Eat Out Eat Well

Takeout, Prepared Food, Junk Food

Key Words For “Maybe Yes, Maybe No” Menu Choices

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Menus, both restaurant and take-out, are filled with descriptive and sometimes mouth-watering words.  They’re meant to:

  • entice you to order certain items by making them sound scrumptious, or to
  • make you think that a food, sauce, or dressing is lower in calories or an awesome health food.

Maybe Yes, Maybe No Adjectives

This is a list of words frequently used on menus to describe foods that can be considered “yellow light foods.” They are the foods you  should cautiously choose because they may or may not be healthy choices.

  • Amandine/Almondine
  • Baked
  • Basted
  • Light/Lite
  • Marinated
  • Panini
  • Reduced
  • Sauteed
  • Stewed
  • Stir-Fry
  • Vegetarian
  • Vinaigrette

 Why They’re Yellow Light Foods:

Amandine/Almondine:  Means food that is garnished with almonds. The caution: the ingredients (often green beans, fish, asparagus, potatoes) are usually cooked with butter and seasonings and sprinkled with whole or flaked toasted almonds. The butter makes them taste good and allows the nuts to stick to the main ingredient — but both add significant calories.

Baked:  Food that is cooked by using dry heat.  The caution light applies to the main ingredients. What is being baked – is it baked fish or a baked cookie?

Basted: Means that either the juices of the cooking meat, melted fat, or other liquids such as marinades – are poured over meat during the cooking process to keep it moist.  The caution is in determining what the basting liquid is:  fat or the juice of the meat?

Light or lite:  If 50% or more of the calories in a food come  from fat, the fat must be reduced by at least 50% per serving to be called light. If less than 50% of the calories come from fat, the fat must be reduced by at least 50% or the calories reduced by at least 1/3 per serving for the food to be called light. The caution:  food manufacturers determine these percentages through laboratory analysis – but how does your local diner determine what is “light or lite” even if there is a “light or lite” claim on their menu?

Marinated:  Means to soak or steep meat, fowl, fish, or vegetables in a liquid mixture — which is usually vinegar or wine and oil combined with various spices and herbs.  The caution:  how much oil or even sweetener is in the marinade that has permeated the meat, fowl, fish, or vegetables?

Panini:  A pressed and toasted sandwich.  The caution:  What are the sandwich ingredients — for instance are they heavy on vegetables or on salami — and how much oil is used on the grill? If the sandwich comes out nice and crunchy and crispy you can bet it was pressed on a grill loaded with grease.

Reduced:  To be called reduced in calories, a food must contain at least 25% fewer calories per serving than the reference food (the version of the food that is not lower in calories).  For meals and main dishes there must be at least 25% fewer calories per 100 grams of food.  The caution:  the “reference food” (the regular, not low in calories version) may be a very high calorie food to begin with – meaning that 25% less of very high calories is still a lot calories.  And who’s measuring in the kitchen of your local restaurant? Don’t be duped.

Sauteed:  Means food that is fried quickly in a little oil.  The caution is the same as with stir-fry (see below); the amount of oil and the temperature of the oil.

Stewed:  To cook by slowly boiling or simmering.  The caution:  what is the stewing liquid — is it tomato based or is there a lot of fat?

Stir-Fry:  Means to cook small pieces of vegetables, grains, or meat by quickly frying and stirring them in a small amount of oil over high heat (frequently in a wok).  The caution is the amount and temperature of the oil.  Oil at a lower temperature will lead to a longer cooking time and the ingredients absorbing more oil.

Vegetarian:  Refers to a dish made without meat, fish, or fowl.  The caution is that many vegetarian dishes are prepared with a lot of breading, cheese, and fat.

Vinaigrette: A common salad dressing made with olive or other oils and combined with vinegar and/or lemon juice (plus seasonings and herbs).  The caution is in the proportion of oil to the acidic vinegar or lemon juice.  Sometimes it might be as great as 4:1 oil to acid and sometimes it might be 1:1, or half oil and half acid.  A fifty-fifty mix will be lower in calories than a mix that is 75% oil.

