Snacking, Noshing, Tasting

Football, Food, and Beer: 7 Tips

September 17, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

It’s football time. With it comes fun, excitement, joy, angst, wringing of the hands, a whole new spin on vocabulary, and tons of food and drinks.

It seems that football is associated with nine main food groups: beer, wings, pizza, chips and dip, barbecued ribs, burgers, chili, sausage (especially bratwurst), and pulled pork. It’s a calorie bonanza.

Fans were asked in a national survey if game day calories count. 46% said their diet goes out the window when they’re tailgating or watching their team play and 39% said calories count but they still indulge in a few favorites on game day. No big surprise there.

7 Tips To Keep You Happy . . .

or at least your stomach and waistline happy — your favorite football team is responsible for your mental happiness (or anguish).

1. Be aware of what and how much you’re eating. Mindless munching is a calorie disaster. You’re shoving hundreds of calories into your mouth and it’s probably not even registering that you’re eating. Put a portion on a plate and eat it rather than a constant hand to mouth action off of a platter or open bowl. It’ll save you hundreds of calories.

2. Learn approximately how many calories are in a portion of your favorite game day food so you can make intelligent choices. That way you’re not denying yourself what you love, but if pulled pork has hundreds more calories than a grilled sausage and you love them both, would you choose one over the other?

3. Save your calories for what you love and pass on the other stuff. You don’t have to eat something just because it’s there and it’s traditional football food. If you really don’t love guacamole why would you eat it? Salsa has a lot fewer calories.

4. Don’t be starving at game time (or for the pre-game tailgate). Have a healthy protein based snack (about 150 calories) before the game. Just don’t have a snack and then eat the same amount out of habit – then you’re just adding the snack calories to all of the others.

5. Cut it down a little. Can you have 4 or 5 wings instead of 6 or 7? How about a slider instead of a burger, 2 pieces of pizza instead of 3, or ½ a grinder instead of a whole one? Put only 1 or 2 toppings on your chili instead of sour cream, cheese, guacamole, and a never-ending supply of chips or nachos.

6. If you’re doing some shopping or cooking (or bringing food) for a tailgate or party, try making a slightly healthier version of your favorite food.

Fried chicken: Use crushed cornflakes for the breading and bake instead of fry
Nachos: Use low-fat cheese and salsa
Creamy dips: Use 2% yogurt instead of sour cream
Chips: Buy baked, not fried
Chili: Go beans only or use extra-lean ground beef or extra-lean ground turkey instead of ground chuck
Pizza: order thin crust instead of deep dish and stick with veggie toppings or plain cheese instead of pepperoni or meatball toppings

7. Beer. There’s huge variation between brands and types of beer. On average:

12 ounces of beer has 153 calories and 13.9 grams of alcohol
12 ounces of lite beer has 103 calories and 11 grams of alcohol

Different types of beer and malt liquor can have very different alcohol content. Light beer can have almost as much alcohol as regular beer – about 85% as much. Put another way, on average:

Regular beer: 5% alcohol
Some light beers: 4.2% alcohol
Malt liquor: 7% alcohol

For an extensive list of the calories in many popular brands of beer, click HERE.

Do you know someone who’s off to college?

Get my book for some easy, doable tips on how to eat well in dining halls and dorm rooms. Available in print and as an ebook from Amazon and as an ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Why Are Your Pants A Bit Snug The Day After Your Favorite Football Team Loses?

September 10, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Are you a football fan?

If you are – or perhaps live and/or work with one — you’d better be prepared to wear your loosest pants the day after your (or their) favorite team loses. Put another way, you better hope your football team won (for more reasons than one) or chances are you’ll be joining your fellow fans rummaging around the kitchen later that day — or have the pizza place on speed dial.

No joke! According to a study published in Psychological Science, on the Monday after a big football game fans of the losing team like to load up on sugar and saturated fat. Fans of the winning team go for healthier foods.

How Much Fat? How Many Calories?

Researchers looked at the typical Monday food consumption habits for people living in over two dozen cities. They compared that data to people’s food consumption on Mondays after NFL games in cities with NFL teams who had played games over the weekend.

They found that people living in cities where the football team lost ate about 16% more saturated fat and 10% more calories compared to how much they typically ate on Mondays.

People in cities where the football team won ate about 9% less saturated fat and 5% fewer calories compared to their usual Monday food.

These changes happened even when non-football fans were included in the study sample. In comparison, they didn’t find these results in cities without a team or in cities with a team that didn’t play that particular weekend.

The after effects were even greater in the most football crazed cities — In the 8 cities with the most devoted fans, people gobbled up 28% more saturated fat after a loss and 16% less after a win.

