Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts

How Big Are Your Snacks? Are They As Big As Lunch or Dinner?

September 3, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Do you get so hungry mid-morning or mid-afternoon that you grab whatever you can from a cart, vending machine, the snack room or fridge — and chow down?

if you do, you’re not alone. According to research, snacking, including drinking beverages at times other than during a regular meal,accounts for more than 25% of Americans’ calorie intake everyday. Snacking has turned into “a full eating event,” or a fourth meal, averaging about 580 calories each day.

Eating while you’re doing something else, called secondary eating, has also increased. Between 2006 and 2008, the amount of time we spend eating breakfast, lunch and dinner stayed at 70 minutes but secondary eating doubled from 15 minutes a day in 2006 to nearly 30 minutes in 2008. There was nearly a 90% jump in the time spent on secondary drinking: from 45 to 85 minutes. (Ever wonder why Starbuck’s is so crowded?)

There’s an increase in snacking across the board, but beverages account for 50% of snack calories. It’s way too easy to forget the calories in drinks. And, we spend about 12% of our total food money at the supermarket on packaged snacks.

What’s A Snack?

A snack shouldn’t be a fourth meal. Most recommendations are that a snack be between 150 and 200 calories and have some protein for both satiety and to help keep your blood sugar level stable. Some fiber in the snack helps keep you full.

Here are some examples – just be aware of portion sizes (for instance, don’t eat half a jar of peanut butter or a huge wedge of cheese):

Hummus with baby carrots or other vegetables
½ cup of low-fat cottage cheese with fruit or whole grain crackers
An apple, orange, peach, or grapes (or other fruit) with either ¼ cup almonds (or other nuts) or an ounce of cheese or a part skim cheese stick
Non-fat, unsweetened yogurt with ½ cup of whole grain cereal and/or fruit
A 12-ounce non-fat latte or cappuccino
Whole-grain crackers with peanut, nut, or seed butter
Trail mix with nuts, seeds, raisins, and cereal (cereal can cut down on the calories while increasing the volume – nuts are a high calorie food)
A whole grain (especially if it’s high fiber) English muffin or slice of toast and low-fat cream cheese or a slice of reduced fat (2%) cheese
A portion controlled serving of nuts

Smart Snacking Tips

Make sure your snack is 200 calories or less and has protein and fiber to help keep you full and satisfied.
100-calorie snack packages are usually processed and probably are not great for you choices. Check the ingredients, protein, and fiber content.
Beware of “healthy” or “halo-food” snacks like some sugary cereals, some sweetened, flavored yogurts, some so-called protein bars, yogurt-covered pretzels, and sports drinks.
Ask yourself if you’re snacking out of boredom, stress, or if you’re really hungry.
Don’t let yourself get so hungry that it’s impossible to control what and how much you have for a snack.
There are many choices. Pick snacks that you enjoy and can look forward to eating.
Keep healthy snacks in your desk drawer, your kitchen cabinet, or in your car so when you’re really hungry you have a good choice readily available. Otherwise it’s way too easy to succumb to the vending machine, newsstand, food truck, or the donut or apple fritter staring at you when you pay for your coffee.

Do you know someone who’s off to college?

Get my book for some easy, doable tips on how to eat well in dining halls and dorm rooms. Available in print and as an ebook from Amazon and as an ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Is Frozen Yogurt Healthy?

August 26, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Is frozen yogurt actually healthy or are you being hoodwinked by “yogurt” in the name?

What’s In Frozen Yogurt?

Milk and milk by-products are the main ingredients in frozen yogurt.

Frozen yogurt companies have their own recipes, but most common frozen yogurts contain yogurt cultures, sweetener, corn syrup, milk solids, gelatin, flavoring, and coloring.

Sugar makes up 15-17% of frozen yogurt and adds flavor, body, and thickness. If you’re thinking healthy bacteria and frozen yogurt, you need to check the brand. Frozen yogurt isn’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration — although it is by some states — and it may or may not contain live bacterial cultures.