Do you have any “yellow-light foods” to add to this list?

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What Do You Eat On A Road Trip?

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Have you noticed that a lot of renovated gas stations now have mini-marts or convenience stores with clean(er) bathrooms and coffee that comes regular or decaf but also dark velvet, hazelnut, and vanilla?

Are Gas Stations The New Convenience Stores?

Convenience stores sell about 80& of the gasoline purchased in the United States each year.

Many gas stations now view gas as a loss leader – a sale they’re willing to take a loss on or only make a very small profit.  They want to lure people into their mini-mart or full-fledged convenience store to shop.

Most stations don’t want to — or can’t — cut gas prices and there isn’t much they can do to jack up demand. In general, people are driving less gas stations need something to woo their competitors’ customers – so they use food.

Some station owners say they make more on a cup of coffee than on gas.  They advertise their convenience marts and other services – a gas station near my house has a dry cleaner drop-off — and work to build a base of customers who, although they could get gas anywhere, choose to buy it where they know there’s an open pump and clean bathrooms.

Road Trip Food Stops

If you’re planning a road trip you’ll most likely stop for a snack or a meal along the way.  With the proliferation of service stations or rest stops with incorporated mini-marts you probably don’t even need to leave the major roads to find a place to eat.  But, can you get something decent to eat?

Walk into most of the rest stop mini-marts and you’re assaulted by an array of vending machines, candy racks, franks on rotating grills and pre-wrapped sandwiches, donuts, coffee, and every bottled drink under the sun. You’re a captive consumer and after driving for some time you’re probably want something to:

  • Keep you energized and awake
  • Help with the boredom
  • Reward you for endless hours of driving (especially if you have complaining or fighting kids with you)
  • Perhaps bring back memories of summer road trip food you had when you were a kid (as a parent I can admit that you often give in and buy all kinds of stuff for your kids because they’re driving you crazy)

The Trap And The Danger

An endless stream of high carb, high fat, high calorie, and processed food is just begging you to plunk down your money so you can immediately indulge (watch how many people start eating the food they’ve bought before they even pay) or to take with you (in case there’s a famine around the next turn).

The real danger – aside from the damage to your waistline – is that high-carb processed foods spike then crash your blood sugar —making you really tired and cranky.

  • Drowsy drivers are most definitely not safe drivers.
  • Cranky drivers make life miserable for everyone in the car – not a great tone to set if you’re going on vacation.

Candy

Candy is an impulse purchase in convenience stores — 49% of shoppers say that their candy purchases were unplanned. Candy sales are steady,  generating a high margin (typically 35-40%). People will always want to treat themselves and candy is an affordable luxury.

Candy sold in convenience stores accounts for approximately 15% of all candy sold at the retail level. Chocolate bars are the winner followed by gum; bagged, repacked peg candy; candy rolls; mints and drops; non-chocolate bars; and novelties/seasonal candy.

Check out the placement of candy the next time you’re in a mini-mart or convenience store.  It’s positioned to grab your attention. It’s vividly colored wrappers reach out to you from high-traffic areas of the store: the checkout area, in the aisle that leads to the check out, and near or on the way to the cold cases holding the drinks.

Coffee

According to the National Coffee Association, more than three out of four adult Americans say that they drink coffee either daily or regularly and convenience stores are one of their preferred destinations with people stopping to buy coffee more than they fill up their cars.

Industry data show that about 95% of all convenience stores sell coffee — about 78% of hot beverage sales. The second best seller is specialty coffee and cappuccino – about 13% of hot beverages.

Unlike candy, coffee isn’t an impulse purchase.  Nearly 96% of customers intend to buy a cup of coffee before they walk in. The average visit is about two minutes so it makes putting other impulse-buy merchandise — like candy, baked goods, and chips — near the coffee bar as a way for the store to get you to spend more money. Some retailers find that people who typically purchase coffee will also buy bottled water; a grab-and-go breakfast item; or a packaged snack like an energy, protein, or granola bar.

