Eat Out Eat Well

Holidays

Chocolate Eggs And Bunny Ears

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Oh, those pretty chocolate eggs nesting in baskets on beds of paper straw.  Bunnies and ducks in all shades of chocolate.  Brightly wrapped candy stuffed in plastic eggs for Easter egg hunts.  Chocolate smeared over little kids’ faces and indestructible peeps molded into weird shapes before being popped in the mouth.

It’s Easter candy time.  Face it – admit it – Easter candy is seductive.  I dare you to eat one jelly bean or unwrap and savor just one brightly colored mini-chocolate Easter egg.

If you’re going to indulge — and sometimes it’s worth it — you might as well know a little about your chocolate Easter candy so you can factor their caloric punch into your eating plan.

Easter Eggs – the Confectionary Type

They’re everywhere and at every price point.  Some are piped with flowers and others are wrapped in foil.  You find them in chain stores, discount stores, and at high end chocolatiers. Easter is the second ranked holiday for candy purchases in the United States (just behind Halloween) and solid, hollow, and filled chocolate Easter eggs are one of the most popular choices.

John Cadbury make the first French Eating Chocolate in 1842 but the first Cadbury Easter Eggs didn’t arrive until 1875 and were a far cry from today’s Cadbury Crème egg (which now also comes with caramel, chocolate, and butterfinger filling). Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate appeared on the market in 1905 and helped boost the sale of chocolate Easter eggs. Today’s chocolate Easter eggs are predominantly milk chocolate and include solid, hollow, decorated, and filled eggs.

Calories in Popular Types of Chocolate Easter Eggs

Chocolate is a high calorie, high fat food.  Some of the most popular chocolate eggs:

Hershey’s Cadbury Chocolate Crème Easter Egg:  1 egg (39g), 180 calories, 8g Fat (5g saturated), 25g Carbs, 2g Protein

Hershey’s Cadbury Crème Egg, original milk chocolate with soft fondant crème center:  1 egg (39g), 170 calories, 6g fat (3.5g saturated), 28g Carbs,  2g Protein

Hershey’s Cadbury Mini Egg:  solid milk chocolate eggs with a crispy sugar shell: 12 eggs (40g), 200 calories, 9g fat(5g saturated), 28g carbs, 2g protein

Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Eggs:  7 pieces, 200 Calories, 12g Fat (7 saturated), 24g Carbs, 3g Protein

Dove Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Eggs: 6 eggs, 240 Calories, 14g Fat (8g saturated), 26g Carbs, 3g Protein

Dove Rich Dark Chocolate Eggs:  6 eggs (43g), 220 calories, 14g Fat (8 saturated), 26g carbs, 2g Protein

Reese’s Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter Eggs:  5 pieces (38g), 190 Calories, 12g Fat (6 saturated), 21g Carbs, 4g Protein

M & M’s Milk Chocolate Speck-Tacular Eggs: 1/4 Cup (12 pieces), Calories: 210 Calories, 10g Fat (6 saturated), 29g Carbs, 2g Protein

Solid Milk Chocolate Easter Bunny:  2.5 oz, Calories: average 370

But Isn’t Chocolate Good For Me?

The health benefits in chocolate come from cocoa. Dark chocolate has a greater concentration of cocoa than milk chocolate.  White chocolate, without any cocoa in it, is not really chocolate. Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, can be heart healthy if it replaces an unhealthy, high calorie snack, but there’s still no recommendation for the amount to eat to get the health benefits.

The Bottom Chocolate Line

Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, contains flavonols which have antioxidant qualities and other positive influences on heart health. However, those delicious, pastel wrapped chocolate Easter eggs are caloric and moderately high in fat, one-third of it the type of saturated fat that isn’t heart healthy. Extra ingredients like crème and caramel fillings can add lots of extra fat and calories. There’s no recommended serving size of chocolate to help gain cardiovascular benefits. If you’re going to choose a sweet treat, chocolate, especially dark chocolate with a high cocoa concentration, might be a healthier choice than other types of sweets. With a lot of treats – particularly treats associated with a holiday or celebration — there’s often a perceived license to indulge.  If you’re going to enjoy your chocolate, plan on how much you are going to eat, try to eat it in moderation, attempt to balance out the extra calories in the days before and after the celebration, and enjoy every bit of it.

Want to know more about jelly beans and peeps?

 

Are You Gearing Up For A Holiday Food Fest?

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Gotta have the jelly beans, the green bean casserole, the lamb and the ham, the brisket, two servings of matzoh ball soup, carrot cake for dessert, the entire chocolate bunny (ears first), three cadbury eggs, and whatever else your particular holiday, culture, and family traditions dictate.

Really???

Ask yourself why.  Is your groaning table and your habit of scarfing down handfuls of jelly beans and three chocolate eggs at a time really because of tradition – or are you using the holidays as an easy excuse to surround yourself with the food you love and want to eat in abundance?

There is nothing wrong with tradition and wanting to share your memories and love through food. But . . .