Frozen yogurt is lower in fat than most ice creams because it’s made with milk instead of cream. Most of the nonfat “original” or “plain” flavors are usually the lowest in calories at about 30-35 calories per ounce with about 20g of sugar.

Frozen yogurt, which comes in a multitude of flavors, wears a healthy food “halo” but doesn’t always warrant one. Some brands and flavors are “healthier” than others — depending on the company’s recipe and the quality and quantity of ingredients which produce a product with varying levels of sweetness/tartness, fat content, consistency, and flavor. Of course, it’s up to you to gauge the “healthiness” of what and how much you add on top of your soft swirl!

Some Frozen Yogurt History

Frozen yogurt is relatively new – certainly compared to other frozen desserts. There is a tale, perhaps a myth, of Roman Emperor Nero (AD 54–68) sending his slaves into the mountains to get snow to mix with nectar, fruit pulp, and honey. Frozen yogurt, as we know it, was invented in Massachusetts in 1970 when a Hood dairy employee put regular yogurt through a soft-serve ice cream machine. The first “frogurt” cone was served by a Harvard Square store on February 3, 1971.

During the health craze of the 1980’s frozen yogurt went mainstream and then sort of fizzled. Its popularity rebounded when self-serve stores began allowing customers to control their portion size, mix and match flavors, pick from dozens of toppings, and pay by weight.

Calorie Tips

Despite variation in recipes, frozen yogurts are fairly comparable when calories are compared. For instance, a half cup serving of Pinkberry has 116 calories, 0g fat and 20g of sugar; TCBY’s 98% fat free vanilla has 120 calories, 2g fat, and 17g of sugar; and Ben & Jerry’s vanilla frozen yogurt has 130 calories, 1.5g fat, and 16g of sugar.
If you have a choice, choose soft serve rather than hard serve. Soft serve has air whipped into it making lighter in weight and lower in calories.
Pick the smallest cup. When you start with a smaller cup rather than a large one, you’re already ahead of the game. Despite the fact that you swear you won’t fill up a large cup, you almost always do.
Try putting the self-serve yogurt on top, not under, the toppings. Make space-filling low calorie fruit like berries or fresh pineapple your first layer. Then add things with crunch and volume, like cereal. Follow with the yogurt, then perhaps a teaspoon of candy crunch on top. Starting with yogurt often means putting a lot of yogurt in the cup followed by a lot of toppings. Layering low calorie volume food on the bottom can save you a lot of calories.
Try not to mix flavors. Swirling a couple sounds like fun, but taste buds are funny. When you pick just one flavor and topping your taste buds are happy and you probably end up feeling more satisfied than if you have a variety of flavors.

Calories in Frozen Yogurt

One cup of low fat frozen yogurt runs about 210 calories. More specifically, for a one cup serving of different varieties of generic frozen yogurt:

Frozen yogurt: Calories: 214; Fat: 2.94g; Carbs: 39.24g; Protein: 9.40g

Nonfat frozen yogurt: Calories: 164; Fat: 0.65g; Carbs: 34.84g; Protein: 5.96g

Low fat frozen yogurt: Calories: 214; Fat: 2.94g; Carbs: 39.24g; Protein: 9.40g

Chocolate frozen yogurt (soft serve): Calories: 230 | Fat: 8.64 | Carbs: 35.86g; Protein: 5.76g

Vanilla frozen yogurt (soft serve): Calories: 234; Fat: 8.06g; Carbs: 34.84g; Protein: 5.76g

Frozen yogurt (non-chocolate flavors): Calories: 210; Fat: 2.70g; Carbs: 38.24g; Protein: 9.14g

Chocolate frozen yogurt (not soft serve): Calories: 226; Fat: 3.90g; Carbs: 43.22g;Protein: 10.48g

Frozen flavored yogurt (non-chocolate, not self serve): Calories: 221; Fat: 6.26g; Carbs: 37.58g; Protein: 5.22g

Nonfat chocolate frozen yogurt: Calories: 172; Fat: 1.32g; Carbs: 35.19g; Protein: 8.95g

Some Frozen Yogurt Toppings

It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re really doing well (and you might be) by eating frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. But, some toppings can turn frozen yogurt into a caloric nightmare – especially when you keep piling them on.

