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Animal Crackers: Giraffes And Tigers But Crackers Or Cookies?

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The Red (or yellow or blue) Box With The String

Remember that cute little red, yellow or blue box with the string on top and tiny little animals on the front and back?  After you open the box and the heavy waxed paper inside you’re rewarded with crunchy little animal crackers, usually in the shape of animals you find at the circus or the zoo.

How Long Have Animal Crackers Been Around?

In the late 1800s, biscuits called “Animals” were imported from England to the United States and in 1871 Stauffer’s Biscuit Company baked their first batch stateside.

Barnum’s Animals (Crackers), named for P. T. Barnum who ran the circus, the “Greatest Show on Earth,” were first made in New York City in 1902 by the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco).   Barnum, an amazing self-promoter, had absolutely nothing to do with the labeling on the box and he never got a cent for it.

The famous string appeared when Nabisco designed the box to look like a circus wagon cage and then attached a string so it could be hung as an ornament from a Christmas tree.  It sold it for 5 cents a box. As we know, the package was such a success that it remains a year round treat – 40 million are made a year — although not at the same price!

Are They Crackers Or Cookies?

The crunchy little animals resemble crackers because they are made with layered dough.  But, because the dough is sweetened they have a cookie taste and consistency.

Over the years, 54 different animals have been represented. The most recent, chosen by consumer vote, is the koala. It beat out the penguin, the walrus and the cobra.  Some other animals are  tigers, cougars, camels, rhinoceros, kangaroos, hippopotami, bison, lions, hyenas, zebras, elephants, sheep, bears, gorillas, monkeys, seals, and giraffes.

Are They Good – Or At Least Okay for You?

The little box with the string contains about two servings.

  • Each serving (about 17 crackers) has 120 calories, 3.5 grams of fat, 22 grams of carbs, 1 gram of fiber, and 2 grams of protein.
  • The ingredients are:  enriched flour, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, soybean oil, yellow corn flour, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, calcium carbonate, baking soda, salt, soy lecithin, artificial flavor.
  • Although trans fat is not listed in the nutrition facts, the ingredients contain partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil (partially hydrogenated means trans fat).

When a product contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving, the FDA requires that the content be listed in the package’s Nutrition Facts box as “0g”. When a label shows 0 grams trans fat per serving and lists a “partially hydrogenated” vegetable oil (such as soybean or cottonseed, among others) in the ingredients, the product may contain up to 0.49 grams of trans fat per serving.

Other companies do make organic and/or whole grain animal crackers and should you be concerned about ingredients these would make a better choice.  Unfortunately, they do not come in the classic box with the string which, at least for my sons, was part of the allure.

Protein In The Morning: It’s A Good Thing

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I had a weird day yesterday.  Everything was out of sync.  It started with breakfast.  With rare exception, I have nonfat Greek yogurt with fruit and two tablespoons of Grape Nuts every morning.

Yesterday was an exception.  I didn’t have a bad breakfast – for a lot of people.  It just wasn’t a good breakfast for me.

I ate at a local diner and ordered the “special” oatmeal with walnuts and apples.  The steaming bowl arrived with the oatmeal liberally sprinkled with walnut halves and stewed apples that were quite sweet and floating in a generous amount of syrup.

Sweet Stuff In The Morning:  Yea Or Nea

The simple fact is that I cannot eat sweet stuff in the morning.  I also cannot eat oatmeal unless it’s accompanied by some kind of protein.  If I do eat either, two things happen:  I feel crummy by mid morning and I am hungry the rest of the day – especially for more sweet stuff.

I know – no one twisted my arm to order the “special” oatmeal.  I did it all by myself.  It sounded delicious – it tasted delicious, too.  But then again I really like my yogurt with fruit and Grape Nuts.  I just felt like something different.

The way my body processes food is unique to me – just as your metabolic processes are unique to you.  But, based on my research I apparently am not alone in my sweets in the morning issue and the roller coaster ride it creates for my blood sugar.

I need protein in the morning.  Most of my clients have a protein breakfast, too.  As a matter of fact, most people I work with eat the same breakfast every day – and they’re happy to do so.  Once you find what works for you, eating a structured breakfast takes less time and sets you up for your day.

Research Supports Protein For Breakfast

There’s good research to support a breakfast of eggs, protein shakes, yogurt (preferably nonfat Greek yogurt because it has no added sugar and 20 grams of protein for an 8 oz serving), or other protein selections.

A study in the British Journal of Nutrition found that the amount and the time of day that you eat protein affect your feeling of fullness during the entire day.  The researchers concluded that when people ate food with high quality protein from sources like eggs and lean Canadian bacon for breakfast they felt fuller throughout the day as compared to eating a larger amount of protein at lunch or dinner.

Make Your Breakfast Count

According to the study’s authors, most Americans usually eat a pretty small amount of protein at breakfast:  about 15% of their total daily protein intake.

Although consumer research shows that 92% of Americans say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, less than half (46%) eat breakfast every day of the week.