Are Holidays A Reason And An Excuse To (Over)Eat?

The big question to ask yourself is:  am I really sharing/holding to tradition and memories of the season – or am I using the holidays as an excuse to make and eat a whole lot of food that I really would prefer not to eat – or eat in such quantity?

Most people who know me also know that I’m a pretty good baker. I make really good Christmas cookies – for a lot of events, not just Christmas.  I baked them for a party for my son’s July wedding (not a Christmas tree in sight) and as I brought them out there was a chorus of “Christmas cookies” from his friends who have eaten them many times before.  Didn’t matter that it was July.  The recipe was the same, they tasted the same, and they came from my kitchen.

What’s my point?  I love baking these cookies, and I love sharing them.  There are a whole host of emotions wrapped around these cookies.

I also know that I love eating them.  Have I ever used an occasion as an excuse to bake them – even though things would have been fine without the cookies?  You bet I have.

Why?  I love the thought of those cookies.  I used to make them with my Mother when I was little and my sons made them with me.  I also love to eat them – especially the dough (I’m really not endorsing that – It’s a bad habit and the dough does have raw egg in it).

The bottom line is that I end up eating hundreds of calories – delicious calories, but not healthy or necessary ones.  And, even though I’m sharing what I consider to be “a little bit of love from my kitchen,” I still, very frequently, consciously use the holiday or the event as an excuse.

Try These Strategies For Dealing With Holiday Food

I’m certainly not advocating giving up baking cookies or hot cross buns or making matzah brei or roast lamb — whatever your specialty or tradition is.  What I am suggesting is that you ask yourself the reason for doing so.  Recognize and be mindful of your reasons.

Some strategies:

  • If you do make your specialty – plan for it.  When you eat it, enjoy it with everyone else – not in a constant stream of solo tasting and little snatches from the fridge or cupboard.
  • Even if you make it, keep your amazing food out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind.  Far away, too.  Usually if we have to work to get food it may take some of the desire out of it.  So store the food in the basement or someplace out of the kitchen.
  • Leftovers?  Send them home with your family and friends.  I’ve fed lots of college dorms and offices with my leftovers.  Freeze them and store them in the back of the freezer where you can’t see them (although I can attest that frozen butter cookies are great – my sons once ate a whole container of them out of my downstairs freezer without my knowing about it.  I had to bake another batch before Christmas dinner.)

Traditions are important and food is nurturing.  Traditions, family, and holidays can also be stressful.  Cook away if that’s your pleasure. Just ask yourself if you are using holidays, traditions, guests, and family as excuses or justifications to (over)eat. 

I’m Lookin’ For My PEEPS

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Lots of people have a thing for those fluorescent marshmallow bunnies and chicks that were hatched over 50 years ago. They got their name – PEEPS — because the original candy was the yellow chick.  Now they’re produced for many holidays – in seasonal colors and different shapes.

They continue to be the subject of lots of design contests (you’d be amazed what you can make out of peeps) and scientific experiments (some claim them to be indestructible). Just Born, the parent company of PEEPS, claims to produce enough PEEPS in one year to circle the Earth twice. Their website boasts a fan club and a section for recipes.

PEEPS have been the number one non-chocolate Easter candy in the US for more than a decade. Although yellow is America’s favorite color for PEEPS chicks and bunnies, they also come in pink, lavender, blue, orange and green.  This year there are rainbow PEEPS pops and chocolate dipped mousse flavored mashmallow chicks.

What’s In Them?

Send a PEEP for lab analysis and you’ll find sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, less than 0.5% of potassium sorbate, natural flavors, dye, and carnauba wax.  They’re gluten and nut free.  (No wonder some claim that they’re indestructible!) You can even get sugar free PEEPS that are made with Splenda.

Five little chicks (42g, one serving size): 140 calories; 0g fat; 1g protein; and 36g carbs.

PEEPS Preferences

People have definite PEEPS preferences. Some like them nice and soft, others leave them out in the air to age to perfection so they get a little crunchy on the outside.

They’ve been microwaved (careful, they expand and can really make a mess in your microwave), frozen, roasted, used to top hot chocolate, and added to recipes. They don’t toast well on sticks like regular marshmallows because their outer sugar coating tends to burn.

Newspapers have been known to run contests for best PEEP recipes and best PEEP pictures, and, in a world of contrasts I’ve seen a blackboard outside of a bar in NYC advertising a PEEP contest and a JCrew (Crewcuts) kids’ store using boxes and boxes of PEEPs for window decoration.

I have a few members of my family who love their PEEPS and I freely admit that I am not one of them — although I do think they make great table decorations.

If PEEPS are part of your Easter ritual, even though they’re filled with sugar and all kinds of dyes and chemicals — if you’re counting calories and fat grams — for a seasonal treat, you could do worse.

What’s your PEEPS preference?

 

Two Easters And Passover: Which Is When?