Some Ideas About What To Buy And What To Eat

Before you go into the mini-mart at least have your own mental list of some good, better, and best choices of food to buy.  The danger is that the candy, chips, fries, and donuts call your name the minute you walk in the door.  If you know that you’re going to head straight for the nuts, or popcorn, or even a pre-wrapped sandwich, that’s great, as long as the giant chocolate chip cookie and the bargain 32 ounce soda for 99 cents doesn’t grab you first. Try to decide what you’re going to buy (hopefully, a good choice) before you go in – and then stick to your decision.

Some Choices To Think About

  • Go for the nuts. Some stations have fruit (oranges and bananas come in their own wrapper and don’t have to be washed) and almost all have dried fruit — balance the sugar with the fat and protein in the nuts.
  • Sometimes you can find individual bowls of Cheerios or whole grain cereals. Grab a little container of non-fat/low-fat milk or a container of yogurt.
  • Popcorn is a great choice and some stations stock fat-free soy crisps, and Kashi products.
  • Protein bars can be good, better, and best. Check the labels for higher protein and lower sugar.  Some can be the equivalent of a candy bar.
  • If you’re really hungry choose a sandwich or burrito over donuts, cookies, and pastry.
  • Beef jerky or beef sticks are good high protein snacks. So are hard boiled eggs – just make sure they’re refrigerated and haven’t been sitting around for a couple of days!
  • Crackers with cheese or peanut butter and trail mix help round out the list.  If you must go with crunchy stuff stick with pretzels.  If it absolutely must be chips, look for baked varieties.  Remember that the salty stuff will make you thirsty so stock up on water.

 

 

Peanuts, Cracker Jacks, and Cotton Candy

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It’s summertime.  Baseball season is in full swing and so are visits to amusement parks.  What do you usually do at these places – other than watch the game and ride the roller coaster? EAT, of course!

Oh, the food!  Oh the calories! Trust me — this post isn’t about ignoring the good time food.  There are always healthy food options:  you can bring your own or be scrupulous in making healthy choices. But honestly, do you think that most people really want to eat low calorie foods when they’re at a ballgame or amusement park? No way.

So what do you do when you’re at these places with food vendors about every 20 feet hawking dogs, ice cream, and beer?

There Are Ways And Then There Are Ways

If you’ve got a will of iron, I guess you could ignore the food and drinks.  But if you’re like most people and you’re tempted at every turn, you can try to minimize the damage without taking away the fun.  If you know you’re going to be having a stadium or food court 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

Here’s some info to help you make your best choice.  Just a heads up – we’re not talking about the most nutritious choice because given these foods, quality nutrition is not front and center.  You can, however, enjoy your day and make the best caloric choice (with a nod to fat and sugar content) and still enjoy traditional ballpark and amusement park food.

