not a bad thing; on the contrary, it can help promote sleep. However, many people like to eat junk food before bed, which not only fails to promote sleep but also increases your weight.
Unsuitable Foods for Late-Night Snacks What's Good for a Late-Night Snack
Celery
Celery is a natural diuretic that increases urine output. If you consume too much celery before bed, your body will wake you up to urinate. Although celery provides rich nutrients for the body, it's best to avoid it before bedtime.
Pasta
Pasta is full of carbohydrates. Eating it right before sleep can easily turn into fat, alter your blood sugar levels, and consequently delay sleep or cause you to wake up easily at night. Additionally, toppings like cheese, cream, or tomato sauce on pasta can further burden your digestive system.
Pizza
The tomato sauce in pizza is highly acidic and can cause acid reflux in the stomach. The fatty meats and cheese can also lead to heartburn.
Candy
A recent study shows that 7 out of 10 people eat candy and other junk food before bed, leading to nightmares all night. Experts speculate that high sugar levels cause more brainwaves, resulting in nightmares.
Cereal
Cereal often contains large amounts of refined sugar and carbohydrates, which can cause a spike in blood sugar, making it unsuitable for consumption before bed.
Garlic
Eating garlic at night can cause bad breath and heartburn. If you have poor stomach function or are prone to acid reflux, you should definitely not eat spicy foods like garlic before bed.
Chocolate
The caffeine in dark chocolate can be stimulating. Almost all chocolates contain some level of caffeine. Additionally, the theobromine in it can increase your heart rate.
Greasy Foods
Greasy foods not only include fried foods but also some animal organs with high cholesterol. These foods increase the workload on your intestines, stomach, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas, and stimulate the central nervous system, affecting sleep quality. People with high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol should be especially strict about controlling these foods.
Alcohol
It's a common misconception that alcohol promotes sleep. While alcohol can help you fall asleep, it doesn't maintain long, quality rest. Alcohol actually interferes with the restorative function of sleep, and people who frequently use alcohol to fall asleep can get stuck in a vicious cycle of relying on it to do so.
Red Meat
Although the high levels of iron and tryptophan in red meat can aid sleep, red meat is rich in protein and fat and takes longer to digest than other foods, keeping your body working all night. Therefore, for deep sleep, it's best to avoid red meat at dinner.
"Gas-Inducing Foods"
Some foods produce a lot of gas during digestion, leading to bloating, such as beans, cabbage, onions, corn, and bananas. Excessive bloating not only causes discomfort in the stomach and intestines but also affects sleep. Therefore, it's best to avoid eating such foods at night as well.
High-Calcium Foods
It's also not suitable to eat foods that are too high in calcium for dinner, such as dried shrimp and cartilaginous fish. As the internal organs enter a resting state at night, the calcium from these foods can easily accumulate in the kidneys and urinary tract, leading to kidney stones.
Desserts
Many people like to eat desserts after dinner, feeling that a meal is incomplete without them. However, overly sweet things can easily burden the digestive system. On the other hand, the sugar in desserts is difficult to break down while the body is at rest, and it can be converted into fat, easily leading to obesity. Over time, this can also potentially lead to cardiovascular diseases.
Excessive "Liver Fire," Milk is Not Suitable at Night
Drinking milk at night can increase "liver fire," which is not conducive to the body's nighttime detoxification. It can also make you feel thirsty and wake up in the middle of the night for water, which is not good for sleep. Moreover, milk itself is an allergen, and drinking it at night can easily cause indigestion and other problems.
Eating Ginger at Night is Like Eating Arsenic
The ancients said: "Eating ginger in the morning is better than drinking ginseng soup; eating ginger at night is like eating arsenic (eating ginger in the morning is beneficial, while eating it at night is harmful)." Ginger is pungent and warm in nature, containing volatile oils, gingerol, resins, and starch. Ginger can enhance and accelerate blood circulation, stimulate gastric juice secretion, excite the digestive tract, promote digestion, and has antibacterial effects. Eating a little ginger in the morning is beneficial for health. But eating it at night, because ginger is inherently "hot," can cause "internal heat," harming the body and health, so it should not be eaten.