Eat Out Eat Well

A Soda a Day = How Many Calories in a Year?

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How many calories . . . how much sugar?

In a recent post in his blog, Weighty Matters, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff asks an excellent question: “What happens if you drink a can of Coke daily for a year?” His startling answer:  “you’d end up slurping up 32,850 calories along with nearly 40 cups of sugar. Drink a Coke a day for a decade and that’d translate to 94 pounds worth of Coca Cola calories and 400 cups (>200lbs!) of sugar.”

Candy in small pieces

Last week, an article in the Business Section of the New York Times talked about the Hershey Company introducing three new varieties of small piece candy : Almond Joy Pieces, York Pieces and Hershey’s Special Dark Pieces, modeled after Reese’s Pieces.  A Hershey spokeswoman quoted in the article said, “Consumers needed something that was easy to snack on when on the go . . . You can just grab a couple and pop them in your mouth from a bowl or bag.”

A senior analyst at market research firm feels that expanding the Pieces line might appeal to customers who want to control their and their children’s portions. She says in the article: “If you’re trying to watch your weight, or your kid’s sugar intake, a candy bar is a big deal . . . but if you don’t want to overdo sugar in your obese kid’s lunchbox, you can still put a few Almond Joy Pieces in there.”

What do you think?

Does it bother anyone else that an analyst is talking about putting sugar in, her words, “your obese kid’s lunchbox,” or that candy companies preach portion control by making small piece candies when they know that most people will not stop at one pack, or, knowing the consequences, we continue to pour down sugar filled sodas and fight the sugary drink tax being proposed in many municipalities?

Slow down You Eat Too Fast

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Do you wolf your food down so quickly that it’s gone before you realize you’ve eaten it all – and, to boot, you’re still hungry and staring at an empty plate?
Mothers around the world often say the same thing: slow down and chew your food. Then again, my father-in-law, a dentist, used to give the same advice.
Well, what do you know, there’s something to it.
According to an article in the New York Times, studies show that people who eat quickly eat more calories than they would if they ate a bit more slowly. The people who ate more slowly also felt fuller.
A recent study showed that hormones that give you feelings of fullness, or satiety, are more pronounced when people eat slowly. Subjects given identical servings of ice cream released more of these hormones when they ate it in 30 minutes instead of 5 minutes.
It leads to eating less, too. According to an article published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association people who ate at a slow pace compared to when they chowed down very quickly said they were fuller and ending up eating about 10 percent fewer calories.
An analysis of surveys completed by 3287 adults (1122 men, 2165 women), ages 30-69, concluded that eating until full and eating quickly are associated with being overweight and that these combined behaviors might have a significant impact on being overweight.


SocialDieter Tip: Once again, Moms are right – slow down when you eat. (Doesn’t that often go with don’t grab?) Slowing down allows the feeling of fullness to register and may even mean that you eat fewer calories. You might even have time to really taste and enjoy your food, too.

Bigger and Biggest Burgers: Tips for Burger Eaters

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  • Battle On:  who has the biggest burger? 

I love burgers – much more than steak of any kind.  So, I budget them into my food plan.  Holding the bacon, cheese, and fried onions cuts down on the calories – but for occasional indulgences it’s even possible to have those – just keep a close eye on the portion size.

According to the Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter (2/10), the fight for our dollars to purchase the biggest burger is on. The trade journal, Advertising Age, is calling the marketing war for the consumer’s bucks for big or biggest burger:  “Battle of the Big Burgers.”

  • Bigger and biggest nutritional stats*

Applebee’s A1 Steakhouse Burger:  1085 Calories, 60g Fat, 80, Carbs, 52g Protein

Burger King Steakhouse XT:  970 Calories, 55g Carbs, other info N/A

Carl’s Jr.  $6 Burger:  890 Calories, 54g Fat, 58g Carbs, 45g Protein

Chili’s Classic bacon Burger:  1140 Calories, 72g Fat, 61g Carbs, 59g Fat

Denny’s Western burger:  1160 Calories, 65g Fat, 79g  Carbs, 63g Protein

Hardee’s $6 Thickburger:  950 Calories, 59g fat, 58g Carbs, 45g Protein

Krystal BA Double Bacon Cheese:  850 Calories, 59g Fat, 48g Carbs, 32g Protein

McDonald’s Angus Deluxe:  750 Calories, 39g fat, 61g Carbs, 40g Protein

Wendy’s Bacon Deluxe Triple:  1140 Calories, 71g Fat, 47g Carbs, 79g Protein

These burgers can range from 1/2 to 3/4 of most people’s usual daily caloric and fat (especially saturated fat) allowance, and I didn’t include the amount of sodium in each burger, which is equally alarming.


