Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts

Leftover Turkey? How Long Can You Keep It?

November 27, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Did you roast an 18 pound turkey? Maybe you roasted two smaller ones so you could have four drumsticks. Inevitably, most of us will have a whole lot of leftover turkey.

What do you do with all of that leftover bird? Is it alright to eat it after it’s been sitting out from the time it came out of the oven, through dinner, dessert, and two loads run through the dishwasher?

Once it’s in the fridge, how long can it stay there? Are you certain the leftovers are safe to eat?

Once Your Bird Is Cooked, Does It Matter How Long You Leave It Out?

Yes, yes, yes! According to the Centers for Disease Control the number of reported cases of food borne illness (food poisoning) increases during the holiday season. You shouldn’t leave food out for more than two hours. To save turkey leftovers, remove the stuffing from the cavity, cut the turkey off the bone, and refrigerate or freeze all leftovers.

The Basic Rules For Leftovers

According to the USDA the mantra is:

2 Hours–2 Inches–4 Days

2 Hours from oven to refrigerator: Refrigerate or freeze your leftovers within 2 hours of cooking. Throw them away if they are out longer than that.
2 Inches thick to cool it quick: Store your food at a shallow depth–about 2 inches–to speed chilling.
4 Days in the refrigerator–otherwise freeze it: Use your leftovers that are stored in the fridge within 4 days. The exceptions are stuffing and gravy. Both should be used within 2 days. Reheat solid leftovers to 165 degrees F and liquid leftovers to a rolling boil. Toss what you don’t finish.

How Long Can Leftover Turkey Stay In The Freezer?

Frozen leftover turkey, stuffing, and gravy should be used within one month.

To successfully freeze leftovers:

package them properly using freezer wrap or freezer containers. Use heavy-duty aluminum foil, freezer paper, or freezer bags for best results and don’t leave any air space.
Squeeze the excess air from the freezer bags and fill rigid freezer containers to the top with dry food. Without proper packaging, circulating air in the freezer can create freezer burn – those white dried-out patches on the surface of food that make it tough and tasteless.
Leave a one-inch headspace in containers with liquid and half an inch in containers filled with semi-solids.

How Many Calories Are In Typical Thanksgiving And Hanukkah Foods?

November 25, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

What was on the menu for the 50 English colonists and 90 Wampanoag American Indian men at the first Thanksgiving dinner on record (the first official Thanksgiving didn’t happen until two centuries later)? Since it was harvest time in October 1621 in the Plimoth (Plymouth) Colony, in what is now Massachusetts, for the celebration:

the Wampanoag killed five deer
the colonists shot wild fowl — maybe some geese, ducks, or turkeys
some form of Indian corn was served and probably some squash, carrots, and peas
the feast was likely supplemented with fish, lobster, clams, nuts, wheat flour, and pumpkin.

Calories In Today’s Thanksgiving And Hanukkah Foods

Most extra holiday calories don’t come from the “day of” holiday meal but from unrelenting nibbling over the holiday season – and the nibbling isn’t on the same type of food served at the first Thanksgiving dinner.

Guessing at calories can really fool you — being informed can help you to make good choices, food swaps, and trades. A “know before you go” strategy is a big help for making well thought out choices – which will leave room for some of your favorite holiday treats.

Here’s a sampling of the calories in some traditional Thanksgiving and Hanukkah foods. The calories are for an average serving and are estimates. Recipes all vary, these are ballpark numbers.

Appetizers:

Mixed nuts, 1oz: 170 calories

Candied pecans, 1oz: 139 calories

Cheese ball, 1oz: 110 calories

Selection of raw vegetables, 8 ounces: 75 calories

Sour cream and onion dip, 2 tablespoons: 60 calories

Deviled egg, ½ of an egg: 59 calories

Stuffed mushrooms, 6 small: 386 calories

Shrimp with cocktail sauce, 3 shrimp: 30 calories

Jell-O mold salad, ½ cup: 103 calories

Pigs in blankets, one homemade: 46 calories

Triscuit, 6 crackers: 120 calories

Main Course:

Turkey, 3.5 ounce serving (about the size and thickness of a new deck of cards):

Breast with skin: 194 calories
Breast without skin: 161 calories
Wing with skin: 238 calories
Leg with skin: 213 calories
Dark meat with skin: 232 calories
Dark meat without skin: 192 calories
Skin only: 482 calories; 44g fat

Smithfield ham, center slice, 4 ounces: 180 calories

Prime Rib roast: 8oz: 450 calories

Roasted Brussels sprouts with olive oil, 10 half sprouts: 80 calories

Dinner roll, 1 small: 87

Butter, 1 pat: 36

Cheesy corn bread, 2″ X 2″: 96

Turkey, white meat, 4 ounces: 180

Turkey, dark meat, 4 ounces: 323

Turkey gravy, 1/4 cup: 50

Stuffing, 1/2 cup: 190

Mashed potatoes, 1 cup: 190

Candied Yams, 1/2 cup: 210

Sweet potato casserole, 3/4 cup: 624

Honey glazed carrots, 1/2 cup: 45

Green beans almandine, 1/2 cup: 220

Green bean casserole, 1/2 cup: 75

Peas and pearl onions, 1/2 cup: 40

Jellied Cranberry Sauce, 1/4 cup: 110

Cranberry relish, 1/2 cup: 76

Dessert: 

Pumpkin pie, 1/8 of a 9″ pie: 316

Apple pie, 1/8 of a 9″ pie: 411

Pecan pie, 1/8 of a 9″ pie: 503

Vanilla ice cream, 1/2 cup: 145

Chocolate cream pie, 1 large slice: 535

Baked apple, 1 apple: 182

Tea, brewed, 8 ounces: 2

Coffee, black: 10 ounces: 5

Coffee with cream and sugar, 10 ounces: 120

Coffee with Baileys Irish Cream and sugar, 10 ounces: 186

Calories In Typical Hanukkah Foods

Applesauce, sweetened, ½ cup: 95

Applesauce (unsweetened), ½ cup: 50

Fried potato latke, 2oz: 200

Fried, cheese-filled blintz, 1 medium: 340

Baked jelly-filled sufganiyot, 2 inches: 115

Fried jelly-filled sufganiyot, 2 inches: 300

Almond Mandelbrot, ¼ inch slice: 45

Rugelach, 1 cookie: 100

Do Holidays And Overeating Go Hand In Hand?

November 21, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

What’s your favorite holiday food? How much of it do you eat?

A lot of us actually plan to overeat during the holidays – although we may not admit it: think about it — do you know that you’re going to overeat? Do you think it wouldn’t be normal or celebratory if you didn’t overindulge and eat three desserts at Christmas or double helpings of stuffing and sweet potato casserole on Thanksgiving?

It’s all too easy to do that. Food is absolutely everywhere. It’s there for the taking — and most of the time, holiday food is free (and in your face) at parties, on receptionist’s desks, as sample tastes while you shop. How can you pass it up?

On top of it all, it’s sugary, fatty, and pretty. How can you not try it? Of course, sugary and fatty (salty, too) means you just crave more and more. Do you really need it? Do you even really want it? If you eat it, will you feel awful later on?

Are you eating because of tradition – because you’ve been eating the same food during the holiday season since you were a kid? Maybe you don’t even like the food anymore or it disagrees with you. So why are you eating it? Who’s forcing you to?

Do you think you won’t have a good time or you’ll be labeled Scrooge, Grinch, a party pooper, or offend your mother-in-law if you don’t eat everything in sight? Really?

You can still love the holidays and you can still love the food. In the grand scheme of things overeating on one day isn’t such a big deal. Overeating for multiple days that turn into weeks and then months can be become a bit and weighty deal.

The question is: do you really want to overeat? If you do, fine. Enjoy every morsel and then take a nap. Tomorrow is another day. Just know that you don’t have to. You make the decisions about what goes into your mouth. Make thoughtful choices and enjoy them along with everything else the holiday represents.

What To Do

Have a plan. Think about how you want to handle yourself in the face of food, family, eggnog, and pecan pie. Nothing is engraved in stone but if you have an idea about what you want to do and how to do it you’ll be far less likely to nibble and nosh all day and night. You’re the one in charge of what goes into your mouth.

