Holidays

St. Valentine, Chocolate, and Heart Shaped Boxes

February 9, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

February 14th means red hearts, candy, flowers and gifts all in the name of St. Valentine. But who was Saint Valentine?

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different martyred saints named Valentine. All of the stories emphasize Valentine’s sympathetic, heroic, and romantic appeal.

In one of them, a priest in third century Rome defied Emperor Claudius’ decree outlawing marriage for young men and continued to perform secret marriages — for which he was put to death. Another story suggests that Valentine was killed for trying to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons. In another legend, an imprisoned Valentine sent the first “valentine” message, a letter, to his jailor’s daughter signing it “From your Valentine.”

Valentine’s Day

Some think Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate Valentine’s death around 270 A.D. Others think the Christian church decided to celebrate Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an attempt to “Christianize” the pagan Lupercalia, a fertility festival, which was celebrated at the ides of February (the 15^th).

At the end of the 5th century, Lupercalia was pronounced “un-Christian” by the Pope — who made February 14th St. Valentine’s Day. The day became linked with love during the Middle Ages, in part because the French and English believed that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season.

But Why Candy – Especially Chocolate?

The idea of Valentine’s Day as a celebration of romance had taken over most of the English-speaking world by the 1840s. The otherwise prudish Victorians liked the idea of celebrating with elaborate cards and gifts.

Around that time, Cadbury, the British chocolate manufacturer, had improved its chocolate making technique for “drinking chocolate.” The process resulted in an excess amount of cocoa butter and Cadbury used it to produce more varieties of “eating chocolate,” which they started selling in beautifully decorated boxes.

Cupid and Heart Shaped Boxes

It was a quick leap to putting images of roses and Cupid, the Ancient Roman god of love, on heart-shaped boxes for Valentine’s Day. The boxes were so pretty that they were marketed for both the candy inside and to store mementos in after the chocolates had been eaten. The boxes became more and more elaborate until World War II when sugar was rationed and Valentine’s Day celebrations were scaled down.

There is now no lack of sugar, chocolate, or candy dressed up for the holiday. In the US, during the week before Valentine’s Day 448 million dollars are spent on candy, 58 million pounds of chocolate are purchased, and 36 million heart-shaped boxes are sold.

Can Your Chocolate Bar Be Keeping You Awake?

February 5, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Do you hit the chocolate at night, or maybe mid-afternoon? Does your chocolate nibbling follow a chocolate dessert from earlier in the day, or a hot chocolate, or some samples of chocolate candy? And perhaps all of that chocolate indulgence was washed down by a couple (or more) cups of coffee.

At bedtime, sleep is downright elusive. You wonder why you’re wide awake since you’ve been on the go all day.

Here’s a thought – your sleeplessness might, in part, be due to all of the caffeine not just in your coffee (or tea) but in your chocolate, too. There isn’t a huge amount of caffeine in chocolate, but perhaps enough – especially if you’re a chocoholic – to help tip the insomnia scales when it’s combined with a day’s worth of other caffeinated food and drinks.

Caffeine And Chocolate

We’ve all heard that some chocolate – the darker the better – might have some health benefits. But here are a few facts about chocolate and caffeine that most people don’t know:

Chocolate contains caffeine – not enough to give you a big time boost, but depending on the type of chocolate, enough to register — especially if you’re working your way through some of those oversized bars or you’re stuffing in a bunch of fun-sized bars or chocolate Easter eggs.

It would take about 14 regularly sized (1.5 ounce) bars of milk chocolate to give you the same amount of caffeine that you’d get from an 8 ounce cup of coffee. Along with that little caffeine buzz you’d also be shoving in about 3,000 calories and more than 300 grams of sugar. If you’re looking for caffeine, coffee seems like a better bet at about two calories for an 8 ounce cup (black, no sugar).

Dark chocolate has a higher caffeine content than milk chocolate, but it would still take four regular sized bars to get the same amount that you’d find in one cup of black coffee.

Something To Think About

If you have trouble sleeping, along with avoiding coffee before bed, you might want to think about the amount of chocolate you’re eating.

