Eat Out Eat Well

snacks

Do Fat Free Calories Count?

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Do you think you are being oh-so-virtuous by grabbing the reduced fat cookies or crackers off of the supermarket shelf?  I hate to disillusion you, but sometimes there isn’t a big difference in calories between the low or fat free version and the regular version of the same food.

In many reduced and fat free foods the fat is replaced with flour, sweeteners, or other starches and fillers which make the reduction in calories very small or, sometimes, nonexistent.

Reduced Fat Snack Food Hits The Supermarket Shelves

When fat free and reduced fat foods – especially snack foods like cookies, crackers, and chips hit the market — they were touted as products to help with the rising tide of obesity. Even things like pretzels, marshmallows, and gummy bears, foods that never contained fat to begin with, had “fat free” plastered all over their labels.

These fat and reduced fat foods certainly were not a panacea and consumers began to realize that they weren’t the magic bullet they were hoping for. Consumers choosing these foods were eating less fat  — but — they were still eating too many calories.

Calories Are Calories

Whether they’re from fat or carbs or protein, a calorie is a calorie.  If you eat more calories than you need you probably will gain weight. Reducing the amount of fat that you eat is one way to limit your overall calorie intake – as long as you don’t replace those fat calories with calories from another source.

Fat Free Is Not Calorie Free

Unfortunately, many people interpret “fat free” as “calorie free.”

Eating reduced or fat free foods isn’t always the answer to losing weight –especially when you eat more of the reduced fat food than you would of the regular one. And, because a lot of fat free foods aren’t very filling, it’s easier to eat a lot of calories and not feel full.

How Many Calories?

Compare the calories in the reduced or fat free versions to the regular version:

  • Reduced fat peanut butter, 2 tablespoons:  187 calories;  Regular peanut butter, 2 tablespoons:  191 calories
  • 3 reduced fat chocolate chip cookies, (30 g):  118 calories;  3 regular chocolate chip cookies, (30 g): 142 calories
  • 2 fat free fig cookies:  102 calories;  2 regular fig cookies:  111 calories
  • 1 small (2½ inch) low fat blueberry muffin:  131 calories; 1 small (2 ½ inch) regular blueberry muffing:  138 calories
  • 2 tablespoons fat free caramel topping:  103 calories; 2 tablespoons homemade (with butter) caramel topping:  103 calories
  • ½ cup fat free vanilla frozen yogurt (<1% fat):  111 calories;  ½ cup whole milk vanilla frozen yogurt (3-4% fat):  133 calories
  • Low fat cereal bar: 130 calories;  Regular cereal bar: 140 calories
  • 16 Low Fat Wheat Thins:  130 calories;  16 regular wheat thins: 150 calories
  • 3 low fat Oreo cookies: 150 calories;  3 original Oreo cookies: 160 calories

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

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.

Why Not A Non-Fat Caffe Latte?

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Valley Of Fatigue

When I was a kid there was a commercial on TV for Welch’s Grape Juice.  The gist of the commercial was that when you hit your 3 or 4PM energy drain – or what they called the “valley of fatigue” — a nice glass of Welch’s grape juice would help you climb right out of the bottom of that valley.

Of course, an 8 oz glass of the purple juice with 170 calories, and 42 grams of carbohydrates (40 of which are sugars), will certainly give you a pop of energy.  However, since it’s all sugar, that immediate blood sugar spike will quickly turn into a dropping blood sugar – leaving you with less energy – and probably crankier – than before.

Here’s A Better Choice

How about a non-fat skim caffe latte instead.  You could be at a mall, in a train station, an airport, sitting at your desk, or walking down the street.  There’s a Starbuck’s or a Dunkin’ Donuts, or a zillion other coffee shops if not right in front of you, then most likely around the next corner or down the road apiece.

Why Is A Non-Fat Skim A Good Idea?