Visualize the situation that you might find yourself in. What do you want the outcome to be? Rehearse, in your mind, how you’ll respond or behave to successfully navigate the eating challenges. Sports coaches use this technique to prepare their athletes to anticipate what might happen and to practice how to respond. Sports performance improves with visualization exercises—so can eating behavior.

Make sure your plan is workable and realistic for what you’re aiming to achieve over the season. The plan doesn’t have to be complex – just decide what you want to do and what steps you need to get there.

Write it down –even if it’s on a napkin. It will both reinforce your intentions and act as a measure of accountability.

Consider what your surroundings will be. Will your plan work for you – it may sound great, but is it doable for the situations you might find yourself in? Will your host insist you try her special dessert and refuse to take no for an answer? Will you be eating in a restaurant known for its homemade breads or phenomenal wine list? Are your dining companions picky eaters, foodies, or fast food junkies? What will you do in these situations?

Armed with your rehearsed plan, go out, use it, and stick to it as best you can. You assume control, not the circumstances and not the food. You are in charge of what food and how much of it will go into your mouth.

Do you have an ipad or an iphone? Maybe both? Check out Eat Out Eat Well Magazine coming soon to the Apple Newsstand.

Are You Ready For Holiday Eating?

November 19, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Holiday cookies, latkes, pumpkin pie, cornbread stuffing, eggnog, and a relative’s specialty of the season … food, food, food!

‘Tis the season to eat and there are “food landmines” everywhere you turn. We all have to eat but it can be a very slippery slope to eat well surrounded by food; family; friends; an encyclopedia of cultural, religious, and family traditions; and a whole host of expectations.

Holidays are supposed to be days of celebration and special significance — often religious, cultural, or traditional. Sometimes, they’re days just meant for play. A common denominator is that we often incorporate food – and lots of it — into celebrations.

Realistically, the actual content of your Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, or other holiday meal matters very little in the grand scheme of things. Although a few hundred calories here or there can make a difference when added up over weeks and years, the impact of overeating at one meal is usually negligible – even though your stomach might be singing a different song.

It’s the inevitable mindless eating – those treats on the receptionist’s desk, the gift of peanut brittle, the holiday toasts, the second and third helpings, the holiday cookies in the snack room – that are the main source of excess calories and added pounds during the holiday season.

What To Do

See it = eat it. It‘s incredibly difficult not to nibble your way through the day when you have delicious treats tempting you at every turn. How many times do your senses need to be assaulted by the sight of sparkly cookies and the holiday scent of eggnog or spiced roasted nuts before your hand reaches out and the treat is popped into your mouth?

Don’t keep your trigger foods stocked in your pantry or fridge. If you need to have supplies, don’t make them immediately visible. Hide them in the back of the cabinet or in a “not too easy to be reached” location.

Be aware of openly displayed platters and bowls of cookies, nuts, candy, and other holiday specialties. Make up your mind that it’s not okay – just because it’s the holidays – to taste test everything that crosses your path.

Coming soon to the Apple newsstand for your ipad and iphone: Eat Out Eat Well Magazine!

What’s In Your Big Mac Or Fast Food Burger Besides Beef?

November 13, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Have you had a Big Mac in different parts of the country or even in different parts of the world? It tastes pretty much the same – which, in some ways, is rather comforting when you might be far from home.

Fast food is cheap, quick, reproducible in any outlet, often tasty, and consistent. To be all of those things makes it pretty difficult to use locally sourced and fresh ingredients.

Fast food restaurants might be trying to make their menus healthier by adding veggies and fruit, but the bottom line is that much of their food is processed and preserved – and that doesn’t happen without chemicals.

An occasional trip to Mickey D’s isn’t a disaster and the burger content is beef (although who knows the source of the cows, what parts of the cow are used, and what they’ve been fed). But what about the bun, the sauce, and the cheese that accompany the burger? How does the bun stay soft and how does the “special sauce” always taste the same?

