“Be Mine,” “Kiss me,”  “Sweet Talk.” Candy hearts, originally called motto hearts but also known as conversation hearts and sweethearts, have been iconic Valentine’s Day treats since 1902. Which school kid doesn’t remember the brightly colored heart shaped candies with the stamped red sayings and slightly chalky taste?

Their manufacturer, NECCO, the New England Confectionery Company in business since 1847, sells more than 8 billion candy conversation hearts a year. (Unfortunately, NECCO, once the longest continuously operating candy company in the country, was sold in a bankruptcy auction in May 2018.)

How Did Candy Conversation Hearts Get To Be A Symbol Of Valentine’s Day?

Giving a gift of candy with a message inscribed on it can be traced back to the American colonists who gave homemade hard candy with messages etched into the surface to their sweethearts.

Years later, Oliver Chase, the founder NECCO, and his brother Daniel, who developed the process of printing red vegetable dye mottos on the candy, turned this tradition into a business.

The candy’s original shape wasn’t a heart, but a seashell shape called a “cockle.” A message was written on a colored slip of paper that was wedged into the cockle’s shell. NECCO started producing candy with mottos stamped on them in 1900, but the candy was in shapes like horseshoes and baseballs that allowed for longer printed sayings like “How long shall I have to wait?” and “Pray be considerate.” The candy called Sweethearts didn’t get its heart shape until 1902.

Sweethearts And Motto Hearts

The original candies with printed sayings were called “motto hearts.”  The sayings and flavors were updated over the years with new ones periodically added. Newer flavors have been strawberry, green apple, lemon, grape, orange, and blue raspberry and “newer” sayings included “Tweet Me,” “Text Me,” “You Rock,” “Soul Mate,” “Love Bug,” and “Me + You.”

NECCO continued to use their original recipe, process, and machines they used at the turn of the century. Putting out approximately 100,000 pounds of candy a day, it took about 11 months to produce the more than eight billion pieces — or about 13 million pounds – of colorful candy sweethearts sold in the six weeks before Valentine’s Day. The little hearts with messages accounted for 40% of the Valentine candy market, just behind – you guessed it – chocolate!

Although you’d be hard pressed to call them nutritious, they are fat free, sodium free, and a caloric bargain at about 3 calories apiece for the small hearts and about 6 calories apiece for the larger “Motto” hearts.

They Will Not Disappear

Unfortunately, NECCO did not produce their candy hearts this year (although you still may find some lingering on shelves). But don’t fear the total disappearance of candy hearts. According to Fortune, Spangler Candy Co., which took over the rights to NECCO’s brands, says the iconic candies will return in 2020. And, don’t go into candy heart withdrawal – Brach’s sells their own similar version of candy sweethearts.

The post What’s Valentine’s Day Without Candy Sweethearts? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

The big meal is over and the back and forth to the kitchen for leftovers begins. We all know that leftovers can really bump up the holiday calories, but how do you tell if the leftovers are actually safe to eat?

Once Your Bird Is Cooked, Does It Matter How Long You Leave It Out?

It definitely matters – and the clock starts ticking as soon as the bird comes out of the oven, fryer, or off the grill.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of reported cases of food borne illness (food poisoning) increases during the holiday season.

You shouldn’t leave food out for more than two hours, any time of the year. To save turkey leftovers, remove the stuffing from the turkey cavity, cut the turkey off the bone, and refrigerate or freeze all the leftovers.

The Basic Rules For Leftovers

According to the USDA the mantra is: 

2 Hours–2 Inches–4 Days

• 2 Hours from oven to refrigerator: Refrigerate or freeze your leftovers within 2 hours of cooking (taking them off the heat or out of the oven). Throw them away if they are out longer than that. Think about your buffet table – or even your holiday dinner table. How long does the bird, stuffing, and accompaniments sit out as people eat, go back for seconds, and pick their way through the football game and conversation?
• 2 Inches thick to cool it quick: Store your food at a shallow depth–about 2 inches–to speed chilling. Are you guilty of piling the food high in storage containers or in a big mound covered with tin foil?
• 4 Days in the refrigerator–otherwise freeze it: Use your leftovers that are stored in the fridge within 4 days. The exceptions are stuffing and gravy. They should both be used within 2 days. Reheat any solid leftovers to 165 degrees Fahrenheit and bring liquid leftovers to a rolling boil. Toss what you don’t finish.

