Have you ever tried to eat a sandwich with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and pickles? It’s hard enough to do when you can eat over a plate on a stable table – trying to eat it in a car means ending up holding two pieces of bread with a lap full of pickles and tomatoes.

Road trip food should meet certain “save your clothes and car” requirements:

• It won’t fall apart, isn’t sticky or slimy, isn’t juicy/watery, and won’t break into a million little pieces when you try to eat it
• It fits into a cooler (remember ice packs) or doesn’t need to be refrigerated
• It’s reasonably healthy and tasty
• It’s grab and go –you don’t need a knife, fork, or spoon to eat it (unless you pull over and have your own picnic) and it doesn’t need to be assembled
• It doesn’t stink – how long do you want to drive smelling of onions, garlic, or stinky cheese.
• Remember napkins, moist towelettes, and something for garbage.

Road Trip Snacks That Are Easy To Eat

Grab and go food is the name of the game. It’s dangerous to be distracted while you’re driving, so if you can eat something that’s non-messy and easily held in one hand, the food distraction is minimized.

Candy bars and bags of chips are pretty easy to eat — especially if you don’t mind chocolate smears on you and your car, fingers stained orange from chips, and crumbs everywhere you look. But how do you feel after eating them? If that candy bar is going to make you feel drowsy or lousy, maybe something that’s a little more nutritious and packs some protein is a better idea.

Some Suggestions

This is by no means an extensive list – it is meant to get you to think about what fuels you and leaves you feeling energetic, not grumpy and tired.

• Anything in a pita: Pick your favorite protein food and some not too slippery vegetables and pile them into a pita. Make sure you just create a pocket and don’t cut all the way through. The pocket and the texture of the pita hold the interior ingredients in nicely.

• Cheese and crackers: Try some cheese sticks or the smaller easy open wax encased snack-sized cheeses (Baby Bel). Bread sticks and whole grain crackers pair well with cheese and fruit.

• Grapes, cherry or grape tomatoes, baby carrots or any other hand held fruit or vegetables: Great road trip fruit and vegetables because they are bite-sized and not messy – with no residue. Apples and pears are easy handheld food, too, although you have leftover residue (easily solved with a garbage bag) and possible juice down the arm.

• Nuts: tasty, nutritious, with some protein – and easy to eat one by one. Pairs well with some dried fruit and/or cheese.

• Peanut butter (or almond or sunflower butter) and jelly sandwiches:  choose dense bread that won’t get soggy. Sandwich the jelly between the nut butter – spread the nut butter on both pieces of bread and put the jelly inside so it’s less likely to ooze out.

• Jerky: High in protein, comes in single serve portions, and easy to eat while you’re driving.

• Leftover pizza, grilled chicken, or other meat.

• Already peeled hard-boiled eggs.

• Whole grain cereal with crunch: combine it with some dried fruit and/or nuts and you have your own trail.

• Granola
or protein bars: they come in lots of flavors and textures – just read the label, especially the grams of protein to make sure you’re not eating a candy bar in disguise.

• Popcorn: check the label for added ingredients, but popcorn can be a great crunchy snack that’s not a caloric disaster (unless it has a lot of added fat and sugar).

If You Hit the Vending Machines for a Snack or Two …

It’s almost inevitable that sooner or later you’ll have your next sharing moment with a vending machine: you share your money and the machine shares its calories.

When you’re tempted to kick a vending machine when it’s swallowed your money with no food in return – be gentle — they actually have a holy history!

Around 215 BC the mathematician Hero invented a vending device that accepted bronze coins to dispense holy water. Vending didn’t really became economically viable until 1888 when the Adams Gum Company put gum machines on New York City’s elevated train platforms. You got a piece of Tutti-Frutti gum for a penny.

Now they’re everywhere: in your hotel, in train stations, and just about every rest stop. They call your name when you’re especially vulnerable: you’re stressed, tired, bored, and your blood sugar is traveling south—all of which means the sweet, fatty, and salty junk food behind those glass windows is all the more alluring.

When a vending machine calls your name, choose wisely. There are good, better, and best choices to be made.

