With the opening of schools, the debate on the consumption and typology of the snack is back, a food habit that will be celebrated on September 17 with the "World Snack Day".
The habit has its roots in the peasant civilization of the early twentieth century when the snack was considered as a meal that was obtained as a reward of merit for the work done at home or in the fields, hence the origin of its name which derives from the Latin "merere".
Today, the rite of the snack, passed over the years in its proposal from a savory meal to a sweet meal and in a pocket size and single portion, finds its highest point of celebration on social media with a "riot of cakes and cream brioches that satisfy much more is the sight and palate of conscience "despite the fact that over the years the health line has increasingly established itself.
Data in hand, the researchers report that on social networks the hashtags #merenda (over a million posts) and #merendaitaliana (over 250 thousand) on Instagram show a succulent snack, while TikTok (hashtag #merenda and #merendatime) stimulates recipes and challenges almost exclusively based on industrial biscuits and snacks.
A promotion trend that according to analysts contradicts the trend that has established itself with the "healthy snack", after the national statistics on the overweight population.
From a point of view of numbers it is reported that it is consumed by 38% of Italians, according to a Doxa-Aidepi research.
The main users are children, with 97% of them habitually consuming it in the afternoon, according to a research by the San Paolo Hospital in Milan and Spes.
(HANDLE).