How Long Can Leftover Turkey Stay In The Freezer?

Frozen leftover turkey, stuffing, and gravy should be used within one month. To successfully freeze leftovers, package them using freezer wrap or freezer containers. Use heavy-duty aluminum foil, freezer paper, or freezer bags for best results and don’t leave any air space. Squeeze the excess air from the freezer bags and fill rigid freezer containers to the top with dry food. Without proper packaging, circulating air in the freezer can create freezer burn – those white dried-out patches on the surface of food that make it tough and tasteless. Leave a one-inch headspace in containers with liquid and half an inch in containers filled with semi-solids.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Is there Halloween candy in your future (or present)?  It’s pretty hard to escape because candy is everywhere – on desks, in restaurants, even in my veterinarian’s office in a purple bowl with a dog bone painted on the side.

Halloween and the week afterward account for about 5% of all candy consumed for the year. Big box stores don’t wait for mid-October to start stocking their shelves — by the second week in September most of them have already filled their shelves with orange and black trimmed packages of mini-candy boxes and bars – right along side the school supplies.

What do you steal from your kids’ Trick or Treat bags? What do you go for first?

Don’t feel guilty if you have. If you’ve ever swiped candy from your kid’s trick or treat bag, you’re certainly not alone. According to the National Confectioners Association, 90% of parents confess they occasionally dip into their kid’s stash. I know I sure did.

Not only do parents swipe candy form their kids’ bags, they invade them big time — they eat one candy bar out of every two a child brings home.  Their favorite targets are snack-sized chocolate bars (70%), candy-coated chocolate pieces (40%), caramels (37%) and gum (26%).

How many calories are in Trick or Treat bags?

It’s been estimated that, on average, a child in the US collects between 3,500 and 7,000 worth of candy calories on Halloween night.

If you choose to eat all of that on top of your regular daily intake, you’re looking at a pound or two added to your waistline (or hips).

A One Day Indulgence Isn’t Such A Big Deal

One day of collecting (and eating) candy isn’t going to make a child – or an adult – overweight or obese (what it can do to behavior is another story).  It’s the constant bombardment with candy, sweets, and other treats that can lead to weight (and health) issues.

Some food (or candy) for thought: a treat is only a treat if it happens once in a while – like Halloween, birthdays, and other holidays.  If it’s a common occurrence it can become an expectation or a habit.

In Case You Want To Pick The Least Caloric Candy 

Here are the calories in some popular Halloween candy – just in case you might want to minimize the caloric damage (you didn’t read that wrong — candy has a big range of calories and fat grams):

• Hershey’s Milk Chocolate: snack size .49-ounce bar; 67 calories; 4g fat
• Snickers: Fun size; 80 calories; 4g fat
• Tootsie Rolls: 6 midgee pieces; 140 calories; 3g fat
• Skittles Original Bite Size Candies: Fun size bag; 60 calories; 0.7 g fat
• M&Ms: Fun size bag; 73 calories; 3g fat
• Butterfinger: Fun size; 85 calories; 3.5g fat
• Tootsie Roll Pop
: 60 calories; 0g fat
• Starburst Original Fruit Chews: 2 pieces; 40 calories: 40; 0.8g fat
• Brach’s Candy Corn: 20 pieces; 150 calories; 0g fat
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup:  Fun size; 80 calories, 4.5g fat
• Peppermint Pattie:  Fun size; 47 calories; 1g fat
• Kit Kat:  Fun size; 73 calories; 3.7g fat

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Stingy Jack and the Devil

The story goes that the Jack-O’-Lantern comes from a legend that goes back hundreds of years in Irish history.

It’s said that a miserable old drunk named Stingy Jack — who liked to play tricks on his family, friends, and even the Devil — tricked the Devil into climbing up an apple tree.   Stingy Jack then put crosses around the apple tree’s trunk so the Devil couldn’t get down — but made a bargain that if the Devil promised not to take Stingy Jack’s soul when he died he would remove the crosses and let the Devil down.

When Jack died, Saint Peter, at the pearly gates of Heaven, told him that he couldn’t enter Heaven because he was mean, cruel, and had led a miserable and worthless life. Stingy Jack then went down to Hell but the Devil wouldn’t take him in.  Ultimate payback! Jack was scared and with nowhere to go he had to wander around in the darkness between Heaven and Hell.