Something else to think about: getting kids (and some adults) to sleep on Halloween, Easter, and other chocolate heavy holidays might have a whole lot to do with both the sugar and the amount of caffeine in all of the chocolate candy.

How Much Caffeine?

Caffeine In Chocolate

Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar, 1bar/1.55 oz: 9 mg caffeine

Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate Bar, 1 bar/1.45 oz: 20 mg caffeine

Hershey’s Kisses, 9 pieces: 9 mg caffeine

Hershey’s Special Dark Kisses, 9 pieces: 20 mg caffeine

Scharffen Berger Milk 41% Cacao, ½ bar: 17 mg caffeine

Scharffen Berger Extra Dark 82% Cacao, ½ bar: 42 mg caffeine

Dagoba Milk Chocolate 37% Cacao, ½ bar: 9 mg caffeine

Dagoba Dark Chocolate 73% Cacao, ½ bar: 36 mg caffeine

Caffeine In Coffee:

Coffee, generic brewed, 8 oz: 133 mg caffeine (range: 102-200; 16 oz, 266 mg caffeine)

Dunkin’ Donuts regular coffee, 16 oz: 206 mg caffeine

Starbucks Brewed Coffee (Grande), 16 oz: 320 mg caffeine

Coffee, generic instant, 8 oz: 93 mg caffeine (range 27-173)

Espresso, generic, 1 oz: 40 mg caffeine (range 30-90)

Starbucks Espresso, solo, 1 oz: 75 mg caffeine

Coffee, generic decaffeinated, 8 oz: 5 mg caffeine (range 3-12)

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How Much (fun) Exercise Do You Need To Do To Burn Off Super Bowl Food?

February 1, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Check out these amusing (and possibly alarming) stats on how much and what kind of exercise you need to do to burn off some common Super Bowl food. Get ready to walk, dance, and act somewhat ridiculous for a lot of minutes! (Thanks to the Diet Detective for compiling these stats.)

Remember – it’s just one day so enjoy your favorite foods. You can compensate for the extra calories by adjusting the amount you eat the big day and the days before and after, mixing in wise choices with the splurges, and increasing your exercise.

Game Food and (fun) Exercise:

Downing six bottles of Budweiser means you’d have to do “The Wave” 4,280 times. And don’t drive.
Just four swigs of Bud Light (36 calories) means you’d need to play 8 minutes of professional football – that’s action time, not standing around on the field or on the sidelines.
If you eat a 12-inch Italian sub you’d have to walk the length of the Brooklyn Bridge more than 14 times (or 16.2 miles).
Six large Chili’s Fajita beef classic nachos means you have to run 242.5 football fields at 5mph. Six nachos is about half an order.
One giant New York City street or stadium pretzel clocks in at about 455 calories. You’d have to spend 111 minutes acting like a team mascot (no comment!!!).
Four Tostitos Scoops! Tortilla chips with guacamole means 122 end zone touchdown dances. Each chip is about 11 calories, each scoop of guacamole is 25 calories – maybe more. One KFC extra crispy drumstick and an extra crispy chicken breast means 203 end zone touchdown dances.
Five pigs in blankets (67.5 calories each) means taking over the job of a stadium vendor selling food for 36 minutes.
One 16-ounce bowl of beef and bean chili (about 550 calories) with a few tablespoons of sour cream and shredded cheese (another 150 calories) means 73 minutes of cheerleading.
Three slices of Pizza Hut Pepperoni Lover’s Pizza Works (440 calories a slice) means you’d have to clean the post-game stadium for 322 minutes – that’s more than 5 hours of work.
If you have 10 sliders with cheese (about 170 calories per slider) you’d have to perform with the marching band for 363 minutes.
If you want cheese sticks, four of them from Papa John’s dipped in their garlic dipping sauce with cheese (370 calories for 4 sticks and 150 calories for the dipping sauce) means you’d have to paint the faces of 23 “going nuts” fans.
One piece of crunchy cheese flavored Cheetos (7.14 calories) is equal to two minutes of waving a foam hand, chanting and pointing.
One Ritz cracker (16 calories) piled high with Cheese Whiz (45 calories for a tablespoon) will require 21 minutes of preparing, cooking, serving, and post Super Bowl clean-up.
One Doritos chip (12.75 calories) means that during half time you’d have to dance the entire 3.54 minutes of Bruno Mars’ “Locked Out of Heaven.” Imagine if you ate your way through the entire bag! Eating ten Lay’s classic potato chips with Kraft French onion dip means you’d have to dance to Madonna for 134 minutes.
Ah, wings. Fifteen Pizza Hut Buffalo Burnin’ Hot Crispy Bone-in Wings with ranch dressing (100 calories per wing and 220 calories for 1.5 ounces of ranch dressing) means you’d have to do the wave 9, 461 times. Of course by then your arms would hurt so much you wouldn’t be able to pick up any more food!