How to choose?  Sticking to ordering an ordinary hamburger might be your best bet if you exercise caution with the caloric fatty sides (French fries, onion rings) and not sugared drinks.  A McDonald’s regular burger:  250 Calories, has less calories than any other sandwich on it’s menu.  Burger King’s Whopper Jr. clocks in at 370 calories.

Don’t be misled by the healthier sounding veggie burger with it’s added on toppings.  Burger King’s Veggie burger has 420 calories and 16g Fat – it’s Whopper has 670 calories and 40g fat.  Ruby Tuesday’s Veggie Burger chalks up 952 Calories and 53g fat and it’s Classic Cheeseburger has 1160 calories and 81g total fat.

  • SocialDieter Tip

If you know that your routine, maybe for workday lunches or after your kid’s soccer game, is probably going to include a stop at a fast food or casual dining chain, arm yourself with information by checking out the chain’s website for nutrition data.  Figure out ahead of time which choice is the best for you and then stick to it when you order.  If you haven’t figured out your preference before hand, chains in many states are now obliged to post in the restaurant the nutritional information for their products.  Bottom line: to save calories and fat, ignore the touted “big” or “biggest” burger (even if it’s the special) and order the small, ordinary burger and ask for extra onions, pickles, and other veggies.

*All data is from Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter February 2010

Blizzards, Hurricanes and Menu Choices

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Apples, apples, and more apples. NYC farmer's market in the snow.

The weather forecast is all doom and gloom:  a foot and a half of snow, or torrential rain with 60 miles an hour wind gusts. Rush to the supermarket and, it seems, along with everyone else who lives in your town or city, buy bread and milk and then lots of other stuff.  You need to be prepared for the apocalypse — which in many cases doesn’t happen — and, unfortunately, sometimes does.

The weather comes and forces you to be housebound. Eventually you start going stir crazy, have to get out of the house. Maybe you have lost power.  So,  you venture out to eat.  Perhaps not during the height of the storm, but right afterwards.  The trick is to find someplace that is open and has power.  Wow — you find one.  Hmmm . . . what to order?  Gee, the fresh fish of the day sounds great.

Fresh fish? If there’s a foot and a half of snow, the snow plows are struggling to clear the main roads, the local waterway is iced over, trains and buses are running on limited schedules if at all, the airports are empty because there are no flights in or out, and even professional sports teams have cancelled their games, how is that “fresh” fish getting to your local restaurant?

A moment to analyze the menu is in order.  The chef may have a whole bunch of stuff languishing in the freezer in the back.  Okay, it may be fine, but it’s certainly not fresh.  And those leafy vegetables and berries — if the delivery trucks can’t drive through the streets, how did they get there?

If the chef ordered enough food before the storm and the restaurant’s business was way down because customers didn’t want to fight the weather, what happened to the unused food?  Restaurants are in business to make money.  Unsold food taking up space in the refrigerator and freezer does not bring in the bucks.  So, does the unused food appear in the days after the storm in a frittata or stew? Soup, cassoulet?   Of course, the frittata, stew, soup, or cassoulet  may still taste great, or maybe not.

Exercise some thought — and in some cases caution — when you make those menu choices during, or just after, blizzards, hurricanes, monsoons, and mudslides, and especially power outages!  Does grilled cheese and tomato soup sound good?

Chocolate Hearts . . .

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During the week before Valentine’s Day, about 1.1 billion boxed chocolates, that’s about 58 million pounds of chocolate candy, will be sold in the United States.

A pound of milk chocolate contains 2300 calories, 140 grams of fat, 270 grams of carbohydrates, and 31 grams of protein. Although a lot has been reported about the heart healthy benefits of chocolate, especially dark chocolate, it is important to remember that it is still a high calorie, high fat treat.

But, a treat is something that is associated with pleasure, and on Valentine’s Day, often with love.  To celebrate the occasion perhaps it’s just fine to enjoy a piece or two.