Stingy Jack, Jack-o-Lanterns, and Halloween

Halloween, or the Hallow E’en in Ireland and Scotland, is short for All Hallows Eve, or the night before All Hallows. On All Hallows Eve the Irish made Jack-O’-Lanterns by hollowing out turnips, rutabagas, gourds, potatoes, and beets and put lights in them to keep away both the evil spirits and Stingy Jack.  In the 1800′s when Irish immigrants came to America, they discovered that pumpkins were bigger and easier to carve, and the pumpkin became the Jack-o’-lantern.

If You Want To Eat Your Pumpkin . . .

Jumping from legend to fact:  pumpkins are Cucurbitaceae, a family of vegetables that includes cucumbers and melons. They are fat free and can be baked, steamed, or canned.

One cup of pumpkin has about 30 calories, is high in vitamin C, potassium, dietary fiber, and other nutrients like folate, manganese, and omega 3′s.  Pumpkin is filled with the anti-oxidant beta-carotene, which gives it its rich orange color. It can be used many ways and can be added to baked goods and blended with many foods. Pumpkin seeds are delicious and are a good source of iron, copper, and zinc.

Although pumpkin is low in calories, pumpkin seeds aren’t. They have 126 calories in an ounce (about 85 seeds) and 285 calories in a cup.

The post Why is a Jack-o’-Lantern called a Jack-o’-Lantern? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

It takes a herculean effort to walk off lots of calories. It’s easier and more efficient to cut down on portion size. In case you want to make an attempt “to walk” off your candy indulgence:

If this is the candy in your Easter basket — and you eat it all:

• 25 small jellybeans
• 5 Peeps
• 8 malted milk robins eggs
• 1 ounce chocolate bunny
• 1 Cadbury Creme Egg
• 4 Lindt Chocolate Carrots

that adds up to 990 calories. You will need to walk 9.9 miles, 15.96 kilometers, or 19,800 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

If this is in your basket:

• 25 small jellybeans
• 5 Peeps
• 5 marshmallow chicks
• 8 malted milk robins eggs
• 1 large 7 ounce chocolate bunny
• 1 chocolate-covered marshmallow bunny
• 1 Cadbury Creme Egg
• 1 Cadbury Caramel Egg

that comes to 2076 calories. You will need to walk 20.76 miles, 33.48 kilometers, or 41,520 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

If you’re going “light” and only eat:

• 25 small jelly beans
• 5 Peeps
• 1 medium (1 3/4 ounce) hollow chocolate bunny
• 1 Cadbury Creme Egg

you would rack up 730 calories and you will need to walk 7.3 miles, 11.77 kilometers, or 14,600 steps — assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps — to walk off that number of calories. Sounds like a lot, but it is very doable over a few days.

Holidays and Celebrations

Holidays are days of celebration. But remember that a holiday is just one day and our bodies can easily compensate for a day of indulgence. Problems start when the holiday eating keeps going and going — which is easy to do when there are cabinets stuffed with Easter candy and bowls full of it every where you turn.

So arm yourself with some information, enjoy your holiday, and don’t feel obliged to eat every piece of candy in sight – the first bites always taste the best!

Please share this post with someone who may have eaten every last chocolate egg and jellybean  in the Easter basket!

Happy Easter

The post How Far Do You Have To Walk To Burn Off Your Easter Candy? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Do you need a reason to splurge on a holiday – it is a celebration, after all? But, in case you want to “carefully” indulge on Easter candy, here’s how much of your favorite candy you can gobble down to the tune of 100 calories:

• 17 Brach’s jellybeans = 102 calories (6 calories each)

• 5 Peeps = 98 calories (28 calories for one Peep)

• 6 Cadbury mini eggs = 96 calories (16 calories for one mini egg)

• 2/3 of a Cadbury Crème egg = 100 calories (one egg is 150 calories)

• 5 Cadbury mini crème eggs = 100 calories (one Cadbury mini crème egg has 40 calories)

• 2/3 of a Cadbury caramel egg = 113 calories (one Cadbury caramel egg has 170 calories)

• 2 Cadbury mini caramel eggs = 90 calories (one Cadbury mini caramel egg has 45 calories)