Down To The Wire Games Amped Up The Food Effects

These trends were especially noticeable when a game came down to the wire. When their team lost, especially if the loss was unexpected or the team lost by a narrow margin to an equally ranked team, the effects were the most noticeable. The researchers think that people perceive the loss, perhaps unknowingly, as an identity threat and use eating as a coping mechanism. A winning team wins seems to give a boost to people’s self-control.

To further test their findings, researchers asked French participants to write about a memory they had when their favorite soccer team either won or lost a game. Then they asked them to choose either chips and candy or grapes and tomatoes as a snack. The people who wrote about their favorite team winning were more likely to pick the healthier snacks.

Something You Can Do

Previous studies have shown how sports can influence — among other things — reckless driving, heart attacks, and domestic violence. But, according to the researchers, no one had ever looked at how sports results can also influence eating.

The researchers suggest a technique to use tp help keep your fat intake and calories under control if you root for a team that doesn’t have a winning record — or even if you just live in a city with a team that tends to lose.

After a loss, write down what’s really important in your life.
They found that this technique, called “self affirmation,” eliminated the eating effects that occurred after football losses.

How Big Are Your Snacks? Are They As Big As Lunch or Dinner?

September 3, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Do you get so hungry mid-morning or mid-afternoon that you grab whatever you can from a cart, vending machine, the snack room or fridge — and chow down?

if you do, you’re not alone. According to research, snacking, including drinking beverages at times other than during a regular meal,accounts for more than 25% of Americans’ calorie intake everyday. Snacking has turned into “a full eating event,” or a fourth meal, averaging about 580 calories each day.

Eating while you’re doing something else, called secondary eating, has also increased. Between 2006 and 2008, the amount of time we spend eating breakfast, lunch and dinner stayed at 70 minutes but secondary eating doubled from 15 minutes a day in 2006 to nearly 30 minutes in 2008. There was nearly a 90% jump in the time spent on secondary drinking: from 45 to 85 minutes. (Ever wonder why Starbuck’s is so crowded?)

There’s an increase in snacking across the board, but beverages account for 50% of snack calories. It’s way too easy to forget the calories in drinks. And, we spend about 12% of our total food money at the supermarket on packaged snacks.

What’s A Snack?

A snack shouldn’t be a fourth meal. Most recommendations are that a snack be between 150 and 200 calories and have some protein for both satiety and to help keep your blood sugar level stable. Some fiber in the snack helps keep you full.

Here are some examples – just be aware of portion sizes (for instance, don’t eat half a jar of peanut butter or a huge wedge of cheese):

Hummus with baby carrots or other vegetables
½ cup of low-fat cottage cheese with fruit or whole grain crackers
An apple, orange, peach, or grapes (or other fruit) with either ¼ cup almonds (or other nuts) or an ounce of cheese or a part skim cheese stick
Non-fat, unsweetened yogurt with ½ cup of whole grain cereal and/or fruit
A 12-ounce non-fat latte or cappuccino
Whole-grain crackers with peanut, nut, or seed butter
Trail mix with nuts, seeds, raisins, and cereal (cereal can cut down on the calories while increasing the volume – nuts are a high calorie food)
A whole grain (especially if it’s high fiber) English muffin or slice of toast and low-fat cream cheese or a slice of reduced fat (2%) cheese
A portion controlled serving of nuts

Smart Snacking Tips

Make sure your snack is 200 calories or less and has protein and fiber to help keep you full and satisfied.
100-calorie snack packages are usually processed and probably are not great for you choices. Check the ingredients, protein, and fiber content.
Beware of “healthy” or “halo-food” snacks like some sugary cereals, some sweetened, flavored yogurts, some so-called protein bars, yogurt-covered pretzels, and sports drinks.
Ask yourself if you’re snacking out of boredom, stress, or if you’re really hungry.
Don’t let yourself get so hungry that it’s impossible to control what and how much you have for a snack.
There are many choices. Pick snacks that you enjoy and can look forward to eating.
Keep healthy snacks in your desk drawer, your kitchen cabinet, or in your car so when you’re really hungry you have a good choice readily available. Otherwise it’s way too easy to succumb to the vending machine, newsstand, food truck, or the donut or apple fritter staring at you when you pay for your coffee.

Do you know someone who’s off to college?

Get my book for some easy, doable tips on how to eat well in dining halls and dorm rooms. Available in print and as an ebook from Amazon and as an ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Is Frozen Yogurt Healthy?

August 26, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Is frozen yogurt actually healthy or are you being hoodwinked by “yogurt” in the name?

What’s In Frozen Yogurt?