Even Though Your Options Aren’t Perfect, Make The Best Choice For You

• Try to pick something with some protein. Too much sugar will spike then crash your blood sugar making you cranky, drowsy, and hungry for more sweet and fatty food. Not good for driving or for the other passengers in the car.
• You can almost always find packages of nuts, or popcorn, or pretzels, or dried fruit.
• Your choice depends on what you want: protein or sweet satisfaction, fill-you-up fiber or salty crunch.

Common Vending Machine Choices

Crunchy

Baked Lays Potato Chips: 130 calories, 2 grams of fat, 26 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Baked Doritos, Nacho Cheese: 170 calories, 5 grams of fat, 29 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein

Cheez-It Baked Snack Crackers: 180 calories, 9 grams of fat, 20 grams carbs, 4 grams of protein

Ruffles Potato Chips: 240 calories, 15 grams of fat, 23 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein. 12 Ruffles potato chips have 160 calories, 10g fat

Cheetos, Crunchy: 150 calories, 10 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Fritos (28g, about 32 chips): 160 calories, 10g fat

Sun Chips Original: 210 calories, 10 grams of fat, 28 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein

Snyder’s of Hanover Mini Pretzels: 160 calories, no fat, 35 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein.

Rold Gold Pretzel sticks (28g, 48 pretzels):  100 calories, 0g fat

White Cheddar Cheese Popcorn, Smartfood: 120 calories, 8 grams of fat, 11 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Nuts/Seeds

Planters Sunflower Kernels: 290 calories, 25 grams of fat, 9 grams of carbs, 11 grams of protein

Planters Salted Peanuts: 290 calories, 25 grams of fat, 8 grams of carbs, 13 grams of protein

Planter’s Dry Roasted Peanuts, one ounce:  170 calories, 14g fat, 2g sugars

Blue Diamond Almonds, one ounce:  170 calories, 14g fat 0 sugars

Planter’s Nut & Chocolate Trail Mix, one ounce:  160 calories, 10g fat, 13g sugars

Cookies/Pastry/Bars

Mini Chips Ahoy: 270 calories, 13 grams of fat, 38 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein

Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts (2 pastries): 410 calories, 10 grams of fat, 75 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Hostess Fruit Pie, apple: 470 calories, 20 grams of fat, 70 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Fig Newtons: 200 calories, 4 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Quaker Chewy Low-Fat Granola Bar, Chocolate Chunk: 90 calories, 2 grams of fat, 19 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein

Nature Valley Granola Bar, Crunchy Oats and Honey (2 bars): 190 calories, 6 grams of fat, 29 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Candy

Skittles: 240 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 56 grams of carbs, no protein

Twix (2 cookies): 250 calories, 12 grams of fat, 34 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

3 Musketeers, king size: 200 calories, 6 grams of fat, 36 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein

Peanut M&Ms: 250 calories, 13 grams of fat, 30 grams of carbs, 5 grams of protein

Snickers, regular size: 250 calories, 12 grams of fat, 33 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Is there a road trip in your future?

The Summer issue of Eat Out Eat Well Magazine is ready to help you eat well when you’re in the car or grabbing some food at rest stops or roadside diners.

Get it now from iTunes or the Google Play Store for $1.99 an issue or $4.99 for a yearly subscription (four seasonal issues).

The post What Are Good Road Trip Snacks? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Check Out The Calories

A lot of cool, refreshing drinks come with a hefty dose of calories. You might be surprised how many are in a drink you’ve been having for years.

According to CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest), carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet.  It’s easy to forget about the calories in sugared sports drinks, sweetened ice teas, juices, and alcoholic beverages.

Alcohol isn’t a caloric bargain – it has 7 calories per gram (protein and carbs have 4 calories per gram and fat has 9 calories per gram). Add sweetened juices, syrups, or soda to your alcohol, and you could be drinking a significant portion of your suggested daily calorie allowance.

It helps to do some research to figure out what’s your best choice to grab from the deli, the food truck, the coffee shop, or at the bar.

Can you be satisfied with a bottle of beer that has around 100 calories rather than another brand that has around 300 – or water with a hint of flavor instead of a sports drink?