• 2/3 Reese’s peanut butter egg = 113 calories (one Reese’s peanut butter egg has 170 calories)

• 5 Reese’s peanut butter mini eggs = 100 calories (one Reese’s peanut butter mini egg has 40 calories)

• 5 Hershey’s milk chocolate eggs = 102 calories (one Hershey’s milk chocolate egg has 29 calories)

Over and under the 200 calorie mark:

Higher Calorie Easter Candy (over 200 calories per serving):

• 5 oz mini bag Cadbury Chocolate Mini Eggs: 210
 calories

• 5 Nestle Butterfinger Easter Nestggs: 210
 calories

• 1/4 cup Pastel Peanut M&M’s: 220
 calories

• 9 Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Pastel Kisses with Almonds: 230 
calories

• 5 Hershey’s Pastel Miniature Chocolates: 230
 calories

• 1 small 2.5 ounce Fannie May Solid Milk Chocolate Rabbit: 420
 calories

• 1 small 7 ounce bag Jelly Belly Jelly Beans: 700 calories

Lower Calorie Easter Candy (under 200 calories per serving): 

• 1 package (5 chicks) Peeps Marshmallow Chicks: 140 calories

• 1 Cadbury Crème Egg: 150 calories

• 1 Cadbury Caramel Egg: 170 calories

• 1/8 cup M&M’s: 105 calories

• 1 Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg: 180 calories

• 4 Reese’s Peanut Butter Mini eggs: 160 calories

• 7 Rolo Pastel Chewy Caramels: 190 
calories

The post How Much Easter Candy Can You Eat For 100 and 200 Calories? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

If you have a thing for the fluorescent marshmallow bunnies and chicks that were hatched over 50 years ago, you’re not alone. They got their name – PEEPS — because they were originally modeled after the yellow chick.  Now they’re made for Christmas, Halloween, and Valentine’s Day, too — so you can get them in yellow, pink, blue, lavender, orange, and green shapes that represent the different holidays. They also come chocolate dipped.

PEEPS continue to be the subject of lots of design contests (you’d be amazed what you can make out of peeps) and scientific experiments (some claim them to be indestructible). Just Born, the parent company of PEEPS, claims to produce enough PEEPS in one year to circle the Earth twice. Their website even boasts a fan club and a section for recipes.

Millions of Peeps

• Each Easter season, Americans buy more than 700 million Marshmallow Peeps shaped like chicks, bunnies, and eggs, making them the most popular non-chocolate Easter candy.
• As many as 4.2 million Marshmallow Peeps, bunnies, and other shapes can be made each day.
• In 1953, it took 27 hours to create a Marshmallow Peep. Today it takes six minutes.
• Yellow Peeps are the most popular, followed by pink, lavender, blue, and white.
• Peeps seem to be almost indestructible and are famous for their two-year shelf life. Scientists at Emory University claimed that Peeps eyes “wouldn’t dissolve in anything.” They tried to dissolve Peeps with water, sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide. No luck.

Do You Like Your PEEPS Soft Or Crunchy?

People have definite Peeps preferences. Some like them nice and soft, others like to leave them out in the air to age to perfection and acquire a little crunch on the outside.

They’ve been microwaved (careful, they expand and can really make a mess in your microwave), frozen, roasted, used to top hot chocolate, and added to recipes. Because their outer sugar coating tends to burn, they don’t toast well on sticks like regular marshmallows.

What’s In Them?

• Send a PEEP to a lab for analysis and you’ll find sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, less than 0.5% of the following ingredients: yellow #5 (tartrazine), potassium sorbate (a preservative), natural flavors, dye, and carnauba wax
• They’re gluten and nut free but are not Kosher
• You can get sugar free PEEPS that are made with Splenda
• Five little chicks (42g, one serving size) will set you back 140 calories, 0g fat, 1g protein, and 36g carbs

If you want more sweet stuff, for 99 cents you can get the lowdown on Easter Candy.  Check out my ebook, Easter Candy Facts and Fun on Amazon.  You’ll spend less than you would on jelly beans.  It’s also way fewer calories than a chocolate bunny!

The post Marshmallow Peeps: do you love ‘em or hate ‘em? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Jellybeans: do you think they should they should come with a warning label, “STOP NOW or you’ll keep eating until they’re gone?”

