Eat Out Eat Well

food facts

How Good Is Your Sugar Vocabulary?

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Sugar:  Sweet and Sneaky

Sugar is very sneaky. It appears in all kinds of forms and masquerades under many different names. For example, have you ever read one of those jam labels that says, “All Fruit” or “Spreadable Fruit” on the front? Turn the jar over and read ingredients.  Most likely you’ll find juice concentrates (often as the first ingredient) and maltodextrin — both forms of sugar.

Sugar Vocabulary

According to Environmental Nutrition foods with all of the following names are sugars (these are common sources, there are other sugars not listed):

Dextrose
Corn syrup
High fructose corn syrup
Maltodextrin
Fruit juice concentrates
Malt syrup
Molasses
Invert sugar
Honey
Sorghum
Agave
 Maple syrup
Cane sugar

Be Aware of Disguised and Hidden (and not so hidden) Sugar

SocialDieter Tip: Read food and ingredient labels and look for the names listed above. By choosing fresh foods and produce you are eliminating any added sugar. Of course reducing or eliminating sugar-sweetened drinks – including agave and honey – will decrease sugar content. The same holds true for processed foods like crackers, sweetened cereals, and condiments, sauces, and dressings with added sugar, like ketchup, barbecue sauce, and certain salad dressings. Of course, sweetened beverages, baked goods, jams, ice cream, and candy  are sugar sources as are many fruit sweetened yogurts and canned fruit. You might like to try sweetening cereals and yogurt with fresh fruit, especially sweet fruits like mashed banana or sweet berries, instead of sugar.

When do you toss the leftover Pad Thai (or lasagna) that’s in the fridge?

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You Are Hungry!

You’re standing in front of your open refrigerator. A container here and a container there. Move them around. Wow. A Tupperware all the way in the back. Wonder what’s in it.

Take a peek. Container #1: the leftover take-out Pad Thai from five days ago. Container #2: the rest of your lasagna you brought home last night from a huge restaurant portion. Some of Mom’s really delicious stuffing from last weekend. That’s in the Tupperware.

Big question: Will you end up writhing in pain and spending the next day in the bathroom if you eat any of it?

How Long Can Food Stay Out?

According to the FDA, when you buy hot, cooked food, you should eat it right away and avoid letting it sit out at room temperature. If the food is cold, eat it within two hours of preparing it, store it in the fridge, or freeze it.

Buzz, Buzz: The Food Is Here

When food is delivered, you want to prevent any lurking potentially nasty and harmful bacteria from multiplying, so eat the food within two hours after it arrives. If you aren’t going to eat it within two hours keep it hot in an oven set at or above 200° F (93° C). Side dishes, like that delicious stuffing in the Tupperware, also have to be kept hot in the oven. Cover the food to keep it moist while you’re keeping it warm. Don’t guess at the temperature of the food. Use a food thermometer to check that the food is kept at an internal temperature of 140° F (60° C).

The Danger Zone

The FDA defines the “danger zone” as the range of temperatures at which bacteria can grow. It is usually between 40° and 140° F (4° and 60° C). To keep food safe, it’s important to keep it below or above the “danger zone.”

The 2 Hour Rule

There is a 2 Hour Rule: Throw away any perishable food (the kind that can spoil or become contaminated by bacteria if left unrefrigerated) that has bee left out at room temperature for more than two hours. When the environmental temperature is above 90° F (32° C), throw out the food after one hour.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest’s Nutrition Action Healthletter, expands on the Rules For Leftovers with what they call:

2 hours – 2 inches – 4 days

Think:

2 hours from oven to refrigerator: any leftovers should be

refrigerated or frozen within 2 hours of cooking or they should be thrown away.

2 Inches thick to cool it quick: food should be stored in containers at a shallow depth of about 2 inches or less, to speed the chilling time.

4 days in the refrigerator or freeze it: use refrigerated leftovers within 4 days with the exception of stuffing and gravy which should be used within 2 days. Reheat Solid leftovers should be reheated to 165 degrees F and liquid leftovers to a rolling boil. Whatever you don’t finish, throw out.

Do you still want that Pad Thai? Maybe some lasagna?

Yes to Green Vegetables, No to Green Spuds

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What are those green things?

In the midst of a cooking blitz you decide to make real mashed potatoes rather than using the pre-made kind.  You’re peeling away and there they are – those little green things visible in the potato skin.  What to do:  chuck the whole potato, pretend they’re not there, or cut them out?  If you choose the third option, cut them out, you have grabbed the brass ring.  Those green spots indicate natural toxic compounds,  glycoalkaloids (GA), natural plant built-ins to guard against disease and insects.

Are they friendly or not?

