Eat Out Eat Well

calorie tips

Too Few Veggies — You’re Not Alone!

By 1 Comment

Photoexpress

Despite a couple of years of public health initiatives, an explosion in farmers markets, bagged salads, and a White House garden, Americans still don’t eat enough vegetables.

Only 23% of meals include a vegetable (fries don’t count but lettuce on a burger does) and only 17% of dinners prepared at home include a salad (down from 22% in 1994).  Salads ordered as a main course at either lunch or dinner in restaurants dropped to 5% (10% in 1989).

Only 26% of America’s adults eat vegetables three or more times a day (not including French fries) according to a study recently released by the CDC, way short of the government’s health objectives set a decade ago, and less than half of what public health officials had hoped.

2010 Dietary Guidelines

The just released 2010 Dietary Guidelines (yes, 2010 released in 2011) recommends that as part of a healthy eating pattern we should increase the amount of vegetables and fruit we eat.

That means filling half your plate with fruit and vegetables.  They should be colorful and include a variety of dark green, red, and orange veggies, including beans and peas.

Give Me A Reason I Should Eat More Veggies

Vegetable haters might ask, “Why should I”? There are some really good reasons:

  • They’re low in calories
  • They’re rich in the nutrients we often lack (folate, magnesium, dietary fiber, Vitamins A, C, and K)
  • They may help prevent some chronic diseases
  • They’re linked to lower risks for heart attacks, strokes, and some kinds of cancers.

Why We Don’t Eat Them

Just telling people to eat more vegetables obviously isn’t working. People know veggies are good for you but lots of us don’t want to admit that we don’t eat them or even like them.

Honestly, veggies can be a lot of work. How often do you get home, open your fridge, look at the veggies (if they’re in there) and just admit you’re too tired to cook them?  Cooking fresh stuff does require time and a commitment. And, unfortunately, poorly cooked vegetables can taste terrible – and, especially for out of season or organic, can be costly.  We basically want low cost, tasty, and convenient.

What To Do

  • Change your mindset.  Eating vegetables needs to become a habit – the go to, the default, instead of chips, or cookies, or fries.
  • Think visually:  make one half of your plate a color palate of vegetables.
  • Don’t be intimidated by them.  Learn about them and how to cook them.
  • Experiment with ways to make them taste good (hold off on gobs of butter, cheese, and cream, however, or you’re somewhat defeating your total healthy diet purpose). Try cooking with herbs, broth, and big flavor producers like onions, garlic, and peppers.
  • Check out the way the food industry is making vegetables easier:  fresh cut up vegetables ready to cook; already prepared vegetables to take-out; washed and bagged salad varieties; frozen vegetables ready to pop into the microwave.
  • Expose children’s palates to vegetables.  Make them the norm.  Students who gardened in Berkeley’s “edible schoolyard” program ate one and a half more servings of fruits and vegetables a day than kids who weren’t in the program.
  • Work to make vegetables more affordable and available.  Support farmers’ markets (some markets allow food stamps to be used), rooftop and urban gardens. Get fresh veggies into schools.
  • Plant your own garden or just a pot on the stoop or windowsill.
  • Do what you can to make vegetables an easy choice.

Love Eggs? Worried About Cholesterol? Some News!

By Leave a Comment

Cholesterol. We all have it in our bodies. It’s used to form cell membranes, some hormones, and for other functions. But, too high a level in your blood can be a major risk factor for coronary heart disease.

You get cholesterol in two ways. Your body (mainly your liver) usually makes about 1,000 milligrams a day. You also get it by eating certain foods that contain cholesterol. Animal foods — especially egg yolks, meat, poultry, shellfish, and whole and reduced fat dairy products — contain it. Plant foods don’t.

Your body can usually make all the cholesterol it needs so it’s not necessary to eat it (the liver helps remove some of the excess). Still, the average American man consumes about 337 milligrams of cholesterol daily; the average woman, 217 milligrams.

The American Heart Association recommends limiting your average daily cholesterol intake to less than 300 milligrams; less than 200 milligrams If you have heart disease.

Eggs Used To Be Cholesterol No-Nos

New nutrition data from the USDA’s research service shows that eggs are lower in cholesterol than when they were last analyzed in 2002. The average amount of cholesterol in one large egg is 185 mg, or 14 % less. Vitamin D levels have increased 64% with a large egg containing 41 International Units (IU). Some things have stayed the same:  each large egg is 70 calories and has 6 grams of protein, or 12% of the Recommended Daily Value (RDA).