Seriously – it’s pretty darn hard not to love those little nuggets of sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors and get stuck in your teeth!

The Birth Of The Jellybean

The gummy insides of the jellybean might be related to the centuries old treat, Turkish Delight. And their outsides bring to mind the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17^th century, for the Jordan almond.

The modern jellybean became popular during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged sending candy to Union soldiers and the jellybean held up well.

Jellybeans were the first bulk candy. They were first sold by weight as penny candy in the early 1900s – bulk jellybeans for nine cents a pound.

Around 1930 they became popular as Easter candy because of their egg shape, which represents spring, fertility, and resurrection.

The Many Flavors And Colors Of Jellybeans

Standard jellybeans come in fruit flavors but there are a huge number of flavors available — some goofy, some sophisticated — like spiced, mint, gourmet, tropical, popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, and cola.  They also come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true).

Whatever your flavor preference, Americans eat a whole lot of jellybeans – around 16 billion at Easter — enough to circle the globe nearly three times if all the Easter jellybeans were lined up end to end.

Handfuls Or One By One — And What Flavor?

How do you eat your jellybeans? Do you go for handfuls at a time or pick and choose your colors and eat them one by one?

• 70% of kids ages 6–11 prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time
• 23% say they eat several at once
• Boys (29%) are more likely to eat a handful than girls (18%)
• Kids say their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%).

What’s In The Hard Shelled Nugget Of Sweetness? 

Jellybeans are primarily made of sugar and also usually contain gelatin (Jelly Bellies don’t), corn syrup, modified food starch, and less than 0.5% of citric acid, sodium citrate, artificial flavors, confectioners glaze, pectin, carnauba wax, white mineral oil, magnesium hydroxide, and artificial colors (takes some of the fun out of them, doesn’t it?).

Originally, there was just the traditional jellybean, which has flavor only in the shell. In 1976, the Jelly Belly (Goelitz) Candy Company introduced gourmet jellybeans. Unlike traditional jellybeans, Jelly Bellies are smaller and softer than the traditional kind and are flavored both inside and outside. Jelly Belly makes about 50 different flavors of gourmet jellybeans.

How Many Calories Are In Jellybeans?

Even though they may give you Technicolor insides, jellybeans are fat free.  On average:

• 10 small jellybeans (11g) have 41 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 10.3 grams of carbs
• 10 large jellybeans (1oz or 28g) have 105 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 26.2g carbs
• 10 Jelly Bellies have 40 calories (4 calories a piece), or about 100 calories in a single serving (25 beans)

Some Jelly Belly Jellybean Trivia

• Jelly Bellies were invented in 1976. They were the first jellybeans to be sold in single flavors and to come with a menu of flavor choices.
• It takes 7 to 21 days to make a single Jelly Belly jellybean.
• Very Cherry was the most popular Jelly Belly flavor for two decades until 1998, when Buttered Popcorn took over. Very Cherry moved back into the top spot by only 8 million beans in 2003.
• Some jellybeans do contain gelatin, but Jelly Bellies don’t. According to the Jelly Belly website, they are suitable for vegetarians although strict vegans may have issues with the beeswax and shellac that are used to give them their final buff and polish.
• Jelly Belly doesn’t use wheat, rye, barley, or oats in the basic recipe for Jelly Belly jellybeans but does use cornstarch as the modified food starch.
• Jelly Bellies have been certified kosher for the last two decades by the Kashrut supervision of KO Kosher Service.  Since 2007 all Jelly Belly products have been certified by the Orthodox Union. Teenee Beanee jelly beans and Just Born jellybeans are Pareve & O/U; Jelly Bellies are certified OU Kosher.

For 99 cents you can get the lowdown on Easter Candy.  Check out my ebook Easter Candy Facts and Fun on Amazon.  You’ll spend less than you would on jelly beans.  It’s also way fewer calories than a chocolate bunny!

The post Jellybeans: Do You Eat Them By The Handful Or One-By-One? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Why are about 1.1 billion boxed chocolates — that’s about 58 million pounds of chocolate candy — sold in the United States during the week before Valentine’s Day? Why not Twizzlers or Gummy Bears?

Chocolate infatuation began around 2,000 years ago when the higher echelon in the Mayan and Aztec societies infused cocoa beans with water creating frothy chocolate drinks that were both drunk on special occasions and used as sacrifices to the gods.