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In 2012, Easter will be celebrated on April 8th by Western churches and on April 15th by Orthodox churches. In 2011, both were celebrated on the same day, April 24th. In 2013, Western Christian Easter will be celebrated on March 31st and Orthodox Easter will be on May 5th. The holiday of Pesach, or Passover, falls on the Hebrew calendar dates of Nissan 15-22 or the secular dates of April 6th – 14th in 2012 and March 25th – April 2nd in 2013.

How Do You Know The Dates For The Holidays?

The easiest way to figure out the dates for Easter and Passover is to look them up – unless, of course, you are a trained astronomer or someone else whose been taught how to calculate the moveable dates.

Growing up, I was always caught in a holiday vacation snare.  I went to a Greek elementary school. Vacation was Holy Week and Easter Week for Greek (Eastern Orthodox) Easter.  My neighborhood friends, most of whom went to Catholic school, had off Holy Week and Easter Week for Western Christian Easter.  My birthday, at the end of March, usually fell during someone’s vacation – but since my friends and I had different ones – my birthday celebration was shared only with the kids that were around.  That really used to annoy me.

As a child I remember being taught that Orthodox Easter was based on the lunar calendar – like Passover – and that Christian Easter was not.  This was neither a very good nor an accurate explanation.

So finally, many years later, I decided to look it up – and I’m sharing the explanation with you.

The Formula For The Holiday Date Calculation

Both Western and Orthodox churches use the same formula to calculate the date for Easter:  the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. The problem is that they base the dates on different calendars: Western churches use the Gregorian calendar, the standard calendar used in most of the world. Orthodox churches use the older Julian calendar.

Along with the two different calendar systems there’s a factoring in of ecclesiastical moons and paschal full moons, the astronomical equinox, and the fixed equinox.

The Dates

The Christian churches that follow the Gregorian calendar celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the paschal full moon on or just after the vernal equinox, March 21. The paschal full Moon is always on the 14th day of a lunar month.

Eastern Orthodox churches follow the Julian calendar. Because of different methods of calculation, the Eastern Orthodox and Western Christian churches frequently celebrate Easter on different days.

In Western Christian churches Easter cannot be before March 22nd or after April 25th. In Eastern churches, using Gregorian calendar dates, Easter can occur between April 4th and May 8th.

Passover Dates In Relationship To Easter

The Eastern Orthodox Church applies the calendar formula so that Easter always falls after Passover believing that the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ took place after he entered Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. Easter sometimes precedes Passover by weeks in the Western Church.

 

Jelly Beans: What Kind Is Your Favorite?

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Don’t you love those little nuggets of jelly bean sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors and get stuck in your teeth?

Their gummy insides probably stretch back centuries ago from the treat, Turkish Delight.  Their outsides are just like the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17th century, for the Jordan almond.

The modern jelly bean became popular during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged sending candy to Union soldiers.  Jellybeans were the first bulk candy and they became one of the staples of penny candy that was sold by weight in the early 1900s. Because of their egg shape, which can be taken as representing fertility and birth, they became popular as Easter candy around 1930.

Standard jelly beans come in fruit flavors but there are now a huge number of flavors — some goofy, some sophisticated — like spiced, mint, gourmet, tropical, popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, and cola.  They also come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true – don’t you wonder how many chemicals are in those). Whatever your flavor preference, Americans eat a whole lot of them – around 16 billion at Easter enough to circle the globe nearly three times if all of the Easter jellybeans were lined up end to end.

How Do You Eat Them And What’s Your Flavor?

My preference (and my downfall) is to gobble up small handfuls (mostly reds and pinks) at a time — one reason I can’t have them in the house. How do stack up against these stats?

  • 70% of kids aged 6–11 say they prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time
  • 23% say they eat several at once
  • Boys (29%) are more likely to eat a handful than girls (18%)
  • Kids say their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%).

What’s In Jelly Beans?

They’re primarily made of sugar and also usually contain gelatin, corn syrup, modified food starch, and less than 0.5% of citric acid, sodium citrate, artificial flavors, confectioners glaze, pectin, carnauba wax, white mineral oil, magnesium hydroxide, and artificial colors (takes some of the fun out of them, doesn’t it).

Even though they may give you Technicolor insides, they are fat free.  On average:

  • 10 small jelly beans (11g) have 41 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 10.3 grams of carbs
  • 10 large jelly beans (1 oz or 28g) have 105 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 26.2g carbs
  • 10 Jelly Bellies have 40 calories, no fat, no protein, and 10g carbs

Some Jelly Belly Jelly Bean Trivia

  • Jelly Bellys were invented in 1976. They were the first jelly beans to be sold in single flavors and to come with a menu of flavor choices.
  • It takes 7 to 21 days to make a single Jelly Belly jelly bean.
  • Very Cherry was the most popular Jelly Belly flavor for two decades until 1998, when Buttered Popcorn took over. Very Cherry moved back into the top spot by only 8 million beans in 2003.
  • Jelly Bellies were the first jelly beans in outer space – they were sent on the 1983 flight of the space shuttle Challenger by President Reagan.