To help you with your choices, here are the calories in some summer favorites:

Water and Sports Drinks

• Gatorade, 12 ounces:  80 calories
• Gatorade G Orange, 12 ounce bottle:  80 calories
• Gatorade G2 Perform Low Calorie Orange, 8 ounces: 20 calories
• SoBe Lifewater, 20 ounces: 90 calories
• Sobe Lifewater 0 calories Black & Blue Berry, 8 ounces: 0 calories
• Glaceau Smart Water, 33.8 ounces: 0 calories
• Vitamin Water, 20 ounces: 125 calories
• Vitamin Water 10, 20 ounces: 25 calories
• Perrier Citron Lemon Lime, 22 ounce bottle:  0 calories
• Vitamin Water Focus Kiwi-Strawberry, 20 ounce bottle:  125 calories
• Hint Blackberry, 16 ounce bottle:  0 calories
• Powerade, Grape, 8 ounces: 50 calories
• Propel Kiwi-Strawberry, 8 ounces: 10 calories
• Water (as much as you want):  0 calories

Iced Coffee and Tea Drinks

• Dunkin’ Donuts Vanilla Bean Coolatta, 16 ounces: 430 calories
• Dunkin’ Donuts Sweet Tea, 16 ounces: 120 calories
• Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino, 16 ounces (grande): 240 calories
• Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino light, 16 ounces grande: 110 calories
• Tazo Unsweetened Shaken Iced Passion Tea:  0 calories
• Iced Brewed Coffee with classic syrup, 12 ounces (tall): 60 calories
• Red Bull Energy Drink, 8.4 ounces, 110 calories

Soda and Non-Carbonated Drinks

• Mountain Dew, 20 ounce bottle: 290 calories
• Coke Classic, 20 ounce bottle: 233 calories
• Diet coke, 20 ounce bottle: 0 calories
• Snapple Orangeade, 16 ounces:  200 calories
• San Pelligrino Limonata, 11.15 ounce can:  141 calories
• Can of Coke, 12 ounces:  140 calories
• Bottle of 7Up, 12 ounces:  150 calories
• Root beer float, large, 32 ounces:  640 calories

Beer (12 ounce bottle)

• Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale: 330 calories
• Samuel Adams Boston Lager: 180 calories
• Guinness Extra Stout: 176 calories
• Pete’s Wicked Ale: 174 calories
• Harpoon IPA: 170 calories
• Heineken: 166 calories
• Killian’s Irish Red: 163 calories
• Long Trail: 163 calories
• Molson Ice: 160 calories
• Samuel Adams Brown Ale:  160 calories
• Budweiser:  144 calories
• Corona Light: 105 calories
• Coors Light: 102 calories
• Heineken Light: 99 calories
• Budweiser Select: 99 calories
• Miller Light: 96 calories
• Amstel Light: 95 calories
• Anheuser Busch Natural Light: 95 calories
• Michelob Ultra: 95 calories
• Miller MGD 64:  64 calories
• Beck’s Premier Light: 64 calories

Wine

• Red Wine, 5 ounces: 129 calories
• White Wine, 5 ounces: 120 calories
• Sangria, 8 ounces: 176 calories

Alcoholic Drinks

• Mojito, 7 ounces: 172 calories
• Frozen Magarita, 4 ounces: 180 calories (the average margarita glass holds 12 ounces, 540 calories)
• Mimosa:  137 calories
• Gin and Tonic:  175 calories

Want more information about low calorie fun in the sun?  Get my book from Amazon.

The post How Many Calories Are In Your Favorite Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic Summer Drinks? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

George Washington: “I cannot tell a lie, father, you know I cannot tell a lie! I did cut it [the cherry tree] with my little hatchet.”

It’s President’s Day weekend in the US and in honor of George  Washington, cherry trees, cherries, and the pie you can make with cherries – why not take a look at pies. What a segue!

Pies are anytime food – they come sweet and savory – but for many of us, “pie” conjures up sweet filling piled on top of – or in — a crust.