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. If you’re thinking healthy bacteria and frozen yogurt, you need to check the brand. Frozen yogurt isn’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration — although it is by some states — and it may or may 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.

Frozen yogurt, which comes in a multitude of flavors, wears a healthy food “halo” but doesn’t always warrant one. Some brands and flavors are “healthier” than others — depending on the company’s recipe and the quality and quantity of ingredients which produce a product with varying levels of sweetness/tartness, fat content, consistency, and flavor. Of course, it’s up to you to gauge the “healthiness” of what and how much you add on top of your soft swirl!

Some Frozen Yogurt History

Frozen yogurt is relatively new – certainly compared to other frozen desserts. There is a tale, perhaps a myth, of Roman Emperor Nero (AD 54–68) sending his slaves into the mountains to get snow to mix with nectar, fruit pulp, and honey. Frozen yogurt, as we know it, 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 1980’s frozen yogurt went mainstream and then sort of fizzled. Its popularity rebounded when self-serve stores began allowing customers to control their portion size, mix and match flavors, pick from dozens of toppings, and pay by weight.

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.
If you have a choice, choose soft serve rather than hard serve. Soft serve has air whipped into it making lighter in weight and lower in calories.
Pick the smallest cup. 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 putting the self-serve yogurt on top, not under, the 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.
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

Some 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

Boardwalk, Amusement Park, and Stadium: What Do You Eat?

August 12, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Cotton candy or funnel cake? Corn dog or fried clams? The food of summer. What do you usually eat beachside or after the roller coaster?

Oh, the choices! Oh the calories! How can you possibly not chow down on thousands of calories when there are food vendors about every 20 feet hawking dogs, ice cream, and fried everything?

Are You Ready For Peanuts, Popcorn, and Cotton Candy?

Sports stadiums, amusement parks, street fairs. What do you usually do at these places – other than watch games and have a blast on the rides? EAT, of course!

The food- the calories! What a challenge when there are food vendors about every 20 feet hawking hotdogs, ice cream, and fried everything!

There Are Ways And Then There Are Ways

If you’ve got a will of iron you could ignore the food and drinks. But if you’re tempted at every turn, you can try minimizing the damage without taking away the fun. If you know you’re going to be having a stadium or boardwalk meal, do some thinking, planning, and sleuthing. The best choices are not always the obvious ones.

Do you need both peanuts and popcorn? Can you make do with a regular hot dog instead of a foot-long? Can you keep it to one or two beers instead of three? Can you choose the small popcorn instead of the jumbo tub? Can you ditch the soda — or maybe the second one — and replace it with water?

Make Your Best Choice To Save Some Calories

It’s all about choices. Just make the best choice from the food that’s available and still enjoy traditional boardwalk and amusement park food. It’s really possible to make some reasonable choices on boardwalks or at amusement parks or stadiums that aren’t caloric disasters. Weigh your options – what do you want to do and what’s your best choice?

Here’s some info about traditional foods you might find at ballparks, boardwalks, street fairs, and amusement parks.

Use Some Of These Facts As Guidelines:

Cotton Candy: Nothing but heated and colored sugar that’s spun into threads with air added – and sometimes preservatives. Cotton candy on a stick or wrapped around a paper cone (about an ounce) has around 105 calories; a 2-ounce bag (common size) has 210. A lot of sugar, but not a lot of calories – albeit empty ones.

Cracker Jack (officially cracker jack, not jacks): candy-coated popcorn with some peanuts. A 3.5-ounce stadium size box has 420 calories but does have 7g of protein and 3.5g of fiber.

Hamburger: 6 ounces of food stand beef on a bun has about 490 calories. Vendors don’t use extra lean beef because the more fat the juicier the burger for you and the cheaper the cost for the vendor. Cheese and other toppings add additional calories.

Grilled Chicken Sandwich: A 6-ounce sandwich of grilled, not fried, chicken has 280 calories and isn’t such a bad choice. Six ounces of chicken tenders clock in at 446 calories. Barbecue dipping sauce adds 30 calories a tablespoon.

Hot Dog: Most sold-out baseball stadiums can sell 16,000 hot dogs a day. A regular hot dog with mustard has about 290 calories; that’s 180 for the 2-ounce dog, 110 for the bun, zilch for regular yellow mustard. Two tablespoons of sauerkraut adds another 5 to10 calories and a punch of flavor, 2 tablespoons of ketchup adds 30, and 2 tablespoons of relish another 40. A Nathan’s hot dog racks up 320 calories; a foot-long Hebrew National 510 calories. A regular size corn dog has around 280 calories.

