The vending machine on a night shift: how to choose

Buy one savoury thing with protein or fibre in it, such as plain nuts, plain popcorn or a wholemeal sandwich if the machine is chilled, and a bottle of water. Check the sugars line on the back, where more than 22.5g per 100g is high. Leave the juice and the energy drink, and stop at one item.

What should I buy from the vending machine at 3am?

One thing, and savoury if you can. The most useful trial I know of on eating overnight was published in Nutrients in 2019. It put 44 young adults through a simulated week of shifts and gave them, at half past midnight, either a meal, a small snack or nothing. The snack group reported less sleepiness than both of the others, and the group that ate nothing was the hungriest. It was a laboratory with healthy volunteers and no buzzers, so it won’t map exactly onto your ward, but it points towards a small snack over both a full meal and going without. Four items eaten standing up at the machine is a meal.

Savoury helps because it usually brings protein, fat or fibre along with it. Plain or lightly salted nuts, plain popcorn, oatcakes, a cheese and crackers pack, or a sandwich on brown or wholemeal bread are all better bets than the sweet row. If the machine has fruit, have it with the nuts rather than on its own.

I spent years refuelling from whatever was nearest: cereal, packet soup, instant noodles, a sad sandwich with one slice of cheese. The sad sandwich was not the worst thing in that list.

How do I read a vending machine label quickly?

Turn it over and go straight to the per 100g column. Nutrition information is mandatory on prepacked food in the UK, so you can compare a cereal bar with a bag of crisps on equal terms. These are the thresholds UK labels use for high and low:

If the front has traffic lights, the NHS advice is to “try to go for more greens and ambers, and fewer reds”. The ingredients list helps too, because it always starts with whatever there is most of. Sugar, or one of its other names, near the top of the list tells you what you are mostly buying.

A red for fat on a bag of plain nuts is not the same as a red for sugar on a chocolate bar, because the nuts bring protein and fibre with them. I’d still choose the nuts.

Are protein bars a good choice on a night shift?

Sometimes, but the front of the pack won’t tell you which ones. Under UK law, a food can say it is high in protein when at least 20 per cent of its energy comes from protein. That is the whole test. A bar can meet it and still be high in sugar, so read the sugars line before you believe the wrapper. The same goes for fibre: “source of fibre” needs only 3g per 100g, and high fibre needs 6g.

If a bar is low in sugar and has some fibre, it is a reasonable 3am choice. If it is high in sugar, it is a chocolate bar with a better wrapper, and the nuts will do the same job.

What should I drink from the machine?

Water first. Juice and smoothies count as free sugars, and adults are advised to keep them to 150ml a day, within a limit of 30g of free sugars a day in total. A large carton from a machine can take you past the 150ml on its own.

Energy drinks are the bigger problem on nights. Under UK labelling law, any drink other than tea or coffee with more than 150mg of caffeine per litre must say “High caffeine content” on the label and give the amount per 100ml, so you can see how much you are taking. The effects of caffeine can last up to 7 hours. Count backwards from when you want to sleep, and stop five to six hours before it. For a nine o’clock sleep, that means your last caffeine somewhere between 3am and 4am.

Why do I crave chocolate at 3am?

Partly because you are hungry, and partly because you are tired, and the two are easy to confuse. In a 2021 study in Nature Metabolism, a bigger dip in blood glucose two to three hours after a meal went with more hunger and more eaten later. The same study asked people how alert they felt, and the dip was not linked to that. So a dip is a fair explanation for why the sweet row calls to you. It is not a proven reason you feel sleepy. At 3am you are awake at the hour your body expects to be asleep, whatever you ate.

If chocolate is what you want, have a small one after something savoury rather than instead of it. That keeps it as part of a snack rather than the whole of it.

Is the hospital supposed to sell healthy food at night?

In England, yes. The national standards for healthcare food and drink, published in 2022, cover vending machines as well as canteens and shops, and the British Dietetic Association’s summary of them is plain: “Healthy options must be available at all times, including for those staff working night shifts”. The same summary lists a ban on price promotions on sugary drinks and on foods high in fat, sugar or salt. If your machine at 3am is all chocolate and fizzy drinks, it is worth telling your trust’s catering or wellbeing lead.

How do I stop needing the machine at all?

Bring food. An NHS dietitian writing for Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals put it well: take your own food so you don’t fall into the “late night convenience store, drive through or vending machine trap”. What to pack, and when to eat it across a twelve hour night, is in what to eat on a night shift. For the meal when you get home, see breakfast after nights.

The machine is the backup, not the plan. On the nights it is the plan, one savoury item and water is a good night’s work.

What if I am tired all the time, nights or not?

Tiredness on nights is expected. Tiredness that follows you into your days off is worth looking at, and the afternoon crash quiz is a place to start. The NHS says to see a GP if you’ve been feeling tired for a few weeks and you’re not sure why, if your tiredness affects your daily life, or if you feel tired and have other symptoms, such as weight loss or mood changes.

If you have diabetes, or take any medication timed to meals, follow your own diabetes team on what and when to eat on nights.