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Is Frozen Yogurt Healthy? What About Toppings?

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4-fruity-yogurt-conesIs frozen yogurt actually healthy or are you being bamboozled by the name?

What’s In It?

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. Frozen yogurt, which isn’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (but is by some states), might or might 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.

It comes in a multitude of flavors and can be bought in cartons, as frozen bars or cups, or soft-serve. The recipes and quality of ingredients used by different brands create products with varying levels of sweet/tart, fat content, consistency, and flavor.

Some Frozen Yogurt History

Frozen yogurt 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 ’80s frozen yogurt went mainstream and then sort of fizzled. Its popularity rebounded big-time with self-serve stores that allow customers to mix and match flavors, pick from dozens of toppings, and pay by weight.

Self-serve yogurt shops also allow customers to control their portion size, subsequent price, and flavors and toppings.

Frozen yogurt continues to wear a healthy food “halo” but doesn’t always warrant one.  Some varieties are “healthier” than others — depending on the company’s recipe and the quality and quantity of ingredients and added toppings.

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. Tip: DO reverse the order of your cup.
  • Put the self-serve yogurt on top, not under, layered 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.
  • 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 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

Calories In 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

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For more tips get 30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties  available in print and for e-readers from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Is There Less Alcohol And Fewer Calories In a Serving Of Wine Than There Is In Beer Or A Standard Drink?

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calories-in-wineThat’s not a trick question. A standard alcoholic drink (in the US) is a drink that contains the equivalent of 14.0 grams (0.6 ounces) of pure alcohol, or the amount usually found in:

  • 12 ounces of beer
  • 8 ounces of malt liquor
  • 5 ounces of wine (not dessert wine or port)
  • 1.5 ounces or a “shot” of 80-proof distilled spirits or liquor (gin, rum, vodka, or whiskey, etc.)

So, if you’re comparing a standard portion of one form of alcohol to another, there is the approximate equivalent of alcohol in each drink.

But – take note of the portion sizes.  If the hand that pours puts 10 ounces of wine into a large wine glass (not unheard of) you are actually getting twice the amount of alcohol that you would get in a 12 ounce bottle of beer of a standard shot glass (1.5 ounces) of 80-proof liquor.

Calories From Alcohol Don’t Make You Feel Full

When you drink your calories your body doesn’t actually feel satisfied. Except for perhaps milk or other protein drinks, fluid intake doesn’t typically trigger production of the hormones that tell your brain that you’ve fed your stomach.  Most liquid calories don’t produce “satiety” or the feeling of “being full,” which your brain takes as the cue to stop eating.

This is especially true if you’re slowly sipping your drink — but research has shown that even if the temporary bloat you feel after rapidly downing a beer is no substitute for satiety.

(FYI: even if you don’t feel full, the alcohol you’ve drunk still has 7 calories per gram compared to 4 calories per gram for carbohydrates and protein and 9 calories per gram for fat.)

How Many Calories Are In Your Glass Of Wine?

The standard serving of wine (5 ounces) is probably visually smaller than you think. Wine glasses can generally hold a lot more, and depending on who’s pouring, can be filled with many more than 5 ounces.

Most standard servings of wine have 125-150 calories, but the calories can double depending on the size of the glass and how far it’s filled up.  Sweet and dessert wines are more caloric than table wine and champagne, although the serving size is generally smaller.

For comparison, on average, a 12 ounce bottle of beer has around 153 calories and 1.5 ounces (a jigger) of 80 proof liquor has around 97 calories.

As an experiment, try filling up your usual wine glass – using water—to simulate the amount of wine you would usually pour, and then measure that amount in a measuring cup.  You might be shocked to find that the serving you’re used to pouring is double the standard serving size.

You may have your preference – most of us do – but whether it’s red, white, dry, sweet, or sparkling, it is really easy to overlook the calories in those long-stemmed glasses.

If you have dessert wine after dinner it’s about double the calories per ounce although the standard serving is less:  usually 2 to 3 ounces.  So add on about another 100 to 150 calories for each glass of that smooth dessert wine.