Fried Battered Clams: A boardwalk staple. 1 cup (5 large clams or 8 medium clams or 10 small clams) has around 222 calories.

Pizza: Stadium pizza slices are larger than a usual slice, about 1/6 of a 16-inch pie (instead of 1/8) making it about 435 calories a slice – add calories for your toppings.

Nachos with Cheese: A 12-ounce serving (40 chips, 4-ounces of cheese) has about 1,500 calories!!! Plain French fries look like a caloric bargain by comparison.

French Fries: A large serving has about 500 calories. A serving of Hardee’s chili cheese fries has 700 calories and 350 of them come from fat. Curly fries (7 ounces) have 620 calories, 30g fat.

Potato Chips: One single serving bag has 153 calories (94 of them from fat).

Peanuts in the Shell: What would a baseball game be withouta bag of peanuts? Stadiums can sell as many as 6,000 bags on game days. An 8-ounce bag has 840 calories; a 12-ounce bag has 1,260. Yes, they have some protein and fiber. But wow on the calories. A one-ounce bag of Planter’s Dry Roasted Peanuts has 170 calories, 14g fat, 2g sugars.

Popcorn: At Yankee Stadium, a jumbo size has 1,484 calories and a souvenir bucket has 2,473 calories. A small bag of buttered popcorn that holds 5 cups has 470 calories, 35g fat. A large, 20 cup bucket of buttered popcorn has 1640 calories, 126g fat. Three and a half cups of kettle corn has 245 calories and 6g fat.

Soft Pretzel: One large soft pretzel has 483 calories and 5g of fat. Giant soft pretzels (7 to 8 ounces) have about 700 calories.

Funnel cake: The fried dough wonder and staple of fairs, boardwalks, and amusement parks, funnel cake is made by pouring dough through a funnel into cooking oil and deep frying the “funnels” of dough until they’re golden-brown and crispy – then topping the pieces with powdered sugar, syrup, or honey. Different cultures have varying versions of fried dough – sometimes it’s long strips and sometimes just round fried balls of dough. The calories vary enormously depending on the quantity and toppings. Just remember, regardless of the shape, they’re all dough fried in oil topped with a sweetener. That means high calories and low nutrition. You probably have to figure a minimum of around 300 calories for a 6-inch funnel cake (do they ever come that small?).

Ice Cream

Helmet Ice Cream: Your team’s mini-helmet filled with swirled Carvel has 550-590 calories.

Fudgsicle Fudge Bar (1 bar, 64g): 100 calories, 2.5g fat, 13g sugars
Klondike, The Original (1 sandwich, 81g): 250 calories, 17g fat, 18g sugars
Good Humor Ice Cream:

Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bar (83g): 230 calories
Toasted Almond (113g): 240 calories
Candy Center Crunch: 310 calories
Low Fat Ice Cream Sandwich, vanilla: 130 calories
Chocolate Éclair (1 bar, 59g): 160 calories

Soda, Lemonade, and Beer

Coke, small (18-ounces): 218 calories
Coke, large (44-ounces): 534 calories
Coke, 12-ounce can: 140 calories –- and close to 10 teaspoons of sugar
Minute Maid Lemonade (18-ounces): 248 calories
Minute Maid Lemonade (44-ounces): 605 calories
Draft Beer: A stadium draft beer, a 20-ounce cup, the usual size –has about 240 calories. A light draft saves you 60 calories.
12-ounce bottle of Budweiser: 144 calories, 12.8 carbs, 4.7% alcohol
12-ounce can of Bud Lite: 110 calories, 6.6 carbs, 4.2% alcohol
12-ounce bottle of Miller Lite: 96 calories, 3.2 carbs, 4.2% alcohol
12-ounce bottle of Miller MGD 64: 64 calories, 2.4 carbs, 2.8% alcohol

For more information about calories in summer drinks, click HERE. here.

Candy

Take note the serving size — movie theater and amusement park boxes of candy are often huge and may be double or triple the size shown below.

Junior Mints, 3-ounce box: 360 calories, 7g fat
Sno Caps, 3.1-ounce box: 300 calories, 15g fat
Milk Duds, 3-ounce box: 370 calories, 12g fat
Raisinets, 3.5 ounce bag: 400 calories, 16g fat
Goobers, 3.5 ounce box: 500 calories, 35g fat
Twizzlers, 6-ounce bag: 570 calories, 4g fat
M&Ms, 5.3-ounce bag: 750 calories, 32g fat
Peanut M&Ms, 5.3-ounce bag: 790 calories, 40g fat
Reese’s Pieces, 8-ounce: 1160 calories, 60g fat
Snickers (1bar, 59g): 280 calories, 14g fat