Take a look at the ingredients in a Big Mac, a burger, and cheeseburger from McDonald’s (all info is from McDonald’s own site). Although McDonald’s is used as an example, almost all of the fast food chains use additives and preservatives in their food. One of the biggest shockers is the bun – ask a home baker or a bakery how many ingredients they put in their buns – then look at these. Then check out the sauce.

Then decide how frequently you want to indulge.

Big Mac:

Components: 100% BEEF PATTY, BIG MAC BUN, PASTEURIZED PROCESS AMERICAN CHEESE, BIG MAC SAUCE, SHREDDED LETTUCE, PICKLE SLICES, ONIONS

100% Beef Patty:

Ingredients: 100% Pure USDA Inspected Beef; No Fillers, No Extenders. Prepared with Grill Seasoning (Salt, Black Pepper).

Big Mac Bun:

Ingredients: Enriched Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil and/or Canola Oil, Contains 2% or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Monoglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Enzymes, Guar Gum, Calcium Peroxide), Sorbic Acid, Calcium Propionate and/or Sodium Propionate (Preservatives), Soy Lecithin, Sesame Seed.

Big Mac Sauce:

Ingredients: Soybean Oil, Pickle Relish (Diced Pickles, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Vinegar, Corn Syrup, Salt, Calcium Chloride, Xanthan Gum, Potassium Sorbate [Preservative], Spice Extractives, Polysorbate 80), Distilled Vinegar, Water, Egg Yolks, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Onion Powder, Mustard Seed, Salt, Spices, Propylene Glycol Alginate, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Mustard Bran, Sugar, Garlic Powder, Vegetable Protein (Hydrolyzed Corn, Soy and Wheat), Caramel Color, Extractives of Paprika, Soy Lecithin, Turmeric (Color), Calcium Disodium EDTA (Protect Flavor).

Crinkle Cut Pickles: Ingredients: Cucumbers, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Calcium Chloride, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Natural Flavors (Plant Source), Polysorbate 80, Extractives of Turmeric (Color).

Pasteurized Process American Cheese: Ingredients: Milk, Cream, Water, Cheese Culture, Sodium Citrate, Contains 2% or Less of: Salt, Citric Acid, Sodium Phosphate, Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Lactic Acid, Acetic Acid, Enzymes, Sodium Pyrophosphate, Natural Flavor (Dairy Source), Color Added, Soy Lecithin (Added for Slice Separation).

Hamburger:

Components: 100% BEEF PATTY, REGULAR BUN, KETCHUP, MUSTARD, PICKLE SLICES, ONIONS

Cheeseburger:

Components: 100% BEEF PATTY, REGULAR BUN, PASTEURIZED PROCESS AMERICAN CHEESE, KETCHUP, MUSTARD, PICKLE SLICES, ONIONS

100% Beef Patty: Ingredients: 100% Pure USDA Inspected Beef; No Fillers, No Extenders. Prepared with Grill Seasoning (Salt, Black Pepper).

Regular Bun: Ingredients: Enriched Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil and/or Canola Oil, Contains 2% or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Monoglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Enzymes, Guar Gum, Calcium Peroxide), Sorbic Acid, Calcium Propionate and/or Sodium Propionate (Preservatives), Soy Lecithin.

Pasteurized Process American Cheese:

Ingredients: Milk, Cream, Water, Cheese Culture, Sodium Citrate, Contains 2% or Less of: Salt, Citric Acid, Sodium Phosphate, Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Lactic Acid, Acetic Acid, Enzymes, Sodium Pyrophosphate, Natural Flavor (Dairy Source), Color Added, Soy Lecithin (Added for Slice Separation).

Nutrition:

Big Mac, 7.6 oz: 550 calories, 29g fat, 10g saturated fat, 1g trans fat, 970mg sodium, 46g carbs, 25g protein

Hamburger, 3.5 oz: 250 calories, 9g fat, 3.5g saturated fat, 0.5 trans fat, 480mg sodium, 31g carbs, 12g proteinS

Cheeseburger, 4 oz.: 300 calories, 12g fat, 6g saturated fat, 0.5g trans fat, 680mg sodium, 33g carbs, 15g protein