Here are the calorie counts are for one ounce of various toppings:

Fruit (fresh and not):

Strawberries: 9 calories
Blueberries: 16 calories
Blackberries: 12 calories
Rasberries: 15 calories
Pineapple: 17 calories
Mango: 17 calories
Grated sweetened coconut: 131 calories

Nuts:

Slivered almonds: 170 calories
Chopped peanuts: 166 calories
Chopped walnuts: 184 calories

Cereals:

Cap’n Crunch: 114 calories
Cinnamon Toast Crunch: 123 calories
Froot Loops: 97 calories
Granola: 138 calories

Cookies/Pretzels/Candy:

Oreo topping: 112 calories
Pretzels covered in chocolate swirl: 130 calories
Milk chocolate M&Ms: 146 calories (1/4 cup has 210 calories)
Gummi bears: 90 calories (14 pieces have 120 calories)
Nestle crunch bar topping: 37 calories
Heath bar, crumbled: 170 calories
Chocolate sprinkles: 25 calories
Rainbow sprinkles: 30 calories

Dirty Water Dogs: a Tasty Treat (for some)

August 20, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN 1 Comment

“Dirty-water dogs!” You love ‘em (chances are you grew up in NYC), you can’t stand the thought of them, or you haven’t tried them – yet.

Want one? Look for blue and yellow striped Sabrett umbrellas (sometimes green and white, per regulation, in NYC parks).There seem to be a lot of foodtrucks with blue and yellow Sabrett umbrellas, but you can still find plenty of pushcart vendors hawking frankfurters – even if some of them are now cooked on grills rather than plucked out of pots of warm (“dirty”) water.

The Dirty-Water Dog

“Dirty-water dogs” are hot frankfurters plucked out of a metal vat full of warm, salty liquid. How long the hot dog has sat in in it’s warm bath is anyone’s guess – a time frame probably dependent on how many sales have been made and how long the vendor chooses to leave them in there.

The cooking process is simple. Dump the dogs in the water. Snatch them out for a waiting customer, drop them onto a soft (non-grilled) bun that sops up the wetness that clings to the dog, and add on whatever else (sauerkraut, chili, condiments) the customer wants. If you’re in NYC, go for the famed tomato/onion mixture. Classic NYC street food.

The Origin of the Hot Dog

Hot dogs are derivatives of sausage and sausage has been around a long time – it’s one of the oldest forms of processed food having been mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey in the 9^th century BC.

Although there’s really no consensus on the origin of the “hot dog” (or the “dachshund” or “little-dog” sausage), credit is usually given to Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany around the year 1487. That means the little dog sausage was being happily eaten five years before Christopher Columbus set sail for the new world. The name “hot dog” probably began as a joke referring to the small, long, thin dachshund.

The Dog In The Bun

Who served the first North American dachshund sausage (hot dog) wrapped in a roll is also in doubt: maybe the German immigrant who, in the 1860’s, sold them with milk rolls and sauerkraut from a push cart on the Bowery in NYC. Maybe it was the German butcher who opened up the first Coney Island hot dog stand in 1871 and sold 3,684 dachshund sausages in milk rolls his first year in business.

A baseball stadium staple since 1893, the sale of hot dogs as game day food is credited to a St. Louis German immigrant bar owner who also owned the St. Louis Browns major league baseball team.

in the 1890s, the word “hot dog” began appearing in college magazines. Students at Yale called the wagons selling hot sausages in buns outside their dorms “dog wagons.” An article in the October 19,1895 Yale Record described people as “contentedly munching on hot dogs.”

The Pushcart and the Dirty-Water Dog

Pushcarts used to be made of wood. Cooking sausage dogs over an open flame on a wooden pushcart meant carts that could – and many did – go up in smoke. The solution: around the beginning of the 20th century, pushcart vendors started heating hot dogs in water instead of on an open flame.

After the pushcart transition from wood to stainless steel, hot dog pushcarts all looked pretty much the same – rectangular stainless steel carts on wheels with a hinged bins for the dog water, shelves for squeeze bottles of condiments, and the ubiquitous umbrellas.