  • Cotton Candy: Nothing but heated and colored sugar that’s spun into threads with added air. Cotton candy on a stick or wrapped around a paper cone (about an ounce) has around 105 calories; a 2oz. 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 3.5oz stadium size box has 420 calories but does have 7g  protein and 3.5g fiber.
  • Hamburger:   6oz. of beef on a bun has about 490 calories — without cheese or other toppings — which up the ante.
  • Grilled Chicken Sandwich, 6oz.:  280 calories – not a bad choice.  6oz. 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 2oz. dog, 110 for the bun, zilch for regular yellow mustard. Two tbs. sauerkraut adds another 5-10 calories, 2 tbs. ketchup adds 30, and 2 tbs. relish another 40. A Nathan’s hot dog racks up 320 calories; a foot-long Hebrew National 510 calories. Hot dogs are usually loaded with sodium.
  • Pizza: Stadium pizza is larger than a usual slice, about 1/6 of a 16-inch pie (instead of 1/8) making it about 435 calories a slice.
  • Super Nachos with Cheese: A 12oz. serving (40 chips, 4oz. 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.
  • Potato Chips:  One single serving bag has 153 calories (94 of them from fat).
  • Peanuts in the Shell: What would a baseball game be without a bag of peanuts? Stadiums can sell as many as 6,000 bags on game days. An 8oz. bag has 840 calories; a 12oz. bag has 1,260. Yes, they have some protein and fiber.  But wow on the calories.
  • Soft Pretzel: One large soft pretzel has 483 calories – giant soft pretzels (7-8oz.) have about 700 calories.
  • Draft Beer: A stadium draft beer, 20oz. cup, the usual size, has about 240 calories. A light draft saves you 60 calories.
  • Coca Cola:  A 12oz can: 140 calories –- and close to 10 tsp. of sugar.
  • Helmet Ice Cream: Your team’s mini-helmet filled with swirly Carvel, 550-590 calories.
  • Souvenir Popcorn: At Yankee Stadium a jumbo size has 1,484 calories and a souvenir bucket has 2,473 calories.

Some Lower Calorie Alternatives If You Like Your Ice Cream With Toppings Rather Than Naked

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Some people like their ice cream without any embellishment, and for others, the more the better.  Sometimes there’s nothing better than an ice cream sundae or a waffle cone with a bunch of toppings.

Ice cream can be topped with just about anything can be made with just about anything and I freely admit that for me, the best part is choosing what goes on top of ice cream, not the ice cream itself.

So Many Choices

You can put just about anything on ice cream  — and most likely — someone, somewhere in the world has chosen some pretty random and unique toppings to put on their plain old vanilla or some esoteric flavor that they love.

Toppings Can Add A Mountain Of Calories

The problem is, of course, that the standard fare:  toppings like hot fudge, whipped cream, peanuts, walnuts in syrup, crushed heath bar, caramel sauce – can all add hundreds of calories and not much nutrition to your sundae or cone.  It is likely that nutrition is not your first thought when visions of ice cream dance in your head, but calories (and perhaps nutrition) might be.

Here’s the nutrition in some common ice cream toppings:

  • Smucker’s Spoonable Hot Fudge Topping:  2tbsp, 140 calories, 4g fat, 24g carbs, 2g protein
  • Smucker’s Spoonable Ice Cream Topping Pecans in Syrup Topping:  1tbsp, 170 calories, 10g fat, 20g carbs, 1g protein
  • Regular Redi Whip:  2tbsp, 20 calories, 2g fat, 1g carbs
  • Cool Whip, extra creamy:  2tbsp, 32 calories
  • Regular M&M’s:  10 pieces,103 calories, 5.2g fat, 12.1g carbs, 1.9g protein
  • Peanut M&M’s:  about 16 pieces, 200 calories, 10.15g fat, 23.48g carbs, 3.72g protein
  • Peanuts (1oz): 160 calories, 14g fat, 5g carbs, 7g protein

Some Stand-bys That Are Lower In Calories

  • Rainbow Sprinkles (Mr. Sprinkles):  1 tsp, 20 calories, 0.5g fat, 3g carbs, 0g protein
  • Chocolate Sprinkles (jimmies):  1 tbsp, 35 calories, 0g fat, 6g carbs, 0g protein
  • Smucker’s Spoonable Ice Cream Topping, Light Hot Fudge, Fat Free:  2 tbs, 90 calories, 23g carbs, 2g protein
  • 10 mini marshmallows:  22 calories, 0 fat, 5.7g carbs, .1g protein
  • 18 gummi bears: 140 calories, 0 fat, 43.5g carbs, 0 protein

Think Outside The Box For Lower Calorie Choices

If the world is your oyster in terms of toppings, why not think about fruit, cereal, or a crushed up 100 calorie pack of anything?