You can keep within the cholesterol guidelines even eating an egg a day, especially if you choose other low cholesterol foods. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest that eating one whole egg per day does not result in increased blood cholesterol levels but they, too, recommend consuming, on average, less than 300 mg of cholesterol per day.

Why The Change In The Incredible Edible Egg?

Researchers are speculating that it is probably because of changes in the hens’ feed. Hens are now being fed a high quality, nutritionally balanced diet of mostly corn, soybean meal, vitamins and minerals. Research is being done to check this out.

You should start seeing revised nutrition information on egg cartons soon.

Did You Eat 23 Pounds Of Pizza Last Year?

By Leave a Comment

If you did, you’re not alone — actually you’ve got plenty of company!

Our pizza eating habits are amazing.  Whether we buy it fresh or frozen, by the slice or by the pie.  We eat it for takeout or grabbed off of round metal trays plopped on formica tables.  We eat it everywhere and by the ton.

So What’s The Problem?

For the most part:  fat and calories.  Sure, you may not like a particular type of pizza, or perhaps you love round pizzas rather than square ones.  But, if your mouth has started to water at the thought of golden brown crust and cheesy goodness — here’s the downer: that luscious pizza can be a fat and calorie nightmare.  Don’t despair.  Here’s the good news: pizza can be a healthy food choice filled with complex carbs, B-vitamins, calcium, protein, vitamin A, and vitamin C and calorically okay if you choose wisely and don’t eat more than your fair share.

It’s difficult to estimate the number of calories and fat grams in a slice of pizza because the size and depth of the pies and the amount of cheese, meat, or other toppings varies so enormously – and, we all have our preferences..

How Many Calories?

The membership warehouse club Costco has 416 domestic locations, and most of them have a food court that sells pizza, making Costco the 15th largest pizza chain in the US. They  serve a whole lot of pizza and a whole lot of calories. A single slice of Costco pizza is estimated to have 804 calories,  342 of them from from fat.

Mall pizza can be okay — and not okay.  For instance, Sbarro’s Low Carb Cheese Pizza has 310 calories and 14 grams of fat. But, its Low Carb Sausage/Pepperoni Pizza has 560 calories and 35 grams of fat. A slice of the Fresh Tomato Pizza clocks in at 450 calories with 14 grams of fat. Any of Sbarro’s “Gourmet” pizzas have between 610 and 780 calories a slice and more than 20 grams of fat. “Stuffed” pizzas are even worse—790 calories minimum and over 33 grams of fat per slice.

Are You Craving Pizza?

Although we all have out own pizza preferences, the next time you order try some of these tricks to keep your choice on the healthy side:

  • Order thin crust rather than thick doughy crust.
  • Resist the urge to ask for double cheese.
  • Pile on veggies like mushrooms, peppers, olives, tomatoes, onion, broccoli, spinach, asparagus. Some places have salad pizza – great if it’s not loaded with oil.
  • Ask for your pizza to be cheeseless, made with low fat cheese, or “go light on the cheese, please”  (no guarantee but it’s worth it to try).
  • Instead of cheese go for big flavors:  onion, garlic, olives (use them somewhat sparingly because of the oil but they’re a whole lot better than meat).  And Don’t forget anchovies anyone (low in calories)!  A lot of flavor for minimal calories – but you have to like them!
  • Avoid meat toppers. Think about the fat content in sausage, pepperoni, and meatballs.
  • Try to hold it to two slices of pizza and order a salad on the side.
  • If you’re willing (and not embarrassed or grossed out), try blotting the free floating oil that sits on top of a greasy slice. Blotting (it’s easy to do this on the kind of hot slice where the oil runs down your arm)  can soak up a teaspoon of oil worth  40 calories and 5 grams of fat.

Do Fat Free Calories Count?

By Leave a Comment

Do you think you are being oh-so-virtuous by grabbing the reduced fat cookies or crackers off of the supermarket shelf?  I hate to disillusion you, but sometimes there isn’t a big difference in calories between the low or fat free version and the regular version of the same food.

In many reduced and fat free foods the fat is replaced with flour, sweeteners, or other starches and fillers which make the reduction in calories very small or, sometimes, nonexistent.

Reduced Fat Snack Food Hits The Supermarket Shelves

When fat free and reduced fat foods – especially snack foods like cookies, crackers, and chips hit the market — they were touted as products to help with the rising tide of obesity. Even things like pretzels, marshmallows, and gummy bears, foods that never contained fat to begin with, had “fat free” plastered all over their labels.