Carts began to change and varying types of permits allow for expanded menus. With a non-processing permit vendors can only sell pre-made food like dirty-water dogs and pretzels. A processing permit allows them to cook food like kebabs and falafel – and, since grills allow the vendors to cook, they can also grill hot dogs.

Dirty-Water Dogs

New York’s iconic pushcart hot dogs –New Yorkers eat millions of them a year — come mostly from the company, Sabrett. You can spot Sabrett yellow and blue striped umbrellas on most carts. Sabrett calls it’s product “New York’s # 1 Hot Dog, renowned for the famous snap! of it’s natural casing, all-beef frankfurter.”

The water that the hotdog sits in isn’t – or shouldn’t be — dirty, even though it looks like it when the vendor sticks long tongs into a vat of gray foamy covered liquid. That’s not scum on top of the liquid but a froth from the combination of warm water flavored with the juice, salt and meaty leakage from all the hotdogs that have been sitting in their warm water bath.

Despite greater availability of grilled hot dogs, the president of Sabrett says there hasn’t been a major fall-off in “dirty-water” hot dog sales. He says that the regulars stand firm in their preference for dirty-water dogs, a sentiment echoed by the owner of the truck in the photo. He says he’ll grill a dog if someone wants, but that he uses his grill mostly for rib-eyes. His regulars prefer a dirty-water dog – and he smiles as he calls it that. However, he assures me his water is clean not dirty!

Kitchen “Dirty-Water Dogs”

In case you have a hankering for a “dirty-water dog” and there’s no pushcart in sight, here’s the recipe for a self-made version, along with tomato-onion topping, from Epicurious.

Ingredients

2 quarts water

2 tablespoons red vinegar

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Pinch ground cumin

Favorite hot dogs, not skinless

Large yellow onion, peeled and coarse sliced

3 tablespoons cooking oil

Pinch of crushed red pepper and hot sauce to taste, optional

1 tablespoon red vinegar

1/4 cup tomato sauce, or ketchup for a sweeter version

Preparation

In a covered 4 quart saucepan, bring the water to a low simmer, and add vinegar, cumin, and nutmeg.

Add up to two packages of hotdogs and cover for at least ten minutes.

For the onion sauce:

Heat the oil and red pepper in pan over medium heat

Saute the onion 3 to 4 minutes, until about half opaque

Reduce the heat and keep the ingredients warm

Stir in vinegar and slowly add tomato until you reach the desired thickness

Serve dogs on warmed buns with warm onion sauce or sauerkraut and any other toppings.

An Easy Way To Avoid Second Helpings

August 14, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Do you skimp on putting food onto your plate thinking that it will keep your calorie count down?

What happens? You eat the skimpy portion – decide you’re still hungry – and then go back, maybe two or three times, for more.

And if you keep the serving dishes on the table right in front of you, it’s way too easy to keep refilling your plate – or just stick your fork out and eat from the platter.

Get Those Serving Dishes Off The Table

If you want to make it a little easier for yourself to save on calories, one thing you can do is to get those serving dishes off of the table. When serving dishes are left on the table men eat 29% more and women 10% more than when those serving dishes stay on the counter.

Why?

It’s harder to grab seconds if you have to get up to get them. Sticking out your fork and shoveling more onto your plate while your butt remains firmly planted in your chair makes it far too easy to refill your plate without much thought about the quantity of food that’s going into your mouth.

Men chow down on more servings than women because they tend to eat fast – impatiently gobbling food while they wait for everyone else in the family to finish. As a result, they end up eating seconds and thirds while other people are still on firsts. Women usually eat more slowly so they’re not as likely to get to the seconds and thirds.

To help avoid the temptation of going back for seconds:

Let this be your mantra: no seconds. Figure out a reasonable portion of food that is within reason but not so skimpy that you’re nowhere near satisfied when you’re finished.
Keep the serving dishes off of the table.
Choose your food, fill your plate from the stove or from the serving dishes on the counter, and that’s it. No seconds.