Some Pie History

Pie shells were originally just containers used for baking, storage, and serving — the crust was often too hard to actually eat. The first pies were savory meat pies, called “coffins” or “coffyns,” with tall, straight sides and sealed bottoms and lids. There were also open-crust pies, or “traps,” which served as casseroles for meat and sauce.

Early forms of pies, or galettes (essentially rustic free-form pies), can loosely be traced back to circa 9500 BC Neolithic Egyptians.

The ancient Greeks, who are thought to have been the originators of pie pastry, made a flour-water paste they wrapped around meat to seal in the juices as it cooked. After they conquered Greece, the Romans brought home pie recipes.  From there, the idea and practicality of pie spread throughout Europe with different cultures creating pies that suited their customs and local food.

Pie Comes To The Colonies

In the 1600s, the Pilgrims brought English-style, meat-based pies to the colonies. Crusty pie tops helped to both preserve food and to keep fillings fresh and colonists cooked lots of pies, both sweet and savory, using local ingredients along with berries, fruit, cinnamon, pepper, and nutmeg.

As settlers moved westward, more pies with regional flavors and ingredients were developed using fruit, berries but vegetables and game discovered with the help of Indians. Pies were delicious and practical — they required less flour than bread and could be more easily and cheaply baked. Apple trees produced fruit that was easy to dry and store in barrels during the winter, and apple pie became a mainstay: “As American as apple pie.”

What’ll ya have?  A cuppa joe and a piece of pie.

Today, no matter where you get your pie: the bakery, the local diner, or straight from your oven, the sweet treat can carry a big caloric punch. There is a huge difference in calories (and nutrition) between different kinds of pie.

To help you “have your pie and eat it, too” shown below are the calories in different kinds of pie. If you want to save a few calories:

• choose the type of pie that has fewer calories than another kind.
• Be aware of the size of the slice – some are huge, some are slivers
• How many crusts, one or two – there are a lot more calories in a two crust pie
• How much od the piece are you eating? No one says you have to eat all of a gargantuan piece and no one says you have to eat all of the crust.
• What’s in the filling?  Some pies have way more calories than others. Recipes vary significantly – the average numbers shown below can give you an idea of good, better, and best pie choices — not in terms of flavor or the artistry of the baker, but for a general comparison of calories.  You’re going to be surprised!.

Pie Crust Facts (1/8 of a pie)

•  Tulip                    60   calories
• Ginger snaps       60   calories
• Graham cracker   100 calories
• Ready-made        120 calories
• Homemade          149 calories

Average Calories in Popular Pies

•  Apple, commercially prepared, 1/8 of 9” pie:  296 calories
• Apple, prepared from recipe, 1/8 of 9” pie:  411 calories
• Banana cream, prepared from recipe, 1/8 of 9″ pie: 387 calories
• Blueberry, commercially prepared, 1/8 of 9” pie:  290 calories
• Blueberry, prepared from recipe, 1/8 of 9” pie: 360 calories
• Cherry, commercially prepared, 1/8 of 9” pie:  325 calories
• Cherry, prepared from recipe, 1/8 of 9” pie:  486 calories
• Chocolate creme, commercially prepared, 1/6 of 8” pie:  344 calories
• Coconut custard, commercially prepared, 1/6 of 8” pie:  270 calories
• Lemon meringue, commercially prepared, 1/6 of 8” pie:  303 calories
• Lemon meringue, prepared from recipe, 1/8 of 9” pie:  362 calories
• Mince, prepared from recipe, 1/8 of 9” pie:  477 calories
• Peach, 1/6 of 8” pie:  261 calories
• Pecan, commercially prepared, 1/6 of 8” pie:  452 calories
• Pecan, prepared from recipe, 1/8 of 9” pie:  503 calories
• Pumpkin, commercially prepared, 1/6 of 8” pie:  229 calories
• Pumpkin, prepared from recipe, 1/8 of 9” pie:  316
• Vanilla cream, prepared from recipe, 1/8 of 9” pie:  350 calories

The post Love Pie? Did You Know There’s A Huge Variation In Calories? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

1.  Leave some space for the holiday specials, but, in general, aim to practice portion control with the higher calorie foods and pile your plate high with the lower calorie vegetables. When you take in more calories than your body needs and uses, you’ll gain weight.