SocialDieter Tip:

Eat breakfast every day.  Find out what food works best for your body and make a habit of incorporating it into your breakfast lifestyle.  You have a chance to increase your protein intake in the morning  which will give you sustained benefits through out the day.  With a little planning you can have an easy and ready to grab protein breakfast waiting for you as you get ready to head out the door.

Potato Chips the Way They Used To Be

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Saratoga Potato Chips

I have a soft spot for Saratoga Springs, New York, home of Skidmore College, my alma mater.  Saratoga is also known for  — to name a few things — the Battles of Saratoga (1777, a turning point in the Revolutionary War), its spa, Saratoga spring water (which I couldn’t stand the first time I tasted it), and another of my favorite spots, the racetrack with its incredible wooden stands.

What I didn’t know is that Saratoga is also credited as the birthplace of American potato chips.  Originally called Saratoga Chips, they are usually credited to George Crum, the Native- and African-American chef at Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs who first prepared them in 1853.

In the 1920s chips were handed out in wax-paper bags. In the 1930’s they were packaged and became a commercial snack food.

We now call them plain old potato chips, Saratoga having vanished from the name.  There’s another big difference, too.  To make classic Saratoga chips, the Browns, 1940 authors of “America Cooks,” told you to slice potatoes “to fairylike thinness” and fry them in lard. A 1904 recipe from The Times called for frying them in olive oil, which gave the potatoes a nutty flavor, and, as we now know, was a lot healthier than many of today’s commercially used oils – or the once used lard.

Modern Day Potato Chips

Modern day potato chips come in a multitude of flavors: vinegar and salt, sour cream and onion, cool ranch, and barbecue.  Some are ribbed or ruffled and some aren’t, they are packaged in noisy foil bags, are plentifully salted, and sometimes are stamped out in identical sizes and stacked in a cardboard tube.  Don’t you wonder what they use to make those flavors?

An eight ounce bag of chips has 1242 calories, 766 of them from fat.  It contains 85.1 grams of fat (24.9 grams of which are saturated, 1192 mg of sodium (slightly more than half of the daily recommendation), and 14.9 grams of protein.

Pringles come all nice and neat and layered in a tube.  But, what happened to just potatoes?  Here’s Pringles’ ingredient list:  dried potatoes, vegetable oil (contains one or more of the following: corn oil, cottonseed oil, and/or sunflower oil), wheat starch, maltodextrin, rice flour, salt and dextrose.

A one ounce serving size of Lay’s classic potato chips is made from potatoes, sunflower and/or corn oil, and salt.  It has 150 calories, 10 grams of fat (1gram saturated), and 2 grams of protein.

Bottom Line:

Sometimes you gotta love the chips.  However, there are some good choices and some not so good choices.  Oven frying your own is probably the best choice – you get the vegetable lightly coated with olive oil and however much salt and herbs you prefer.

Some commercial brands now come oven baked, too.  If you are buying a bag of chips  look for the kind that is made from real potatoes rather than dried potatoes mixed with sugars, salt, and preservatives.

For home made oven fried potato chips, wash the potatoes well and slice them thinly, about 1/8-inch,  keeping the peel on. Brush both sides with olive oil (you can use a light coating of cooking spray if you are watching your calories) and arrange the slices on a baking sheet in a single layer without crowding. Sprinkle with salt and herbs, if desired. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven until nicely browned and pretend you’re in Saratoga.

Are There Really Strawberries In Special K Red Berries And Nuts In Honey Nut Cheerios?

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Cereal, Cereal, And More Cereal

Wow!  160 bowls of cereal a year, give or take, is the average American intake.  The most popular:  General Mills’ Cheerios, claiming  12.6% of the breakfast cereal market share.

How To Pick A Good Cereal

  • Step #1: check the ingredients and nutrition panel carefully. The very first ingredient should be a whole grain.  Scan through the label for the words “partially hydrogenated.”  If you find them put the box back on the shelf.  You don’t want trans fats in your cereal.
  • Step #2:  Look for cereals that have 13 grams or less of sugar per serving.  Check for added sugars  — you want none or next to none.  Raisins, dried and freeze-dried fruit  add quite a few grams of sugar to the listing on the nutrition panel where they aren’t distinguished from added sugars. Check the list of ingredients instead.
  • Step #3:  Check the amount of fiber (you want a lot).  The daily recommendation is 25 grams of fiber a day so it’s important to pick cereals that contain at least 3 grams per serving. A better choice are those with 5 grams of fiber or higher.
  • Step #4: If you are counting calories, choose cereals that ideally will have less than 120 calories a serving.

What About Fruit In The Cereal?

A bunch of cereals have real freeze-dried berries, apples, and bananas added in. That’s generally a good thing.   If the freeze dried fruit makes the switch from sugar laden cereal to a more nutritious high fiber low sugar cereal easier, then go for it.

So Are There Nuts In Honey Nut Cheerios And Strawberries In Special K Red Berries?

Amazingly, yes to the strawberries and no to the nuts.

For a one cup serving, Special K Red Berries has 120 calories, 2 grams of fiber, 9 grams of sugars, and 2 grams of protein.

