holiday

How Much Easter Candy Can You Eat For 100 and 200 Calories?

April 1, 2015 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN 2 Comments

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

Marshmallow Peeps: do you love ‘em or hate ‘em?

March 26, 2015 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

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!

Jellybeans: Do You Eat Them By The Handful Or One-By-One?

March 22, 2015 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

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!

Why Are Valentine’s Day And Chocolate and So Intertwined?

February 11, 2015 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

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

Like Eat Out Eat Well on Facebook and get more info, tips, and strategies that are shared only on Facebook and not on the blog.

Should Santa Cut Down On The Cookies?

December 21, 2014 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Does Santa have a weight challenge? It wouldn’t be surprising with all of the cookies and milk left out for him on Christmas Eve! Plus, he uses a sleigh pulled by reindeer so he just slides down the chimney. That might be tough with his jolly belly and a big bag of presents slung over his shoulder — but it doesn’t use up a whole lot of calories.

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?