What is 'rat snacking', 2024’s bizarre food trend?

In 2023, there was an appetiser course-inspired “girl dinner” trend that took over TikTok.Gen Z people are engaging in an odd eating habit known as "rat snacking," which involves them raiding their kitchen cabinets.The trend is so popular that British supermarket company Waitrose even mentioned it in its annual Food and Drink report.It highlighted that the young generation is likely to swap the traditional three meals a day for snacking.Here’s what the latest trend means and how healthy it is.What is rat snacking?Rat snacking is a strange trend on TikTok that sees humans copy rodent-like behaviours by hunting for any leftovers of food to try and come up with a meal, according to Dailymail.Any weird combo of food is considered to be a rat snack. For instance, chocolate on a Ritz cracker or mixing humus with dark chocolate.The Waitrose report described rat snacking as, “The unashamed joy of eating unusual snack combos (that only you enjoy!) often made from raiding the kitchen cupboards.”There are numerous videos of the new trend on TikTok.One video shows a young woman piling chili sauce on cauliflower, while another one shows a girl making a sandwich out of crisps and chocolate.According to the report, the second woman explained her bizarre snack in the video by saying, “I thought I would share with you one of my really strange snacks – it’s not that strange it actually makes sense, bare with me. So I just get plain ready salted crisps, then just like chocolate. This is just the original flavour.”“I basically just snap smaller pieces off, and I kind of just like grab a crisp and just (eat it). It’s so good.”As per New York Post, content creator Ken Eurich, in a TikTok video, puts crushed-up chips in a bowl with some vinegar and eats it with a spoon.Abbey Sharp, a registered dietician who posts content on her TikTok @abbeyskitchen, also shared a “super unhinged rat snack” with her 748,000 followers. The caption of her video reads, “When your InstaCart shopper throws in an unexpected pack of processed cheese, you turn it into a budget-friendly ‘rat snack’ with whatever else you have in the fridge.”In the video, she put apples, a little bit of butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar into a bowl and popped it into the microwave. She lays the melted mixture on slices of bread and tops it with cheese slices. She says that the weird snack tastes like “a classic apple pie with a slice of cheddar on top.”Why is it becoming so popular?A recent UK survey by Waitrose found 95 per cent of its respondents admitting to snack between meals, while 50 per cent snacked two or three times a day or more.As per Dailymail, almost 30 per cent had two meals a day and snacked in between, contrary to the traditional three times of meals in a day. One in 10 respondents admitted to having only one meal a day while one per cent said they skipped meals altogether.In a mail interview with the UK outlet, Rhiannon Lambert, a registered nutritionist and author, said that the traditional three meals-a-day pattern is evolving rather than dying out completely. According to her, the conventional routine still remains a “common eating pattern for many, especially families,” but people are starting to witness a transformation into “topping up” their daily intake with snacks.“One reason for the shift away from the traditional three meals a day is the changing lifestyles of people: busier schedules, longer work hours, increased time spent commuting, poverty/food insecurity, living alone and cooking for one, convenience of snack foods, and fasting approaches, which can make it challenging to adhere to set meal times,” she told Dailymail.She believes many people are opting for “more flexible eating patterns” that accommodate these busy routines.While speaking to Bustle earlier, Sharp said that the trend also comes out of a need for necessity due to finances, which makes it relatable to young people on the internet.“(With) the rise in grocery costs, people are trying to find any way that they can save money, and for a lot of people, this means digging deep into the pantry, freezer, or fridge to pull together any little bits and pieces that may not traditionally go together,” she told the outlet.She added, “These rat snacks are becoming more popular because people often don’t see themselves making the smoothie bowls that they see on Instagram, but they can pull together a piece of cheese and a pickle with a pinch, because they have it on hand too, you know?”How healthy is it?Experts have warned that “rat snacks” usually contain ultra-processed foods (UPF), but also help to make a basic snack more healthy by pairing it with other things.Dailymail quoted Lambert as saying, “Many ‘rat snacks’ contain ultra-processed foods or foods high in salt and fat; however, many people pair these UPF foods with healthier foods, so it is a better alternative than having the UPF food by itself – for instance, crisps and peanut butter, cured meats and fruit.”She added, “Whilst these aren’t considered ‘healthy’ snack items, this trend does encourage a healthy relationship with food to a degree as it is not demonising individual items, and during the current times with a cost of living crisis, you can pick out anything!”With inputs from agencies