Eat Out Eat Well

Vending Machines: What Are Your Favorite Letter/Number Combinations?

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vending-machine-graphicSooner or later you’ll have your next sharing moment with a vending machine – you share your money and the machine shares its calories.

Vending machines are everywhere – down the hall from your office or around the corner from your hotel room, in hospital waiting rooms, in train stations, and calling your name on road trips. They call your name when you’re especially vulnerable – when you’re stressed, tired, bored, anxious, and your blood sugar is traveling south – all of which means the sugar, fat, and salt junk food allure is really hard to overcome.

When a vending machine calls your name, choose wisely.  There are good, better, and best choices to be made.  You can almost always find packages of nuts, popcorn, pretzels, or dried fruit along with the packaged sweet or crunchy calories.

Be careful of choices with too much sugar, especially if you’re driving.  A big time sugar hit may give you quick energy but more than likely it will be followed by a drop in your blood sugar levels that could possibly make you sleepy, grouchy, unfocused, and hungry for more sweet and fatty food.

No Choice Is Perfect; Make The Best Choice For You

Your choice depends on what you want:  protein or sweet satisfaction; fill-you-up fiber or salty crunch.  Here are some common choices so you can compare calories, fat, carbs, and protein:

Crunchy

  • Baked! Lays Potato Chips (original), 1 package, 130 calories, 2g fat, 26g carbs, 2g Protein
  • Baked Doritos, Nacho Cheese, 1 bag (38.9g):
170 calories, 5g fat, 29g carbs, 3g protein
  • Cheez-It Baked Snack Crackers (Snack Pak):
180 calories, 9g fat, 20g carbs, 4g protein
  • Ruffles Potato Chips, 1 package (1.5 oz):
240 calories, 15g fat, 23g carbs, 3g protein
  • Cheetos, Crunchy, snack size bag (1 oz): 
150 calories, 10g fat, 13g carbs, 2g protein
  • Sun Chips Original, 1 package:
210 calories, 10g fat, 28g carbs, 3g protein
  • Snyder’s of Hanover Mini Pretzels, snack size: 160 calories, 0g fat, 35g carbs, 4g protein
  • White Cheddar Cheese Popcorn, Smartfood, 1 package: 120 calories, 8g fat, 11g carbs, 2g protein

Nuts/Seeds

  • Planters Sunflower Kernels, 1 package (1.75 oz): 290 calories, 25g fat, 9g carbs, 11g protein
  • Planters Salted Peanuts, 49g (1.75oz): 290 calories, 25g fat, 8g carbs, 13g protein

Cookies/Pastry/Bars

  • Mini Chips Ahoy!, snack pack (56g): 270 calories, 13g fat, 38g carbs, 3g protein
  • Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts (2 pastries): 
410 calories, 10g fat, 75g carbs, 4g protein
  • Hostess Fruit Pie, apple: 470 calories, 20g fat, 70g carbs, 4g protein
  • Fig Newtons, 1 package: 200 calories, 4g fat, 40g carbs, 2g protein
  • Quaker Chewy Low-Fat Granola Bar, Chocolate Chunk, 1 bar: 
90 calories, 2g fat, 19g carbs, 1g protein
  • Nature Valley Granola Bar, Crunchy Oats and Honey, 2 bars: 190 calories, 6g fat, 29g carbs, 4g protein

Candy


  • Skittles (original), 2.17 oz:
240 calories, 2.5g fat, 56g carbs, 0g protein
  • Twix, 2 cookies:
250 calories, 12g fat, 34g carbs, 2g protein
  • 3 Musketeers, king size:
200 calories, 6g fat, 36g carbs, 1g protein
  • Peanut M&Ms, 1 pack:
250 calories, 13g fat, 30g carbs, 5g protein
  • Snickers, regular size: 250 calories, 12g fat, 33g carbs, 4g protein

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’s Your Favorite Movie Theater Food?

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Large popcornWhen you go to the movies what do you usually notice first?  After the cost of the ticket, it’s probably is the delicious smell of freshly popped (maybe) popcorn. It’s no accident that the concession stand with it’s popcorn popper and glass cases filled with the candy that reminds you that you were once a carefree kid — is right smack in the middle of the lobby.  It’s there to send your already conditioned eyes, nose, and salivary glands an urgent message:  “Buy some”!

I Don’t Care, I’m Going To Have It Anyway

Even if you make it through the lobby without buckets and boxes in hand, all you have to do is sit down in the theater with someone near you noisily munching away.  Up you go – back to the lobby and the concession stand.

It’s amazing what triggers us to eat. There’s a research study by the Cornell food lab that shows that people overeat when they have large portions — even when they don’t like the food. Moviegoers given stale popcorn in big buckets ate 34% more than people who were given the medium size of the same stale popcorn. People who had large buckets of fresh popcorn ate 45% more than people with the medium size.