Approximate Calories in One Ounce Of  Various Wines:

Champagne: 19 calories

Red wine (burgundy, cabernet):  25 calories

Dry white wine (Chablis, reisling, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc):  24 calories

Rose:  20 calories

Sweet white wine (moselle, sauterne, zinfandel):  28 calories

Port (about 20% alcohol):  46 calories

Sweet dessert wine (tokaji, muscat):  47 calories

Sangria:  about 22 calories (recipes vary)

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For more tips get 30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties  available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Is Your Coffee Giving You A Muffin Top?

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calories-in-coffee-graphic

How do you like your coffee?  Black, light and sweet, regular?  Do you stand in front of the sugar and milk adding and pouring until the color and taste are just  right?

Coffee Calories Are Sneaky

There are about two calories in eight ounces of unsweetened black brewed coffee – doesn’t matter if it’s hot or iced. Not a bad deal.

What a lot of us don’t think about is how many calories are in the stuff we put into our coffee.

The Add-Ins

Half and half, 2 tablespoons (1/8 cup):  40 calories

Whole milk, 2 tablespoons:  18 calories

2% (low fat) milk, 2 tablespoons:  14 calories

Non-fat milk, 2 tablespoons:  11 calories

Sugar, 1 teaspoon:  16 calories

What And How Much Do You Put Into Your Coffee?

How much milk or half and half do you put into your coffee?  We all do a freehand pour.  Try measuring how much you pour and you might be surprised.

How much sugar do you add?

How many times a day do you drink coffee?

How’s This For An Eye-Opener?

Say you have 3 grande (Starbuck’s) – or 3 large (Dunkin donuts) – size coffees a day.  Each is 20 ounces or 2.5 times the size of a traditional 8 ounce cup.

If you add 4 tablespoons of half and half and three teaspoons of sugar to each that’s:

▪   128 calories for the additives and around 5 calories for the coffee for a total of 133 calories for each grande/large cup of coffee.

▪   Have three of those and that’s 399 calories a day of coffee your way.

▪   Do that every day for a year and that’s the equivalent of 145,635 calories, around 41.61 pounds of body fat.   Not everyone drinks that amount of coffee with that amount of half and half and sugar.  But, weight management is a balancing act: If you eat more calories than you burn, you gain weight.  Because 3,500 calories equals about 1 pound (0.45 kilogram) of fat, you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in to lose one pound.  The equation isn’t totally clear-cut because you usually lose a combination of fat, lean tissue, and water.  As weight loss changes take place in your body you might need to decrease your calorie intake even more to continue to lose weight.

But, bottom line, it does make you stop and think about how many calories you really are putting into your coffee – or where your (around the middle) muffin top is coming from.

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For more tips get 30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties  available on Amazon.

Calorie Alert: Beware Oil Slicks On Your Food

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oil-slicks-graphicIt looks so good!  Your tomatoes and mozzarella arrive with drizzled decorative squiggles of colorful basil oil on top. But are those squiggles only decorative?

Flavorful, Caloric, and Decorative

The squiggles are attractive and probably provide some deliciousness, but they’re also adding what might amount to a fair amount of calories.

It’s so easy to be fooled by fatty sauces and dressings on innocent looking vegetables. Vegetables are great.  Veggies smothered with butter, cheese, croutons, and/or bacon are loaded with calories.  Restaurants love to use oil and butter for flavor and to make the veggies glistening and mouth watering so they’re often “rinsed” with oil just before they’re sent to your table.

With salad dressings and sauces, the amount of dressing or sauce on a dish is heavily dependent on the hand of the pourer, even when a standard size ladle is used.  You can always ask for sauce on the side, vegetables not to be rinsed, and with no butter or oil added.

If your food is cooked in stock or steam instead of in oil, you save 120 calories per tablespoon of oil.  Flavored oil drizzled on top of your food – like basil oil – will add another 40 calories a teaspoon.  Do you need it or want it?

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For more tips get 30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties  available on Amazon.   

How Many Calories Are In Your Cocktail?