Want Some Calories Saving Tips for the 2nd Biggest Food Day (US) of the Year?

January 28, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Hand to mouth munching on chips, dips, and wings. A swig or two or three. A cookie here and there. And then there’s the “real food” at halftime – or maybe there was pizza first followed by a selection of subs. It’s Super Bowl!

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest day for food consumption in the United States (Thanksgiving is first) — and usually the food doesn’t really fall into the healthy choice category.

You may – or may not – be riveted to the TV screen rooting hard for your team, but you may also be going along for the ride – happy to be at a party where there’s plenty of food and shouting and enthusiasm – a classic set-up for mindless and distracted eating. By the end of the game do you have a clue about how much – or even what — you have popped in your mouth.

Super Bowl Food Facts

About one in twenty (9 million) Americans watch the game at a restaurant or a bar.
Americans double their average daily consumption of snacks on Super Bowl Sunday, downing more than 33 million pounds in one day.
The average Super Bowl watcher consumes 1,200 calories. (Source: Calorie Control Council). Potato chips are the favorite and account for 27 billion calories and 1.8 billion fat grams — the same as 4 million pounds of fat or equal to the weight of 13,000 NFL offensive linemen at 300 pounds each. (Source: ScottsdaleWeightLoss.com).

Nearly one in eight (13%) Americans order takeout/delivery food for the Super Bowl. The most popular choices are pizza (58%), chicken wings (50%), and subs/sandwiches (20%). (Source: American Journal). Almost 70% of Super Bowl watchers eat a slice (or two or three) during the game.
The amount of chicken wings eaten clocks in at 90 million pounds or 450 million individual wings. It would take 19 chicken breasts to get the same amount of fat that you usually get from a dozen Buffalo wings.
On Super Bowl Sunday Americans eat an estimated 14,500 tons of potato chips, 4000 tons of tortilla chips, and eight million pounds of avocados. Five ounces of nacho cheese Doritos equals around 700 calories. You’d have to run the length of 123 football fields to burn them off. You’d have to eat 175 baby carrots or 700 celery sticks to get the same number of calories.
According to 7-eleven, sales of antacids increase by 20% on the day after Super Bowl.

Want Some Calorie Saving Tips?

Stick with grilled meat, veggies, or baked chips rather than fried. Turkey, baked ham, and grilled chicken are better choices than wings and fried chicken.
Plain bread, pitas, or wraps are less caloric than biscuits or cornbread.
Go for salsa and skip the guacamole.
Minimize calories by dipping chicken wings into hot sauce instead of Buffalo sauce.
Try using celery for crunch and as a dipper instead of chips.
Try fruit for dessert.
Go for thin crust rather than thick doughy crust pizza. Choose the slices with vegetables, not pepperoni or meatballs. If you’re not embarrassed, try blotting up the free-floating oil that sits on top of a greasy slice (soak up even a teaspoon of oil saves you 40 calories and 5 grams of fat).
Alcohol adds calories and dulls your mindful eating. Try alternating water or diet soda with beer or alcohol. That can decrease your alcohol calories (alcohol has 7 calories/gram) by 50%.

What To Eat For Good Luck In The New Year — And What To Avoid!

December 30, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Pork products, fish, beans, cakes with coins, grapes, and pickled herring?

Food and symbolism play important roles in celebrations around the world. On special occasions different countries use certain foods not just to celebrate but often as a symbol of luck, wealth, and health.