Montezuma, the Aztec ruler, believed that chocolate was an aphrodisiac. He routinely drank it before visiting his harem, cementing the association of chocolate with love and romance. There is now scientific evidence that the chemical phenylethylamine found in chocolate is linked to feelings of excitement and attraction.

Aztec society also used cocoa beans for money and gifts. In the 16^th century, the Aztec’s reverence of chocolate prompted Christopher Columbus to take some back to Queen Isabella of Spain. Her love for chocolate and its mystical powers spread throughout Europe. Chocolate’s power was believed to be so strong that nuns were forbidden to eat it and French doctors used it as a treatment for a broken heart.

In 1822 John Cadbury opened a tea and coffee shop in Birmingham, England and soon began selling chocolates. In 1861 his son Richard created the first heart-shaped box to fill with chocolates for Valentine’s Day. This year more than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold.

Chocolate: The Good And The Not So Good

A pound of milk chocolate has 2300 calories, 140 grams of fat, 270 grams of carbohydrates, and 31 grams of protein. Although a lot has been said about chocolate’s heart healthy benefits, it’s still a high calorie, high fat food.

Isn’t Chocolate Good For Me?

In moderation—and, depending on the type—the answer is yes. The health benefits of chocolate come from cocoa, and dark chocolate has a greater concentration of cocoa than milk chocolate. White chocolate, without any cocoa in it, is not really chocolate.

Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, contains flavonols which have antioxidant qualities and other positive influences on heart health. But Valentine’s chocolates are often not high quality chocolate and are moderately high in fat, one-third of it the type of saturated fat that isn’t heart healthy. Extra ingredients like crème and caramel fillings can add lots of extra fat and calories.

Oh Those Calories: Valentine’s Hearts And Kisses

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying some Valentine’s chocolate. Eating the contents of a whole box might be a different story!

Here’s an idea of what the calories might be in some of the more common Valentine’s chocolate:

• Hershey’s Kisses, 9 pieces: 230 calories, 12g fat
• Hershey’s Special Dark Hearts, 5 pieces: 220 calories, 7g fat
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Hearts, snack size: 170 calories, 10g fat
• Russell Stover boxed chocolates, 2 pieces: 150 calories, 4g fat
• Dove Dark Chocolate Hearts, 5 pieces: 210 calories, 13g fat
• Godiva boxed chocolates, 4 pieces: 210 calories, 12g fat

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On Christmas Eve Santa visits an estimated 92 million households. Walking.about.com figures that if all the households were evenly distributed across the earth, Santa would travel 0.78 miles between houses — for a total of 71,760,000 (71.8 million) miles.

How Much Does Santa Weigh?

According to NORAD, Santa tips the scale at 260 pounds and he’s 5’7” tall, giving him a BMI of 40.7 — which, unfortunately, makes him obese.

Walking.about.com, guessing Santa’s weight to be 250 pounds and assuming he’s a pretty fast walker — he does have to get his deliveries done in one night — estimates that Santa burns 13 billion calories on Christmas eve.

Does Santa Need All The Milk and Cookies Left Out For Him?

Two small cookies and a cup of skim milk (no full fat dairy for Santa, he might have cholesterol issues) clock in at about 200 calories. If Santa snacked at each of the 92 million households he visits he would chow down on 18.4 billion calories.

That would mean he would gain 1,529,350 pounds every Christmas.

If he walked instead of rode in his sleigh – Rudolph is probably well-trained enough to navigate the sleigh full of presents — he’d have to circle the earth 1,183 times to burn off the extra calories from the milk and cookies.

What If Santa Snacked On Veggies Instead Of Cookies?

If Santa had a cup of carrot and celery sticks rather than cookies and milk at each house, he’d be eating just 50 calories — which would add up to 4.6 billion calories for the evening. Since he burns off 13 billion calories by walking, he’d actually lose so much weight that he’d disappear from sight.

Maybe the best idea for him would be to have a nice combination of veggies at most households and cookies and low fat milk every thousand or so households. That probably would keep him happy, energetic, and in caloric balance!

But … Santa has been delivering presents and eating cookies for a very long time. He magically reappears every year as jolly as ever. He seems to be doing quite nicely with his usual routine, don’t you think?

Ho Ho Ho!

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