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cocktails-caloriesDo you know that a standard alcoholic drink (in the US) is a drink that contains the equivalent of 14.0 grams (0.6 ounces) of pure alcohol.

That’s the amount of pure alcohol usually found in:

  • 12 ounces of beer
  • 8 ounces of malt liquor
  • 5 ounces of wine
  • 1.5 ounces or a “shot” of 80-proof distilled spirits or liquor (gin, rum, vodka, or whiskey, etc.)

And, alcohol doesn’t fill you up the way food does because it doesn’t register as “food” in your GI tract or brain.  Even though it doesn’t fill you up, it does have calories — 7 calories a gram – more than carbs and protein which clock in at 4 calories a gram and fat which has 9.  It may not feel as though you’re putting calories into your body, but the fact is you can drink a lot of calories and still not feel stuffed (perhaps drunk, but not stuffed).

Is It Safer To Have Beer Or Wine Instead Of A Cocktail?

No. A 12 ounce bottle of beer has about the same amount of alcohol as a 5 ounce glass of wine or a 1.5 ounce shot of liquor. Since it is the amount – not the type — of alcohol in your drink that affects you the most, it is not safer to drink beer or wine rather than liquor if you are drinking the same amount of alcohol.

In other words, whether you have two 5 ounce glasses of wine, two 12 ounce bottles of beer, or two 1.5 ounces of liquor either straight or in a mixed drink — you are drinking the same amount of alcohol.

Alcohol And Mixers

The higher the alcoholic content (proof), the greater the number of calories:

  • 80-proof vodka (40% alcohol, the most common type) has 64 calories/1oz
  • 86-proof vodka (43% alcohol) has 70 calories/1 ounce
  • 90-proof vodka (45% alcohol) has 73 calories/1 ounce
  • 100-proof vodka (50% alcohol) has 82 calories/1 ounce

When you start adding mixers, the calories in a drink can more than double.

  • club soda has no calories
  • 8 ounces of orange juice has 112 calories
  • 8 ounces of tonic has 83 calories
  • 8 ounces of ginger ale has 83 calories
  • 8 ounces of tomato juice has 41 calories
  • 8 ounces of classic coke has 96 calories
  • 8 ounces of cranberry juice has 128 calories

Mixed drinks and fancy drinks can significantly increase the calorie count.    The following calories are approximate – bartenders, recipes, and the hand that pours all vary.  Use these figures as a guideline.

  • Frozen margarita: (4 ounces) 180 calories; (the average margarita glass holds 12 ounces), 540 calories)
  • Plain martini (2.5 ounces): 1 60 calories
  • Mimosa (4 ounces):  75 calories
  • Gin and Tonic (7 ounces):  200 calories
  • Mojito:  (8 ounces):  214 calories
  • Pina Colada (6 ounces): 378 calories
  • Cosmopolitan (4 ounces): 200 calories
  • Skinnygirl margarita (4 ounces): 100 calories
  • Green apple martini (1 ounce each vodka, sour apple, apple juice): 148 calories
  • Bloody Mary (5 ounces): 118 calories
  • Coffee liqueur (3 ounces): 348 calories
  • Godiva chocolate liqueur (3 ounces): 310 calories
  • Vodka and tonic (8 ounces): 200 calories
  • Screwdriver (8 ounces): 190 calories
  • Long Island Iced Tea (8 ounces): 780 calories
  • White Russian (2 ounces of vodka, 1.5 ounces of coffee liqueur, 1.5 ounces of cream): 425 calories
  • P.F. Chang China Bistro Mai Tai: 433 calories
  • Rum and Coke (8 ounces): 185 calories
  • Chocolate martini: (2 ounces each of vodka, chocolate liqueur, cream, 1/2 ounce of creme de cacao, chocolate syrup): 438 calories
  • Jumbo and super-sized drinks with double shots and extra mixers could add up to 1,000 calories or more (a single giant glass of TGI Friday’s frozen mudslide has around 1,100 calories)

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For more calorie information and tips about low-calorie summer eating get:

30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties available on Amazon.