2.  Your body can handle a certain amount of “big meal” overeating (Thanksgiving, the occasional holiday party).  The problems with the scale happen when poor choices and expanded portions become daily rather than occasional events. It’s difficult during the long holiday season not to indulge on large portions and frequent treats.  Be attentive to what and how much you’re eating. Even a controlled portion of a holiday treat several times a week – or even everyday — is better than multiple large portions everyday from Thanksgiving through New Years.

3.  Choose your food wisely.  If you can, pick lean proteins like fish, poultry, and the least fatty cuts of pork, beef, and lamb that are grilled or broiled, not fried or sautéed. Load up on vegetables – preferably ones that are not smothered in cheese or dripping with oil. Eat your turkey without the skin.

4.  Work on eating a larger portion of fruit and veggies and less of the densely caloric foods like pastas swimming in oil and cheese. Consider beans or eggs as your protein source. But beware: it’s easy to be fooled by fatty sauces and dressings on innocent looking vegetables. Vegetables are great.  Veggies smothered with butter, cheese, croutons, and/or bacon are loaded with calories.

5.  Leave the breadbasket at the other end of the table.  If you absolutely must have bread, go without butter or oil. Harder breadsticks generally have fewer calories than the soft breads and rolls.  One teeny pat of butter has 36 calories, a tablespoon has 102 and 99% of them are from fat.  A tablespoon of oil has about 120 calories.  Would you rather have the oil or butter or a cookie for dessert or another glass of wine? Which calories will be more satisfying?

6.  Don’t eat all of the piecrust. You can save around 200 calories at dessert by leaving the piecrust sitting on the plate and nixing (or decreasing) ice cream toppings like hot fudge sauce and whipped cream.

7.  Is a half enough? If you decide you really will feel totally deprived if you don’t indulge in one of those delicious baked goods, choose one without loads of thick buttery crumbs on top, cut it in half or in thirds 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 or even a smaller one that’s easily reachable means you’ll be nibbling away at it the entire time.

8.  It’s the mindless calories that are probably the most dangerous. For some reason we don’t seem to mentally process all of those random nibbles and calories from the treats on the receptionist’s desk, the neighbor’s homemade peanut brittle, the office party holiday toasts, the second and third helpings, or the holiday cookies in the snack room.  If the food is in front of you it’s hard not to indulge.  See it = eat it.

9.  Don’t skimp or skip meals.  Feed yourself well. Your body needs good nutrition. If you skip meals to try to save up calories you’ll just end up (over)eating because you’re starving, your blood sugar will be  in the basement, and your body will be screaming, “feed me.”  When that happens, you head straight for the carbs right off the bat – and it’s almost always all downhill from there.  Not a great tactic for your body or your mind – or for your general mood.

For more helpful hints download my book from Amazon:  30 Ways To Eat Your Holiday Favorites And Still Get Into Your Jeans.

New from iTunes:  Eat Out Eat Well magazine for iPhones and iPads. Head on over and take a look!

The post What’s On Your Holiday Plate? 9 Easy Calorie Saving Tips appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

2.  Do you really need to stand in front of the picnic table, kitchen table, or barbecue?  The further away from the food you are the less likely you are to eat it. Don’t sit or stand where you can see the food that’s calling your name. Keep your back to it if you can’t keep distant. There’s just so much control you can exercise before “see it = eat it.”  If staying near the food gets to be too much, go for a walk, a swim, or engage someone in an animated conversation. It’s pretty hard to shove food in your mouth when you’re busy talking.

3.  Before you grab some tasty ribs, dogs, burgers or pie — ask yourself if you really want it.  Are you hungry?  Is it worth the calories?  Odds are, the tempting display of food in front of you is visually seductive – and may smell great, too — but you’re reaching out to eat what’s in front of you for reasons not dictated by your stomach but by your eyes. Have you decided that you want to splurge on something specific? Try picking it ahead of time and commit to your choice so you don’t find yourself wavering in the face of temptation.