Do you know someone going off to college? Give him or her a copy of my book 30 Ways to Survive Dining Hall and Dorm Room Food: Tips to Avoid the Freshman 15. You can get it from Amazon (print and ebook), and as an ebook from Barnes & Noble and iBooks.

Boardwalk, Amusement Park, and Stadium: What Do You Eat?

August 12, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Cotton candy or funnel cake? Corn dog or fried clams? The food of summer. What do you usually eat beachside or after the roller coaster?

Oh, the choices! Oh the calories! How can you possibly not chow down on thousands of calories when there are food vendors about every 20 feet hawking dogs, ice cream, and fried everything?

Are You Ready For Peanuts, Popcorn, and Cotton Candy?

Sports stadiums, amusement parks, street fairs. What do you usually do at these places – other than watch games and have a blast on the rides? EAT, of course!

The food- the calories! What a challenge when there are food vendors about every 20 feet hawking hotdogs, ice cream, and fried everything!

There Are Ways And Then There Are Ways

If you’ve got a will of iron you could ignore the food and drinks. But if you’re tempted at every turn, you can try minimizing the damage without taking away the fun. If you know you’re going to be having a stadium or boardwalk meal, do some thinking, planning, and sleuthing. The best choices are not always the obvious ones.

Do you need both peanuts and popcorn? Can you make do with a regular hot dog instead of a foot-long? Can you keep it to one or two beers instead of three? Can you choose the small popcorn instead of the jumbo tub? Can you ditch the soda — or maybe the second one — and replace it with water?

Make Your Best Choice To Save Some Calories

It’s all about choices. Just make the best choice from the food that’s available and still enjoy traditional boardwalk and amusement park food. It’s really possible to make some reasonable choices on boardwalks or at amusement parks or stadiums that aren’t caloric disasters. Weigh your options – what do you want to do and what’s your best choice?

Here’s some info about traditional foods you might find at ballparks, boardwalks, street fairs, and amusement parks.

Use Some Of These Facts As Guidelines:

Cotton Candy: Nothing but heated and colored sugar that’s spun into threads with air added – and sometimes preservatives. Cotton candy on a stick or wrapped around a paper cone (about an ounce) has around 105 calories; a 2-ounce bag (common size) has 210. A lot of sugar, but not a lot of calories – albeit empty ones.

Cracker Jack (officially cracker jack, not jacks): candy-coated popcorn with some peanuts. A 3.5-ounce stadium size box has 420 calories but does have 7g of protein and 3.5g of fiber.

Hamburger: 6 ounces of food stand beef on a bun has about 490 calories. Vendors don’t use extra lean beef because the more fat the juicier the burger for you and the cheaper the cost for the vendor. Cheese and other toppings add additional calories.

Grilled Chicken Sandwich: A 6-ounce sandwich of grilled, not fried, chicken has 280 calories and isn’t such a bad choice. Six ounces of chicken tenders clock in at 446 calories. Barbecue dipping sauce adds 30 calories a tablespoon.

Hot Dog: Most sold-out baseball stadiums can sell 16,000 hot dogs a day. A regular hot dog with mustard has about 290 calories; that’s 180 for the 2-ounce dog, 110 for the bun, zilch for regular yellow mustard. Two tablespoons of sauerkraut adds another 5 to10 calories and a punch of flavor, 2 tablespoons of ketchup adds 30, and 2 tablespoons of relish another 40. A Nathan’s hot dog racks up 320 calories; a foot-long Hebrew National 510 calories. A regular size corn dog has around 280 calories.

Fried Battered Clams: A boardwalk staple. 1 cup (5 large clams or 8 medium clams or 10 small clams) has around 222 calories.

Pizza: Stadium pizza slices are larger than a usual slice, about 1/6 of a 16-inch pie (instead of 1/8) making it about 435 calories a slice – add calories for your toppings.

Nachos with Cheese: A 12-ounce serving (40 chips, 4-ounces of cheese) has about 1,500 calories!!! Plain French fries look like a caloric bargain by comparison.

French Fries: A large serving has about 500 calories. A serving of Hardee’s chili cheese fries has 700 calories and 350 of them come from fat. Curly fries (7 ounces) have 620 calories, 30g fat.

