Eat Out Eat Well

What’s Sweet, Shaped Like An Egg, And Doesn’t Come From A Chicken?

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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 supermarkets, discount stores, and fancy candy stores.

Easter is the second ranked holiday for candy purchases in the US (just behind Halloween) and solid, hollow, and filled chocolate Easter eggs are some of the most popular choices of Easter candy.

Calories in Chocolate Easter Eggs

I don’t want to be a killjoy, but chocolate is a high calorie, high fat food.

Here’s the stats for some 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 and dark chocolate has a greater concentration than milk chocolate.  White chocolate, without any cocoa in it, is not really chocolate. In a recent study, German scientists followed 19,357 people for at least 10 years and found that those who ate the most chocolate, (average 7.5 grams a day or .26 oz), had lower blood pressure and a 39% lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke than people who ate the smallest amount (1.7 grams or .06 oz a day).

Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, contains flavonols which have antioxidant qualities and other positive influences on your heart health.  It  can be heart healthy if it replaces an unhealthy, high calorie snack, but there is still no recommended amount for health benefits.

Just a heads-up:  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.

Where’s My Peeps?

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Peeps: the blazing yellow and hot pink marshmallow bunnies and chicks that were hatched over 50 years ago. They’re called PEEPS because the original candy was the yellow chick.  Now they’re produced for many holidays – in seasonal colors and shapes, of course –  and 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.

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, green, and other seasonal colors.

What’s In Them?

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

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

PEEPS Preferences

Some people like their peeps 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 make quite a mess), frozen, roasted, used to top hot chocolate, and added to recipes. They don’t toast well on sticks like regular marshmallows – the sugar coating tends to burn.

 

Got Spinach Stuck To Your Teeth?

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Ever eat cooked spinach and feel like your teeth have been coated by chalk?

According to the May & June 2011 edition of Cook’s Illustrated, oxalic acid in spinach is released when the spinach’s cell walls are ruptured – first by cooking and then by chewing.

Tiny calcium oxalate crystals are formed when the released oxalic acid combines with the calcium in your saliva and calcium in the spinach.  Those tiny crystals cling to your teeth, coat them, and leave behind a dry, dusty feeling.

This kinda yucky tooth coating is intensified when the spinach is combined with milk and cheese products since they have a lot more available calcium than your saliva. The dairy calcium will combine with the spinach’s oxalic acid, too, making more of the offending crystals.

If this sensation really bugs you, try eating your spinach raw so there is less oxalate from cooked ruptured spinach cells available to form the oxalate crystals that cling to your teeth.

Jelly Beans: What’s Your Favorite Color?

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Jelly beans —  little nuggets of sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors.  Their gummy insides might have originated centuries ago from the treat, Turkish Delight.  Their outsides are basically the same as the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17th century, for the Jordan almond.  The modern jelly bean appeared during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged sending candy to Union soldiers.  Because of their egg shape they became popular as Easter candy around 1930.

Although standard jelly beans come in fruit flavors, there are now so many flavors — some goofy, some sophisticated — like spiced, mint, gourmet, tropical, popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, and cola.  They also now come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true – wonder how many chemicals are in those).

What’s In Jelly Beans?

Jelly beans are 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).

They may give you Technicolor insides, but 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 Bean Trivia

  • Jelly Belly jelly beans were invented in 1976. They were the first jelly beans to be sold in single flavors and to come with a menu of flavors.
  • 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 – sent on the 1983 flight of the space shuttle Challenger by President Reagan.
  • Enough Jelly Belly beans were eaten in the last year to circle the earth more than five times.

How You Eat Your Oreo Says Something About You

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Oh, Oreos!  We must love them because we eat 20.5 million of them a day.

Over 491 billion Oreo cookies have been sold since they were first introduced on April 2,1912, making them the best selling cookie of the 20th century.

They were first baked at the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) factory, which dates from the 1890’s, that runs from 15th to 16th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in New York City.  Now called Chelsea Market, it is a bustling office and food complex.  This photo is of an Oreo label that is showcased in the main lobby.

 

The Original Oreo

Nabisco’s new idea for a cookie was two chocolate disks with a creme filling in between. Early Oreos looked a lot like today’s Oreo with just a slight difference in the design on the chocolate disks.

Originally they came with either a lemon or vanilla creme filling. In the US they cost 25 cents a pound and were sold in cans with glass tops so customers could see the cookies. The vanilla creme filling was more popular and production of the lemon filling was discontinued in the 1920s.

Today they come with a whole bunch of different fillings like mint, chocolate, caramel; double stuffs; chocolate coatings; and colored holiday fillings.

Oreos weren’t the first sandwich type cookies on the market. Sunshine introduced Hydrox in 1910 two full years before Oreo’s debut. But it seems that Sunshine fell short in its marketing because Hydrox never became as popular as Oreo and production stopped in the mid 1990s.

Oreos:  An Interactive Food

One of the keys to Oreo’s success is its interactivity.  Think about it – you don’t just eat it — you can dunk it, bite it, or twist it apart.  Oreo lovers, psychologists, and food writers have all speculated about whether the way someone eats their Oreo indicates a personality type.

According to a History.com video, in 2004, Kraft (Nabisco is now a Kraft brand), surveyed over 2000 Oreo eaters and found that they are divided into three categories:

  • Dunkers tend to be energetic, adventurous, and extremely social. 87% of dunkers say milk is their liquid of choice for dunking.
  • Twisters — and who hasn’t twisted an Oreo – (I personally think it makes the Oreo last longer ‘cause you get two cookies) – tend to be emotional, sensitive, artistic, and trendy.
  • Biters are easy going, self-confident, and optimistic.

The survey also discovered that more women tend to be dunkers while men tend to be biters.  And, Democrats tend to twist, Republicans tend to dunk!

 

Some Stats

A serving of regular Oreos, 34 grams, has 160 calories, 7g of fat (2 saturated), 25g carbs, 1g protein,1g fiber, and160mg sodium.

According to the Nabisco label, there are about 15 servings in an 18 oz. bag. After checking lots of sites, the general consensus is that there are around 3 cookies in a 34 gram serving.  It sure would be nice if Nabisco would give us the stats per cookie rather than for 34 grams so the consumer could have more useable information!