If you’re going to eat it, do it mindfully.  Would a small size rather than jumbo do it for you?  How about a regular candy bar instead of a king size?  If the popcorn, pretzels, or nachos are  stale and nasty do you really want them?  Ditch the soda for plain old water or a sugar free drink. You could bring some healthy snacks with you — like a lower calorie protein bar or trail mix (a crunchy apple doesn’t lend itself to quiet eating).

FYI:  Some Popular Movie Theater Snacks – And Their Calorie Counts

(Note the serving sizes, movie theater boxes of candy are often huge and may be double or triple the size shown below and what’s a large popcorn in one theater chain might be a medium in another. The number of cups of popcorn sounds craze – but that’s how much is in the bucket or bag that’s commonly available.)

Popcorn, Nachos, Soft Pretzel

  • Buttered popcorn, small, 5 cups:  470 calories, 35g fat
  • Buttered popcorn, large, 20 cups:  1640 calories, 126g fat
  • Cheese nachos, large (4 oz):  1100 calories, 60g fat
  • Soft pretzel, large (5 oz):  480 calories, 5g fat

Soda and Lemonade

  • Coke, small (18 oz:218 calories, 0g fat
  • Coke, large (44 oz):  534 calories, 0g fat
  • Minute Maid Lemonade (18 oz):  248 calories, 0g fat
  • Minute Maid Lemonade (44 oz):  605 calories, 0g fat

Candy

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

Brunch: Is It Lunch Or Breakfast – And Do you End Up Eating Both?

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brunch-calories-graphicDo you have trouble keeping the calories in check at a brunch or a buffet? It’s pretty darn hard with all of that tempting food staring you in the face. It’s even harder when there’s both tempting food and you’re with lots of friends having a good time — a classic recipe for mindless (over)eating.

A sit down brunch is a little easier to control than a buffet.  At least you’re ordering something specific and not subjected to the myriad of delectable choices at a buffet.

You still have to deal with overflowing bread and pastry baskets and multiple mimosas or bloody marys – but the best bet is to make a deal with yourself ahead of time about how many drinks and how many baked goods you will allow yourself to have.  Ahead of time is key – staring at freshly baked muffins while you decide what not to eat makes a reasoned decision pretty difficult!

Here’s Some Tips For Handling A Buffet/Brunch:

  • Choose a seat that puts your back to the buffet table or kitchen spread and preferably some distance away. How long can you sit and stare at those sticky buns without wanting one?  Not having them in your line of sight helps to keep your mind out of the “I’ve got to have it” mode.
  • Distance helps, too.  Having to get up and walk past lots of people, many of whom you know, with a plate filled to the brim can serve as a “seconds” and “thirds” deterrent.
  • Before putting any food on your plate, just cruise the buffet eyeballing all of the choices and decide what you’ll have before you start filling your plate.  Make trade-offs:  a sticky-bun and coffee instead of a couple of drinks and a second slice of toast . . .
  • What’s going to energize you and what are you going to eat the rest of the day? If you think you can eat at 11AM and have no food until the next day, bad decision.  By late afternoon you’ll probably be so hungry that you’ll head for pizza or a cheeseburger while promising yourself you’ll get back on track the next day.
  • Have a good meal that will fill you up, keep your blood sugar at a nice level, and tastes good so you don’t feel deprived. What does that mean?  Some protein and some complex carbs.  Easy on the fat and simple carbs.
  • Put your food on a smaller rather than larger plate (look for the smaller plates near the salad/fruit section) and you’ll fill up your plate and your stomach with fewer calories.
  • If you decide you really will feel totally deprived if you don’t indulge in one of those delicious baked goods, try to choose one without loads of thick buttery crumbs on top, cut it in half and be satisfied with that amount.  Put it on a separate small plate that you can easily push away from you.  Keeping it on your main plate means you’ll be nibbling at it the entire time.
  • Enforce the no seconds rule:  take what you want the first time, eat it and enjoy it, and stay away from reloads.
  • If you indulge, don’t beat yourself up – keep the 80/20 rule in mind.  Eat well 80% of the time and 20% of the time allow for some indulgences. Total deprivation never works and leaves you vulnerable to a major “raid the fridge” or “hit the bakery” attack.  Instead, plan ahead, know you’re going to indulge, choose carefully, and enjoy your choices – without going overboard.

Is It Coffee, A Frappuccino, A Coolatta, Or Dessert?

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iced-coffee-signWhen the weather heats up, the coffee drinks cool down.  Unfortunately, some of those delicious iced and frozen coffee drinks – whether they’re from a coffee shop or from a can — 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:  a 12 ounce cup has 60 calories.

Calories in Some Iced And Frozen Coffee Drinks

Note: all info (with the exception of Burger King) is for a 16 oz 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 Coolatta 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):  80 calories, 0g fat, 13g 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

Ways To Shave Calories From Iced Coffee Drinks

  • Ditch the whipped cream.
  • Swap full fat or 2% milk for 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, or 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, 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.