Potato Chips: One single serving bag has 153 calories (94 of them from fat).

Peanuts in the Shell: What would a baseball game be withouta bag of peanuts? Stadiums can sell as many as 6,000 bags on game days. An 8-ounce bag has 840 calories; a 12-ounce bag has 1,260. Yes, they have some protein and fiber. But wow on the calories. A one-ounce bag of Planter’s Dry Roasted Peanuts has 170 calories, 14g fat, 2g sugars.

Popcorn: At Yankee Stadium, a jumbo size has 1,484 calories and a souvenir bucket has 2,473 calories. A small bag of buttered popcorn that holds 5 cups has 470 calories, 35g fat. A large, 20 cup bucket of buttered popcorn has 1640 calories, 126g fat. Three and a half cups of kettle corn has 245 calories and 6g fat.

Soft Pretzel: One large soft pretzel has 483 calories and 5g of fat. Giant soft pretzels (7 to 8 ounces) have about 700 calories.

Funnel cake: The fried dough wonder and staple of fairs, boardwalks, and amusement parks, funnel cake is made by pouring dough through a funnel into cooking oil and deep frying the “funnels” of dough until they’re golden-brown and crispy – then topping the pieces with powdered sugar, syrup, or honey. Different cultures have varying versions of fried dough – sometimes it’s long strips and sometimes just round fried balls of dough. The calories vary enormously depending on the quantity and toppings. Just remember, regardless of the shape, they’re all dough fried in oil topped with a sweetener. That means high calories and low nutrition. You probably have to figure a minimum of around 300 calories for a 6-inch funnel cake (do they ever come that small?).

Ice Cream

Helmet Ice Cream: Your team’s mini-helmet filled with swirled Carvel has 550-590 calories.

Fudgsicle Fudge Bar (1 bar, 64g): 100 calories, 2.5g fat, 13g sugars
Klondike, The Original (1 sandwich, 81g): 250 calories, 17g fat, 18g sugars
Good Humor Ice Cream:

Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bar (83g): 230 calories
Toasted Almond (113g): 240 calories
Candy Center Crunch: 310 calories
Low Fat Ice Cream Sandwich, vanilla: 130 calories
Chocolate Éclair (1 bar, 59g): 160 calories

Soda, Lemonade, and Beer

Coke, small (18-ounces): 218 calories
Coke, large (44-ounces): 534 calories
Coke, 12-ounce can: 140 calories –- and close to 10 teaspoons of sugar
Minute Maid Lemonade (18-ounces): 248 calories
Minute Maid Lemonade (44-ounces): 605 calories
Draft Beer: A stadium draft beer, a 20-ounce cup, the usual size –has about 240 calories. A light draft saves you 60 calories.
12-ounce bottle of Budweiser: 144 calories, 12.8 carbs, 4.7% alcohol
12-ounce can of Bud Lite: 110 calories, 6.6 carbs, 4.2% alcohol
12-ounce bottle of Miller Lite: 96 calories, 3.2 carbs, 4.2% alcohol
12-ounce bottle of Miller MGD 64: 64 calories, 2.4 carbs, 2.8% alcohol

For more information about calories in summer drinks, click HERE. here.

Candy

Take note the serving size — movie theater and amusement park boxes of candy are often huge and may be double or triple the size shown below.

Junior Mints, 3-ounce box: 360 calories, 7g fat
Sno Caps, 3.1-ounce box: 300 calories, 15g fat
Milk Duds, 3-ounce box: 370 calories, 12g fat
Raisinets, 3.5 ounce bag: 400 calories, 16g fat
Goobers, 3.5 ounce box: 500 calories, 35g fat
Twizzlers, 6-ounce bag: 570 calories, 4g fat
M&Ms, 5.3-ounce bag: 750 calories, 32g fat
Peanut M&Ms, 5.3-ounce bag: 790 calories, 40g fat
Reese’s Pieces, 8-ounce: 1160 calories, 60g fat
Snickers (1bar, 59g): 280 calories, 14g fat