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Did You Eat 23 Pounds Of Pizza Last Year?

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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.

Other People May Make You Eat More

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Reservations for eight? You might eat 96% more! No kidding.  We tend to continue eating for a longer period of time when we’re with people compared to when we eat alone.  Maybe it’s because we mindlessly nibble while someone else talks, or the good manners we learned in fifth grade, or because we’re just having fun and enjoying great food. We do tend to stay at the table longer when we’re with others and the longer you stay at the table, the more you eat.

Losing Track

Friends and family also influence how much you eat. Sometimes you can get so involved in conversation that all the monitoring of what pops into your mouth goes out the window.  Have you ever looked down at your plate and wondered where all the cookies went or how you managed to work your way through the mile high dish of pasta or the four pieces of pizza?  How many tastes did you take of everyone else’s meal and dessert?  Those tastes aren’t like invisible ink.  Those calories count, too.

Who Sets the Pace?

You tend to mimic your table companions. They eat fast, you eat fast.  They eat a lot, you eat a lot.  Ever wonder why you look at some families or couples and they’re both either heavy or slender?  As Brian Wansink, PhD says in his book, Mindless Eating, “birds of a feather eat together.”

How Much More?

Wansink reports on a study that shows how strong the tendency is to increase how much you eat when you eat with others.  Compared to eating alone, you eat, on average:

  • 35% more if you eat with one other person
  • 75% more with four at the table
  • 96% more with a group of seven or more

Why?

The pattern of eating more when we’re in larger groups than when we’re eating alone is common in adults. One reason is a phenomenon called “social facilitation,” or the actions that stem from the stimuli coming from the sight and sound of other people doing the same that that you’re doing. When you’re eating in groups, social facilitation can help override the brain’s normal signals of satiety.

Some Helpful Tips:

  • Think about who you are eating with – and why.  If you want to have a blast and don’t care about how much you eat – eat with a big group and chow down.
  • If you want to be careful about what and how much you eat, think about eating lunch with your salad (dressing on the side, please) friends rather than the pepperoni pizza group.
  • You tend to adjust your eating pace to that of your companions.  So, sit next to the slow eaters rather than the gobblers if you’re trying to control how much goes into your mouth.

What Are You Drinking To Toast The New Year?

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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.

A Holiday Eating Tip: Pick One Fantastic Treat

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Chocolate bark at the receptionist’s desk.  Candy canes at the dry cleaners.  A rotating selection of Christmas cookies on just about everyone’s desk.  Happy holiday food gifts from grateful clients.  And that doesn’t include the fantastic spreads at holiday parties and family events!
[Read more…] about A Holiday Eating Tip: Pick One Fantastic Treat

Dinner Plates: Size Matters!

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Plates:  Bigger Isn’t Better

The size of our dinner plates might be contributing to our country’s obesity problem.

Since 1960, the surface area of our average dinner plate has increased 36%. Today, the average dinner plate measures 11 to 12 inches across, but a few decades ago they were 7 to 9 inches. By comparison, a European plate averages 9 inches and some of our restaurants use plates that are about 13 inches across.

Supersized Eating

Just as serving sizes in restaurants have been supersized and package sizes in the market have grown, so have the plate, bowl, and glass sizes we use in our homes — by 36% in some cases.

Our ideas about portion sizes and how much we need to eat and drink to feel full have grown along with the size of our dishware.

Six ounces of cooked rice with a little chili looks like a good portion on an 8 inch plate. The same amount on a 12 inch plate would look paltry  and probably cause the typical person to add more rice to the plate — which ends up increasing the portion size and calories.

What To Do

The fact of the matter is that we eat most of what’s on our plate regardless of the size of the plate.

But, when you switch to a smaller plate you eat a smaller serving. According to research done at Cornell, when you switch from a 12 inch plate to a 10 inch plate you eat 22% less.

So, you can control your portion sizes by downsizing the size of your plate. You can switch from a dinner plate to a salad plate or search vintage stores for older plates that are smaller in size.

Go Small – But Not Too Small

It sounds too good to be true, but using smaller dishes can also help you feel full even when you’re eating less. Amazingly, studies show that people are more satisfied with less food when they are served on 8 inch salad plates instead of on 12 inch dinner plates.

Use smaller plates and bowls. It’ll keep the portions smaller and you feeling fuller.

But — be careful not to go too small with your plate.  With too little food you might end up going back for seconds. A plate 2 inches smaller than the one you normally use is probably about right.