Ingredients:  rice, whole grain wheat, sugar, wheat bran, freeze-dried strawberries, high fructose corn syrup, soluble wheat fiber, salt, malt flavoring,  ascorbic acid, reduced iron, alpha tocopherol, niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride, thiamin hydrochloride, riboflavin, vitamin A palmitate, folic acid, Vitamin B12.

A 3/4 cup serving of Honey Nut Cheerios has 110 calories, 2 grams of fiber, 9 grams of sugars, and 2 grams of protein.

Ingredients:  whole grain oats (oncludes the oat bran), sugar, modified corn starch, honey, brown sugar syrup, corn bran, salt, corn syrup, oat fiber, corn syrup solids, tripotassium phosphate, canol and/or rice bran oil, guar gum, natural almond flavor, vitamin E (mixed tocopherols) added to preserve freshness. Vitamins and Minerals: Calcium Carbonate, Zinc and Iron, Sodium Ascorbate, Niacinamide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Thiamin Mononitrate, Vitamin A Palmitate, Folic Acid,Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3.

Do you see nuts listed? No.  There aren’t any actual nuts.  There is “natural almond flavor.”  What’s that you ask?   It’s benzaldehyde which is usually derived from peach and apricot pits.

What’s A Good Cereal Choice For Breakfast?

There are a number of choices that fit the bill.  A good one is Kashi Go Lean (original).  A serving size is one cup with 140 calories, 10 grams of fiber, 6 grams of sugars, and 13 grams of protein.

Ingredients:  Soy grits, Kashi seven whole grains & sesame (hard red wheat, brown rice, whole grain oats, triticale, barley, rye, buckwheat, sesame seeds), evaporated cane juice syrup, corn meal, corn flour, soy protein, wheat bran, oat fiber, corn bran, honey, evaporated cane juice, natural flavors, calcium carbonate, salt, annatto color.

Remember that adding milk ups the protein content of your breakfast. Full, 2%, and 1% milk adds fat, too, so try to stick with non-fat milk in your cereal bowl.

How Much Real Food Do You Eat?

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Have you seen the TV commercials where a parent does whacko things to prevent her child from knowing that canned pasta in tomato sauce counts as a vegetable serving?

Give me a break.  Kids need to know that vegetables are great food – and that they come from a garden not from a can of pasta with tomato sauce or from a mixture of vegetable juices.  In case you missed it, during Jamie Oliver’s attempts to change school cafeteria foods he goes into an elementary school classroom and asks the kids to identify the vegetables he holds up. They didn’t even know what an actual tomato looked like.

The health gurus tell us over and over again that vegetables and fruit are a necessary part of a healthy diet.  They do all kinds of good things for our bodies.  They taste good, they’re a whole lot cheaper than meat, fish, and many types of dairy products, and they don’t have the saturated fat found in animal foods.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

  • Only a third of Americans eat two or more fruit servings a day – with orange juice ranking first in consumption.
  • Only a quarter eat three or more vegetable servings each day with potato the number one veggie (if you guess long, skinny, and fried as the most popular form you’ve grabbed the brass ring).

The Way It Was

I grew up in New York City in an era when canned and then frozen veggies reigned.  But, I would spend summers and vacations on my Grandmother’s farm in Pennsylvania and eat produce straight from the garden – or from what had been “put up” at the end of the harvest season.

My Aunt, the 12th child of my grandparents’ 13 kids, sent me the following email:

My mother did canning the old fashioned way, it was called cold packing.  Everything you wanted to preserve was cleaned and packed into bottles —  because of our large family we used 2 quart bottles.  After the bottles were packed they were put into a big vat of water and brought to a boil. The boiling time depended on what was in the bottles.

Our family packed 210 quarts of tomatoes, 180 quarts of string beans, and about 80 to100 quarts of fruit (cherries, blueberries, etc.). We made our own jelly and jam such as strawberry, grape, and peach. We dried beans and peas in the sun also picked mushrooms and dried them for the winter.

Talk about eating real food and a diet filled with vegetables!

The Bottom Line

Although most of us don’t grow and preserve out food anymore, farmer’s markets and even supermarkets are giving many of us easier access to beautiful fresh produce.  Still, Americans lag far behind the government’s recommended servings for fruit and vegetables.

According to the Harvard School of Public Health, a diet rich in vegetables and fruit has significant health benefits including:  lower blood pressure; a reduced risk of stroke, heart disease, and probably some cancers; decreased risk of digestive and eye disorders; and an evening out of blood sugar which helps control your appetite.

The goal for most people is at least nine servings (4½ cups) of vegetables and fruit a day, and according to the Harvard School of Public Health, potatoes don’t count. To give your body the nutrients it needs try to eat a variety of produce, especially dark leafy greens, cooked tomatoes, and anything that’s a rich yellow, orange, or red color.

The Challenge

Challenge yourself to try a new kind of fruit or vegetable, or experiment in preparing it or serving it in new ways. Cook it, eat it raw, add it to a recipe, and jazz it up with herbs and spices which are also good for you.  Once you start trying, you’ll be amazed at how many opportunities there are to add fruit and veggies to your meals.  For your health’s sake, make it a challenge and a goal for you and your family to eat more produce.