The post 3 Easy Barbecue and Picnic Tips To Avoid Overeating appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

The biggest problem is that we often don’t realize that we’re shoving food into our mouths – either because we’re distracted, we don’t want to know, or we just plain old don’t care.

What Makes Us Do It?

1.  “Cheap” calories: the kind you find at all you can eat restaurants, freebie tastes in markets, the basket of broken cookies in the bakery, and “value and super sized meals.”

2.  Bread and extras like butter, olive oil, and olives on the table or bar peanuts or pretzels.  Way too tempting to pass up – especially if you’re hungry or you’ve walked in with the attitude that you “deserve” it because you’ve had a tough day.

3.  Walking into your kitchen or the snack room at work and having your favorite snacks staring you in the face (see it = eat it).

4.  Procrastinating or avoiding doing what you have to do by having a snack.

5.  Watching TV with a bag of chips or a bowl of candy on your lap.

6.  Parties— especially when you drink — causing you to lose count and control of what you’re grabbing to eat.

7.  Food and coffee shops on every corner that offer lots of food, lots of variety, and are open all the time.

8.  The in(famous) sugar/fat/salt combination in baked goods, fast food, candy, fast food, frozen food, and processed food.

9.  Food that your family or roommates insist must be in the house – or that you think they want in the house.

10.  Feeling tired, stressed, overwhelmed, bored, angry, or “out-of-sorts” and turning to food as a “pick-me-up” or for comfort.

11.  Mindless bites – a piece of candy from the open bowl on a desk, a taste of your partner’s dessert, finishing your child’s food (especially dripping ice cream cones).

12.  Being a member of the clean plate club – which also extends to polishing off leftovers and finishing the last bits left in the pan or serving dishes as you clean up.

The post A Dozen Really Common Reasons We Eat When We’re Not Hungry appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

It’s August and time to have warm weather fun.  Here’s some help!

The post Have Some Free Low-Calorie Fun In The Sun! appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

• 12 ounces of beer
• 8 ounces of malt liquor
• 5 ounces of wine (not dessert wine or port)
• 1.5 ounces or a “shot” of 80-proof distilled spirits or liquor (gin, rum, vodka, or whiskey, etc.)

So, if you’re comparing a standard portion of one form of alcohol to another, there is the approximate equivalent of alcohol in each drink.

But – take note of the portion sizes.  If the hand that pours puts 10 ounces of wine into a large wine glass (not unheard of) you are actually getting twice the amount of alcohol that you would get in a 12 ounce bottle of beer of a standard shot glass (1.5 ounces) of 80-proof liquor.

Calories From Alcohol Don’t Make You Feel Full

When you drink your calories your body doesn’t actually feel satisfied. Except for perhaps milk or other protein drinks, fluid intake doesn’t typically trigger production of the hormones that tell your brain that you’ve fed your stomach.  Most liquid calories don’t produce “satiety” or the feeling of “being full,” which your brain takes as the cue to stop eating.

This is especially true if you’re slowly sipping your drink — but research has shown that even if the temporary bloat you feel after rapidly downing a beer is no substitute for satiety.

(FYI: even if you don’t feel full, the alcohol you’ve drunk still has 7 calories per gram compared to 4 calories per gram for carbohydrates and protein and 9 calories per gram for fat.)

How Many Calories Are In Your Glass Of Wine?

The standard serving of wine (5 ounces) is probably visually smaller than you think. Wine glasses can generally hold a lot more, and depending on who’s pouring, can be filled with many more than 5 ounces.

Most standard servings of wine have 125-150 calories, but the calories can double depending on the size of the glass and how far it’s filled up.  Sweet and dessert wines are more caloric than table wine and champagne, although the serving size is generally smaller.

For comparison, on average, a 12 ounce bottle of beer has around 153 calories and 1.5 ounces (a jigger) of 80 proof liquor has around 97 calories.

As an experiment, try filling up your usual wine glass – using water—to simulate the amount of wine you would usually pour, and then measure that amount in a measuring cup.  You might be shocked to find that the serving you’re used to pouring is double the standard serving size.