Three reasons — maybe there are more, but here are three good ones:

  • Easy to find – coffee shops are everywhere
  • It’s a finite size – you ask for a certain size, you get it, you drink it and then it’s gone (unlike the rest of the cookies remaining in the box that will continue to tempt you)
  • You get a nice satisfying, long-lasting, and portable hot drink to sip with a good amount of protein and no fat; whether it’s caffeinated or decaffeinated is your choice

Nutritional Stats For a Non-Fat Caffe Latte

Starbucks’ Non-Fat Caffe Latte (espresso and non-fat milk)

  • Tall (12 oz):  100 calories, 10 grams of protein
  • Grande (16 oz):  130 calories, 13 grams protein
  • Venti (20 oz):  170 calories, 16 grams protein

Note:  Try to avoid flavored lattes which add (in sugars) 50 calories to the tall, 70 calories to the grande, and 80 calories to the venti and drops the protein count for each by a gram.

What Button Do You Push On The Vending Machine?

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Are you facing a long car ride — punctuated by innumerable rest stops — this Labor Day weekend?  Many of the roads I  travel have “Welcome to Massachusetts or New Hampshire or Maine,” in front of a New England style structure with bathrooms and a line-up of vending machines.

What Number And Letter Button Do You Push?

Whether out of boredom or hunger when you’re confronted with a similar line-up, index finger ready to punch the letter and number of your chosen indulgence, what do you ultimately choose?

I have to be honest, I love vending machines – I have since I was a kid and spent a nickel to get cardboard packages of two chiclets of gum on New York City subway platforms.

Here’s a bit of interesting trivia. Around 215 BC, the mathematician Hero invented a vending type device that accepted bronze coins to dispense holy water.

In 1888 vending became economically viable in the US when the Adams Gum Company put gum machines on New York City’s elevated train platforms that dispensed a piece of Tutti-Frutti gum for a penny.

Today’s automated vending business is a $30 billion-a-year industry with around100 million people using 7 million vending machines each day.  Around 30% of the machines are in manufacturing facilities and slightly over 16% are on school and college campuses.

Best Selling Vending Machine Candy

According to an unscientific survey of 20 vending machine owners, when asked what their best selling vending machine product is:

  • 1 said Reese’s
  • 1 said Cashews
  • 1 said Mike n’ Ike
  • 1 said Smartfood White Cheddar popcorn
  • 1 said Stickers (“ cause kids can’t resist them)
  • 2 said Gumballs
  • 3 said Skittles
  • 10 said Peanut M & Ms

Peanuts In Our Candy

We Americans love peanuts in our candy. Out of the ten most popular candy bars sold in the US, five of them — Snickers, Reese’s peanut butter cups, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, and Oh Henry! —  contain peanuts or peanut butter.  In most vending machines, about 25% of the dispensed food contains peanuts or peanut butter – a cautionary note for anyone with a peanut allergy.

Some Stomach Churning Info

Some stomach churning info and advice, in his own words,  from a bulk candy (machines that you often find in diners where you get handfuls of loose candy for a quarter) vendor’s blog:

The best selling bulk candy is peanut m&m’s, but you have to be careful because the m&ms can be very messy. “Imagine a hot summer day and your bulk vending machine is placed near a window . . . if that sun is beaming down on your vending machine those m&ms will melt and you will lose that location quick when the lady in the office gets chocolate on her hands and accidentally gets it on her blouse.”

On Mike n’ Ikes, his favorite bulk candy: “Man I have had a lot of success with these colorful tasty little bad boys.  Mike n Ikes do well in the winter and in the summer but just like the m&ms please be careful in the summer.

In the summer if your bulk vending machine is in a hot location the Mike N Ikes can stick together and become one big ball. To stop this from happening you can lightly spray the Mike N Ikes with Pam or your favorite cooking spray, and you shouldn’t have a problem in the summer time.”

On Gumballs:  Gumballs are your best friend and are by far the most profitable and are indestructible. “The only tips I can suggest on these gumballs are after a couple of months in your machine please check them by biting into a gumball every now and then.  Sometimes these gumballs get real hard and after that you are going to want to get rid of them.”

SocialDieter Tip:

If a vending machine calls your name, choose wisely.  There are good, better, and best choices to be made.  You can almost always find packages of nuts, or popcorn, or pretzels, or dried fruit.  Be careful of things with too much sugar, especially if you’re driving.  A big time sugar hit may give you energy from an initial blood sugar spike but more than likely it will be followed by a drop in your blood sugar levels possibly making you sleepy, grouchy, and hungry.