Eat Out Eat Well

Food for Fun and Thought

Yes to Green Vegetables, No to Green Spuds

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What are those green things?

In the midst of a cooking blitz you decide to make real mashed potatoes rather than using the pre-made kind.  You’re peeling away and there they are – those little green things visible in the potato skin.  What to do:  chuck the whole potato, pretend they’re not there, or cut them out?  If you choose the third option, cut them out, you have grabbed the brass ring.  Those green spots indicate natural toxic compounds,  glycoalkaloids (GA), natural plant built-ins to guard against disease and insects.

Are they friendly or not?

Although spuds always contain GAs, eating large amounts of them can trigger abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headaches, confusion, and hallucinations, all symptoms of toxicity.  GAs aren’t destroyed by cooking but because the green spots lie just below the potato skin you can cut away any green making the potato safe to eat.  Chips and fries that are peeled before cooking are usually low on the GA meter.

Beware:  fried potato skins can be bad news, one report found up to seven times the safe limit  of GAs in restaurant fried potato skins.

SocialDieter Tip:

Cut the green out of spuds before cooking; if there’s a lot of green, toss the potato; be extra careful of potato skins regardless of the method of preparation. (Environmental Nutrition, 8/08, p. 7)

Did the Fat Calories in Cooking Spray Really Take a Hike?

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Are All Cooking Sprays Created Equal?

I’m staring at five different kinds of cooking spray:  Butter flavor, Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Baking, and Professional for high heat cooking.    All say they are for non-stick cooking or baking.  Some say they are for fat-free cooking and baking.

The nutrition facts for all five say that the serving size is about 1/3 of a second, the equivalent of 0.25 grams.  The ingredient labels all list an oil (canola, olive, soybean, or vegetable) as their first ingredient. All have an emulsifier, usually soy lecithin, and a propellant.  Some have other flavorings and the baking spray has wheat flour.

Nutrition stats for cooking sprays:

Listed calorie count for a serving (a 1/3 second spray): 0

Total Fat:  0

Time for a Reality Check

Okay.  So how can something with oil as the main listed ingredient have zero calories and zero fat?  In the US, any product that has less than 5 grams of fat per serving lists the fat content rounded to the nearest 0.5 g. If the product contains less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving, the listed fat content is rounded to 0 grams. If a product contains 0.45 grams of fat per serving and the package has 10 servings, the label would show 0 grams of fat even though the entire package actually contains a total of 4.5 grams of fat.

All of the cooking sprays that I checked call a 1/3 second spray a serving size – that’s the equivalent of .25 grams of fat.  Because the serving size, as created by the manufacturers, is under half a gram, the nutrition facts can be listed as 0 grams of fat and 0 calories.  Feel duped?

0.25 grams of fat is the equivalent of 2.25 calories (fat has 9 calories per gram), not a huge number.  However, how many of you use cooking spray for 1/3 of a second?  Can you even coat a small frying pan with a 1/3 second spray?

How Many Calories?

Most of us spritz for at least three to six times as long – many of us for probably longer.  A one second spray has about 7 calories, 2 seconds has about 14 and and 1.5 grams of fat.  Again, not huge numbers, but 2 seconds is still awfully short.  My guess is that a lot of sprays are a bit longer.

SocialDieter Tip:

Remember that nonstick cooking spray is not calorie free. Be careful of drenching your pans and skillets.  As you’re spritzing, count the seconds.  If the length and number of your spritzes crank up the calorie count, either cut back on the spray or consider using a small amount of oil on a paper towel to coat your pan. Using one teaspoon of olive oil adds 4.5 grams of fat and 40 calories and you will be avoiding the additives and propellant in the cooking spray.

Chocolate Hearts . . .

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During the week before Valentine’s Day, about 1.1 billion boxed chocolates, that’s about 58 million pounds of chocolate candy, will be sold in the United States.

A pound of milk chocolate contains 2300 calories, 140 grams of fat, 270 grams of carbohydrates, and 31 grams of protein. Although a lot has been reported about the heart healthy benefits of chocolate, especially dark chocolate, it is important to remember that it is still a high calorie, high fat treat.

But, a treat is something that is associated with pleasure, and on Valentine’s Day, often with love.  To celebrate the occasion perhaps it’s just fine to enjoy a piece or two.

Love Those Candy Hearts . . .

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“Be Mine,” “Kiss me,”  “Sweet Talk.” The brightly colored hearts with the familiar sayings have been a Valentine’s Day treat since 1902. Their manufacturer, NECCO, the New England Confectionery Company, in business since 1847, expects to sell more than 8 billion candy conversation hearts this year.

The original candies with printed sayings were called “motto hearts.”  The sayings have been updated over the years with new ones added periodically. The candy is quite popular — NECCO sells out of their hearts,100,000 pounds a day, in six weeks.

NECCO has introduced new flavors and sayings for 2010. New flavors are strawberry, green apple, lemon, grape, orange, and blue raspberry and new sayings include “Tweet Me,” “Text Me,” “You Rock,” “Soul Mate,” “Love Bug,” and “Me + You.”

Although you’d be hard pressed to call them nutritious, they are fat free, sodium free, and a caloric bargain at about 3 calories apiece for the small hearts and about 6 calories apiece for the larger “Motto” hearts.

What Do You Eat During A Snowstorm?

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Chocolate chip cookies. That’s what a friend said to me as we waited for our kids to get off of the school bus after early dismissal from school because of snow.  Walking down the street to our houses, the snow was blowing sideways and the kids were ecstatic to be flinging snowballs at each other.  “Why do I always want to bake chocolate chip cookies when it snows?” was her question.

Who knows?  Although I’ve found no scientific study to back this up, I think we retreat to comfort food when we’re housebound – food that is simple, familiar, and often has emotional ties and pleasant memories, especially of childhood.

With the major snowfalls in the East this past week, there have been lots of recipes posted on the web for snow ice cream, maple syrup over snow – most of which caution using freshly fallen clean snow! Most of the recipes and food talk has been about hearty, belly satisfying food and sweet, perhaps soul satisfying food.

Right now my view from my windows is of snow coming down heavily and blowing sideways.  I can’t help but wonder if my friend – or maybe her kids – made chocolate chip cookies today.

The good thing is that having a snowball fight or shoveling snow (for a 150 pound person,15 minutes of shoveling burns about 100 calories) is one way to burning off some those comfort food calories.