Although spuds always contain GAs, eating large amounts of them can trigger abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headaches, confusion, and hallucinations, all symptoms of toxicity.  GAs aren’t destroyed by cooking but because the green spots lie just below the potato skin you can cut away any green making the potato safe to eat.  Chips and fries that are peeled before cooking are usually low on the GA meter.

Beware:  fried potato skins can be bad news, one report found up to seven times the safe limit  of GAs in restaurant fried potato skins.

SocialDieter Tip:

Cut the green out of spuds before cooking; if there’s a lot of green, toss the potato; be extra careful of potato skins regardless of the method of preparation. (Environmental Nutrition, 8/08, p. 7)

Did the Fat Calories in Cooking Spray Really Take a Hike?

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Are All Cooking Sprays Created Equal?

I’m staring at five different kinds of cooking spray:  Butter flavor, Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Baking, and Professional for high heat cooking.    All say they are for non-stick cooking or baking.  Some say they are for fat-free cooking and baking.

The nutrition facts for all five say that the serving size is about 1/3 of a second, the equivalent of 0.25 grams.  The ingredient labels all list an oil (canola, olive, soybean, or vegetable) as their first ingredient. All have an emulsifier, usually soy lecithin, and a propellant.  Some have other flavorings and the baking spray has wheat flour.

Nutrition stats for cooking sprays:

Listed calorie count for a serving (a 1/3 second spray): 0

Total Fat:  0

Time for a Reality Check

Okay.  So how can something with oil as the main listed ingredient have zero calories and zero fat?  In the US, any product that has less than 5 grams of fat per serving lists the fat content rounded to the nearest 0.5 g. If the product contains less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving, the listed fat content is rounded to 0 grams. If a product contains 0.45 grams of fat per serving and the package has 10 servings, the label would show 0 grams of fat even though the entire package actually contains a total of 4.5 grams of fat.

All of the cooking sprays that I checked call a 1/3 second spray a serving size – that’s the equivalent of .25 grams of fat.  Because the serving size, as created by the manufacturers, is under half a gram, the nutrition facts can be listed as 0 grams of fat and 0 calories.  Feel duped?

0.25 grams of fat is the equivalent of 2.25 calories (fat has 9 calories per gram), not a huge number.  However, how many of you use cooking spray for 1/3 of a second?  Can you even coat a small frying pan with a 1/3 second spray?

How Many Calories?

Most of us spritz for at least three to six times as long – many of us for probably longer.  A one second spray has about 7 calories, 2 seconds has about 14 and and 1.5 grams of fat.  Again, not huge numbers, but 2 seconds is still awfully short.  My guess is that a lot of sprays are a bit longer.

SocialDieter Tip:

Remember that nonstick cooking spray is not calorie free. Be careful of drenching your pans and skillets.  As you’re spritzing, count the seconds.  If the length and number of your spritzes crank up the calorie count, either cut back on the spray or consider using a small amount of oil on a paper towel to coat your pan. Using one teaspoon of olive oil adds 4.5 grams of fat and 40 calories and you will be avoiding the additives and propellant in the cooking spray.

A Soda a Day = How Many Calories in a Year?

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How many calories . . . how much sugar?

In a recent post in his blog, Weighty Matters, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff asks an excellent question: “What happens if you drink a can of Coke daily for a year?” His startling answer:  “you’d end up slurping up 32,850 calories along with nearly 40 cups of sugar. Drink a Coke a day for a decade and that’d translate to 94 pounds worth of Coca Cola calories and 400 cups (>200lbs!) of sugar.”

Candy in small pieces

Last week, an article in the Business Section of the New York Times talked about the Hershey Company introducing three new varieties of small piece candy : Almond Joy Pieces, York Pieces and Hershey’s Special Dark Pieces, modeled after Reese’s Pieces.  A Hershey spokeswoman quoted in the article said, “Consumers needed something that was easy to snack on when on the go . . . You can just grab a couple and pop them in your mouth from a bowl or bag.”

A senior analyst at market research firm feels that expanding the Pieces line might appeal to customers who want to control their and their children’s portions. She says in the article: “If you’re trying to watch your weight, or your kid’s sugar intake, a candy bar is a big deal . . . but if you don’t want to overdo sugar in your obese kid’s lunchbox, you can still put a few Almond Joy Pieces in there.”

What do you think?

Does it bother anyone else that an analyst is talking about putting sugar in, her words, “your obese kid’s lunchbox,” or that candy companies preach portion control by making small piece candies when they know that most people will not stop at one pack, or, knowing the consequences, we continue to pour down sugar filled sodas and fight the sugary drink tax being proposed in many municipalities?