These fat and reduced fat foods certainly were not a panacea and consumers began to realize that they weren’t the magic bullet they were hoping for. Consumers choosing these foods were eating less fat  — but — they were still eating too many calories.

Calories Are Calories

Whether they’re from fat or carbs or protein, a calorie is a calorie.  If you eat more calories than you need you probably will gain weight. Reducing the amount of fat that you eat is one way to limit your overall calorie intake – as long as you don’t replace those fat calories with calories from another source.

Fat Free Is Not Calorie Free

Unfortunately, many people interpret “fat free” as “calorie free.”

Eating reduced or fat free foods isn’t always the answer to losing weight –especially when you eat more of the reduced fat food than you would of the regular one. And, because a lot of fat free foods aren’t very filling, it’s easier to eat a lot of calories and not feel full.

How Many Calories?

Compare the calories in the reduced or fat free versions to the regular version:

  • Reduced fat peanut butter, 2 tablespoons:  187 calories;  Regular peanut butter, 2 tablespoons:  191 calories
  • 3 reduced fat chocolate chip cookies, (30 g):  118 calories;  3 regular chocolate chip cookies, (30 g): 142 calories
  • 2 fat free fig cookies:  102 calories;  2 regular fig cookies:  111 calories
  • 1 small (2½ inch) low fat blueberry muffin:  131 calories; 1 small (2 ½ inch) regular blueberry muffing:  138 calories
  • 2 tablespoons fat free caramel topping:  103 calories; 2 tablespoons homemade (with butter) caramel topping:  103 calories
  • ½ cup fat free vanilla frozen yogurt (<1% fat):  111 calories;  ½ cup whole milk vanilla frozen yogurt (3-4% fat):  133 calories
  • Low fat cereal bar: 130 calories;  Regular cereal bar: 140 calories
  • 16 Low Fat Wheat Thins:  130 calories;  16 regular wheat thins: 150 calories
  • 3 low fat Oreo cookies: 150 calories;  3 original Oreo cookies: 160 calories

What Are You Drinking To Toast The New Year?

By Leave a Comment

So many of us toast to the New Year with drink in hand – alcoholic or not.

Here’s a quick primer so you can make some informed choices:

  • A standard drink is 1.5 ounces of hard liquor, 5 ounces of wine, or 12 ounces of beer.
  • Nutritionally:
  1. 12 ounces of beer has 153 calories and 13.9 grams of alcohol
  2. 12 ounces of lite beer has 103 calories and 11 grams of alcohol
  3. 5 ounces red wine has 125 calories and 15.6 grams of alcohol
  4. 5 ounces of white wine has 121 calories and 15.1 grams of alcohol
  5. 1 1/2 ounces (a jigger) of 80 proof (40% alcohol) liquor has 97 calories and 14 grams of alcohol
  • Alcohol has 7 calories per gram but doesn’t fill you up the way food does, so you can drink a lot and not feel stuffed.
  • Alcohol lowers your inhibitions and your resolve not to eat everything at the buffet table often flies right out the window.
  • Eating something before drinking can help blunt alcohol’s intoxicating effects.
  • Drinking light beer rather than regular saves about 50 calories a bottle.
  • Mixed drinks and fancy drinks significantly up the calories.   For instance,
  1. A frozen margarita has about 45 calories an ounce
  2. A plain martini, no olives or lemon twist, has about 61 calories an ounce
  3. An 8-ounce white Russian made with light cream has 715 calories.
  4. The alcohol, heavy cream, eggs, and sugar in a cup of eggnog has about 343 calories and 19 grams of fat
  5. Mulled wine, a combination of red wine, sugar/honey, spices, orange and lemon peel has about 210 to 300 calories per 5 ounces, depending on how much sweetener is added.
  • Watch your mixers — per ounce club soda has no calories, tonic has10, classic coke has 12, Canada Dry ginger ale has 11, orange juice has 15, and cranberry juice has 16.
  • And, if you’re toasting to health and happiness in the New Year with champagne – it’s a comparative caloric bargain at about 19 calories an ounce! To your health!

My very best wishes for a very happy and healthy New Year.

I invite you to receive more healthy eating facts, tips, and trivia by signing up for delivery of My foodMAPs directly to your email inbox or RSS feed.  Just enter your email address in the box in the left hand margin (on the MyfoodMAPs home page).  While you’re at it, please sign up for my monthly newsletter, Eat Out, Eat Well.  I look forward to keeping you informed and entertained.