You may have your preference – most of us do – but whether it’s red, white, dry, sweet, or sparkling, it is really easy to overlook the calories in those long-stemmed glasses.

If you have dessert wine after dinner it’s about double the calories per ounce although the standard serving is less:  usually 2 to 3 ounces.  So add on about another 100 to 150 calories for each glass of that smooth dessert wine.

Approximate Calories in One Ounce Of  Various Wines:

Champagne: 19 calories

Red wine (burgundy, cabernet):  25 calories

Dry white wine (Chablis, reisling, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc):  24 calories

Rose:  20 calories

Sweet white wine (moselle, sauterne, zinfandel):  28 calories

Port (about 20% alcohol):  46 calories

Sweet dessert wine (tokaji, muscat):  47 calories

Sangria:  about 22 calories (recipes vary)

For more tips get 30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties  available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

The post Is There Less Alcohol And Fewer Calories In a Serving Of Wine Than There Is In Beer Or A Standard Drink? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

How do you like your coffee?  Black, light and sweet, regular?  Do you stand in front of the sugar and milk adding and pouring until the color and taste are just  right?

Coffee Calories Are Sneaky

There are about two calories in eight ounces of unsweetened black brewed coffee – doesn’t matter if it’s hot or iced. Not a bad deal.

What a lot of us don’t think about is how many calories are in the stuff we put into our coffee.

The Add-Ins

Half and half, 2 tablespoons (1/8 cup):  40 calories

Whole milk, 2 tablespoons:  18 calories

2% (low fat) milk, 2 tablespoons:  14 calories

Non-fat milk, 2 tablespoons:  11 calories

Sugar, 1 teaspoon:  16 calories

What And How Much Do You Put Into Your Coffee?

How much milk or half and half do you put into your coffee?  We all do a freehand pour.  Try measuring how much you pour and you might be surprised.

How much sugar do you add?

How many times a day do you drink coffee?

How’s This For An Eye-Opener?

Say you have 3 grande (Starbuck’s) – or 3 large (Dunkin donuts) – size coffees a day.  Each is 20 ounces or 2.5 times the size of a traditional 8 ounce cup.

If you add 4 tablespoons of half and half and three teaspoons of sugar to each that’s:

   128 calories for the additives and around 5 calories for the coffee for a total of 133 calories for each grande/large cup of coffee.

   Have three of those and that’s 399 calories a day of coffee your way.

   Do that every day for a year and that’s the equivalent of 145,635 calories, around 41.61 pounds of body fat.   Not everyone drinks that amount of coffee with that amount of half and half and sugar.  But, weight management is a balancing act: If you eat more calories than you burn, you gain weight.  Because 3,500 calories equals about 1 pound (0.45 kilogram) of fat, you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in to lose one pound.  The equation isn’t totally clear-cut because you usually lose a combination of fat, lean tissue, and water.  As weight loss changes take place in your body you might need to decrease your calorie intake even more to continue to lose weight.

But, bottom line, it does make you stop and think about how many calories you really are putting into your coffee – or where your (around the middle) muffin top is coming from.

For more tips get 30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties  available on Amazon.

The post Is Your Coffee Giving You A Muffin Top? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Flavorful, Caloric, and Decorative

The squiggles are attractive and probably provide some deliciousness, but they’re also adding what might amount to a fair amount of calories.

It’s so easy to be fooled by fatty sauces and dressings on innocent looking vegetables. Vegetables are great.  Veggies smothered with butter, cheese, croutons, and/or bacon are loaded with calories.  Restaurants love to use oil and butter for flavor and to make the veggies glistening and mouth watering so they’re often “rinsed” with oil just before they’re sent to your table.

With salad dressings and sauces, the amount of dressing or sauce on a dish is heavily dependent on the hand of the pourer, even when a standard size ladle is used.  You can always ask for sauce on the side, vegetables not to be rinsed, and with no butter or oil added.

If your food is cooked in stock or steam instead of in oil, you save 120 calories per tablespoon of oil.  Flavored oil drizzled on top of your food – like basil oil – will add another 40 calories a teaspoon.  Do you need it or want it?

For more tips get 30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties  available on Amazon.   

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