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Do Ballparks And Amusement Parks Mean Hotdogs, Peanuts, And Cotton Candy?

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ballpark foodSeriously – you’re not going to a game or to go on rides without having something to eat and drink. That’s part of the fun.

So what do you do with food vendors about every 20 feet hawking dogs, 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 don’t (and who does all of the time?) you can try to minimize 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 A Few Calories

It’s all about choices. Here’s some info to help you make good 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 of protein and 3.5g of fiber.
  • Hamburger:   6oz. of food stand beef (they’re not using extra lean – the more fat, the juicier it is) 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 and a punch of flavor, 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.
  • 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 – add calories if you add toppings.
  • 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).
  • 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.
  • 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 has 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.

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.

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.

Snacks: Are They Your Fourth Meal?

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Why can a day’s worth of snacks be considered a fourth meal?  Because, according to research, snacking accounts for more than 25% of Americans’ calorie intake everyday.

How Many Calories Do We Snack On A Day?

Between 1977 and 2006 Americans averaged about 580 calories each day for their snacks — which basically turned those snacks into “a full eating event,” or a fourth meal.

Maybe we snack on so many calories because eating and drinking while we’re doing something else has also increased.  Between 2006 and 2008, the amount of time we spent eating our main meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner – was about 70 minutes.  Secondary eating, the kind you do when you’re doing things like working on the computer, driving, or walking down the street, doubled from 15 minutes in 2006 to nearly 30 minutes a day in 2008.  There was nearly a 90% jump in the time we spent on secondary drinking:  from 45 to 85 minutes. (Ever wonder why Starbuck’s is so crowded?)

Come On, Be Honest

Haven’t you ever chowed down on a whole bunch of food — maybe the equivalent of a meal — around 5PM and then tried to convince yourself that it’s just a snack?

Although nearly 100% of Americans of all ages snack every day, there isn’t a standard definition  of what a snack is or what motivates us to snack. So, what happens is that it’s left up to each one of us to “self-define” what snacks and snacking mean, leaving plenty of room for us to blur the line between snacks and meals.

How Much Do We Spend On Packaged Snacks?

We spend about 12% of our total food money at the supermarket on packaged snacks. Kids are learning to replace meals with snacks – a lifestyle that is likely to continue when those kids grow up and have their own families.  And food companies are smart – they’re making health claims and highlighting things like fiber and nutrients on the snack packages which often make them sound more appealing and even healthy.  That packaging, with the illusion of health, could even ease the guilt people might have when they reach for a caloric prepackaged snack that may or may not be made of real food.

So, What’s A Snack?

There’s an increase in snacking across the board, but beverages make up 50% of snack calories. those calories in drinks — including the sugar and cream in coffee — can add up to a pretty significant number.

A snack shouldn’t be a fourth meal.  Most recommendations are that an individual snack, like the one so many of us have mid-morning or mid-afternoon, be between 150 and 200 calories and have some protein in it for satiety and to help keep your  blood sugar level stable.