Here are some other suggestions:

  • Smucker’s Spoonable Pineapple Topping:  2 tbsp, 100 calories, 0g fat
  • Regular Redi Whip:  2 tbsp, 20 calories, 2g fat, 1g carbs
  • Fat Free Redi Whip:  2 tbsp, 5 calories, 0g fat, 1g carbs
  • Cool whip, light:  2 tbsp, 16 calories
  • Cool Whip, fat-free:  2 tbsp, 15 calories, 43.5g carbs, 0 protein
  • 1 mini box of raisins (.5 oz):  42 calories, 0.1g fat, 11.1g carbs, 0.4g protein
  • One medium banana: 105 calories, 0 fat, 27g carbs, 1g protein
  • One cup strawberry halves: 49 calories, 0.5g fat, 11.7g carbs, 1g protein
  • Sugar-free Jello pudding:  60 calories
  • One cup Froot Loops:  118 calories, 0.6g fat, 26.7g carbs, 1.4g protein
  • One cup blueberries:  83 calories, 0.5g fat, 21g carbs, 1.1g protein
  • Crushed pretzel sticks, 1 oz:  110 calories, 1g fat, 23g carbs, 3g protein

Iced And Frozen Coffee Drinks: Refreshing But A Caloric Bomb

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The weather is heating up and the drinks are cooling down.  Unfortunately, some of those delicious iced and frozen coffee drinks that seem to be offered everywhere can really bump up your calories and fat grams.

Keep in mind that you can always order plain old iced coffee or even an iced Americano (almost no calories for 16 ounces) and doctor it with non-caloric sweetener and skim milk.  You’d even come out ahead if you use controlled amounts of sugar and a bit of half-and half. Or have an iced brewed coffee with classic syrup:  12 oz (tall), 60 calories.

Calories in Some Iced And Frozen Coffee Drinks

Note that despite the differences in names for various sized cups, all stats (with the exception of Burger King) are for a 16 oz. size cup.

  • Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino with whipped cream, 16 oz. (grande): 400 calories, 15 g fat (9 g saturated), 64g carbohydrates.
  • Starbucks Mocha Light Frappuccino with nonfat milk, 16 oz. (grande): 130 calories, 0.5g fat, (0 g saturated), 28g carbohydrates.
  • Iced Caffe Latte with nonfat milk, 16 oz. (grande):  90 calories, 0g fat, 13g carbohydrates.
  • Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee Coolata made with whole milk, 16 oz. (small):  240 calories, 4 g fat (2.5 g saturated), 50g carbohydrates
  • Dunkin’ Donuts Vanilla Bean Coolatta, 16 oz. (small): 420 calories, 6g fat (3.5g saturated), 92g carbohydrates
  • Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Latte made with skim milk, 16 oz. (small):  80calories, 0g fat,   13 g carbohydrates
  • Baskin Robbins Cappuchino Blast Mocha, 16oz (small):  400 calories, 13g fat (9g saturated), 65g carbohydrates
  • McDonald’s: McCafé Iced Caramel Mocha, 16 oz. (medium) made with whole milk and whipped cream:  300 calories, 14g fat (8g saturated), 36g carbohydrates
  • Burger King: Iced Seattle’s Best Coffee Mocha, 22 oz. (medium):  260 calories, 3.5g fat (2.5g saturated), 54g carbohydrates

Bottom Line:  Ways To Shave Calories From Iced Coffee Drinks

Try these:

  • Ditch the whipped cream.
  • Swap full fat milk for 2% milk, 1% or skim.
  • Watch the sugar:  ask for one pump instead of two, ask for sugar free syrup, add non-calorie sweetener instead of sugar, don’t sweeten at all.
  • Change the size of the drink that you order:  instead of a venti or an extra large order a grande or large – or drop down to a tall or a medium (or even a small) sized drink.
  • If you have a two a day (or more) habit – like a coolata in the morning and a frappuccino in the afternoon – substitute a plain coffee or iced tea (easy on the milk and sugar), or even a latte with nonfat milk for one of those choices.