What Not To Eat (Hint: Don’t Look Or Move Back)

Different cultures have foods that are supposed to be eaten at the stroke of midnight or sometime on January 1 to bring luck, fortune, and plenty (both money and food).

There are also foods not to eat. Things that move or scratch backwards — like lobsters, chickens, and turkeys — are to be avoided because they symbolize moving backward instead of progressing forward. To avoid any looking back, setbacks, or past struggles only things that move forward should be eaten.

In some cultures, a little food should be left on the table or on your plate to guarantee – or at least to hedge your bets – that you’ll have a well-stocked kitchen during the coming year.

Why Tempt Fate — Some Lucky Foods To Consider

There are many New Year’s foods and traditions — far too numerous to list – that are honored by people all around the world. Wouldn’t you want to consider piling some luck on your plate on January 1? Why tempt fate?

Here are some of the more common groups of good luck foods:

Round foods shaped like coins, like beans, black eyed peas, and legumes, symbolize financial prosperity, as do greens, which resemble paper money. Examples are cabbage, collard greens, and kale. Golden colored foods like corn bread also symbolize financial rewards in the New Year. Examples of round good luck foods are: lentils in Italy and Brazil, pancakes in Germany, round fruit in the Philippines, and black-eyed peas in the Southern US. Green leafy vegetables that symbolize paper money are collard greens in the Southern US and kale in Denmark.
Pork symbolizes abundance, plenty of food, and the fat of the land (think pork barrel legislation). It’s a sign of prosperity and the pig symbolizes plentiful food in the New Year. The pig is considered an animal of progress because it moves forward as it roots around for food. Pork products appear in many ways – ham, sausage, ham hocks, pork ribs, and even pig’s knuckles. Years ago, if your family had a pig you were doing well! Some examples of good luck pork products are roast suckling pig with a four leaf clover in its mouth in Hungary; pork sausage with lentils in Italy; and pork with sauerkraut in Germany.

In some countries, having food on your table and/or plates at the stroke of midnight is a sign that you’ll have food throughout the year.

Seafood, with the exception of the backward swimming lobster, symbolizes abundance and plenty and is a symbol of good luck. Fish also symbolize fertility because they produce multiple eggs at a time. It’s important that a fish be served whole, with the head and tail intact to symbolize a good beginning and a good end. Examples are herring and carp in Germany, pickled herring in Poland, boiled cod in Denmark, dried salted cod in Italy, red snapper in Japan, and carp in Vietnam.

Eating sweet food in order to have a sweet year is common in a number of countries. In Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Cuba, Ecuador, and Peru 12 sweet grapes, one for each month of the year, are eaten at midnight in hope of having 12 sweet months. The order and sweetness of the grape is important – for instance, if the fifth grape is a bit sour, May might be a bit rocky. In some places the goal is to eat all of the grapes before the last stroke of midnight and some countries eat a 13th grape just for good measure. There seems to be an awful lot of hedging of bets all around the world.

Another symbol for good luck involves eating food that’s in a ring shape – like doughnuts or ring shaped cakes. This represents coming full circle to successfully complete the year. Examples are Rosca de Reyes in Mexico and Olie Bollen (doughnuts) in the Netherlands.

Long noodles signify a long life. The Japanese use long Buckwheat Soba noodles – but you shouldn’t cut or break them because that could shorten life.

Sweets are symbolic of a sweet year and/or good luck. Cakes and breads with coins or trinkets baked into them are common in many countries. Greeks have a round cake called Vasilopita – made with a coin baked inside — which is cut after midnight. Whoever gets the coin is lucky throughout the year. Jews use apples dipped in honey on the Jewish New Year, Norwegians use rice pudding with an almond inside, Koreans use sweet fruits, and Egyptians have candy for children.

So fill your plate with a serving of luck. Don’t overlook resolutions. They’re not quite as tasty as most (not all) food traditions, but they do have longevity — they date back 4000 years to the ancient Babylonians!

Material in this article is taken (with the author’s permission) from “Symbolic Foods Eaten Around the World for New Years,” originally published on http://MamaLisa.com. Visit Mama Lisa’s World, which features the internet’s largest collection of international children’s songs and a lively blog focused on parenthood and world culture.