It’s summer.  It’s hot.  You’re thirsty.  You want some shade and something cool – or maybe ice cold – to drink.

Check Out The Calories

A lot of those cool, refreshing drinks come with a hefty dose of calories. You might be surprised at the number of calories in a drink you’ve been having for years.

Do a little research, figure out your best choice, and then make that your drink of choice.  Can you be satisfied with a bottle of beer that has around 100 calories rather than another brand that has around 300 – or water with a hint of flavor instead of a sports drink?

Water and Sports Drinks

• Gatorade:  12 oz, 80 calories
• SoBe Lifewater:  20 oz, 90 calories
• Glaceau Smart Water:  33.8 oz, 0 calories
• Vitamin Water:  20 oz, 125 calories
• Vitamin Water 10:  20 oz, 25 calories
• Perrier Citron Lemon Lime (22 oz bottle):  0 calories
• Vitamin Water Focus Kiwi-Strawberry (20 oz bottle):  125 calories, 32.5g sugars

• Hint Blackberry (16 oz bottle):  0 calories
• Gatorade G Orange (12 oz bottle):  80 calories, 21g sugars
• Water (as much as you want):  0 calories

Iced Coffee and Tea Drinks

• Dunkin’ Donuts Vanilla Bean Coolatta:  16 oz, 430 calories
• Dunkin’ Donuts Sweet Tea:  16 oz, 120 calories
• Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino:  16 0z (grande), 240 calories
• Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino, light:  16 oz grande), 110 calories
• Tazo Unsweetened Shaken Iced Passion Tea:  0 calories
• Iced Brewed Coffee with classic syrup:  12 oz (tall), 60 calories

Soda and Non-Carbonated Drinks

• Mountain Dew:  one 20 oz bottle, 290 calories
• Coke Classic:  one 20 oz bottle, 233 calories
• Diet coke:  one 20 oz bottle, 0 calories
• Snapple Orangeade (16 oz):  200 calories, 52g sugar
• San Pelligrino Limonata (11.15 fl oz can):  141 calories, 32g sugars
• Can of Coke (12 oz):  140 calories, 39g sugars
• Bottle of 7Up (12 oz):  150 calories, 38g sugars
• Root beer float (large, 32 oz):  640 calories, 10g fat

Beer (12 oz bottle)

• Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale: 330 calories
• Samuel Adams Boston Lager: 180 calories
• Guinness Extra Stout: 176 calories
• Pete’s Wicked Ale: 174 calories
• Harpoon IPA: 170 calories
• Heineken: 166 calories
• Killian’s Irish Red: 163 calories
• Long Trail: 163 calories
• Molson Ice: 160 calories
• Samuel Adams Brown Ale:  160 calories
• Budweiser:  144 calories
• Corona Light: 105 calories
• Coors Light: 102 calories
• Heineken Light: 99 calories
• Budweiser Select: 99 calories
• Miller Light: 96 calories
• Amstel Light: 95 calories
• Anheuser Busch Natural Light: 95 calories
• Michelob Ultra: 95 calories
• Miller MGD 64:  64 calories
• Beck’s Premier Light: 64 calories

Wine

• Red Wine:  5 oz, 129 calories
• White Wine:  5 oz, 120 calories
• Sangria:  8 oz, 176 calories

Alcoholic Drinks

• Mojito:  7 oz, 172 calories
• Frozen Magarita: 4 oz, 180 calories (the average margarita glass holds 12 oz, 540 calories)
• Mimosa:  137 calories
• Gin and Tonic:  175 calories

The post How Many Calories Are In Your Favorite Summer Drink? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

The post Cadbury Eggs vs. Soda appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

If you don’t drink soda you might want to take a good look at this graphic, too.  Then, you can congratulate yourself on the good habit of not drinking soda and perhaps suggest to soda drinking friends and family that they have a look.

Via: Term Life Insurance

The post Do You Drink Soda? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

It isn’t made with eggs or cream.  It has a complex taste – sort of like what’s left over in the bottom of your glass after you eat the ice cream out of an ice cream soda.  You can’t find bottled egg creams – although companies have tried – because the ingredients separate, the fizz disappears, and the taste just isn’t the same.

A recent article in the New York Times really got me thinking about egg creams.  I’ve made hundreds of them.  My parents owned an old-fashioned soda fountain in Flushing, Queens (NY) – the kind with a long counter with revolving stools. We sold thousands of egg creams, malteds, cherry cokes (vanilla cokes, too) and for those upset stomachs, old fashioned alka seltzers that you poured from glass to glass to really get a fizz going.

Our soda fountain was half of a large drug store and the pharmacist would sometimes have a small medicine bottle filled up with coke syrup give to someone suffering from some form of GI upset.  (Whether or not it actually helped is debatable – psychologically, perhaps it did!).

Historically, fizzy water (essential to an egg cream), was considered medicinal. The first commercial carbonators were found in pharmacies and pharmacists added mineral salts to water to mimic those found in naturally carbonated water. To make the fizzy stuff more tasty and profitable they started flavoring it with sweet syrups (and some not so benign stuff like cocaine and alcohol).

What Happened To Soda Fountain Drinks?

There is some speculation that the bottle cap was the death knell for soda fountain drinks.  When fizzy soda in a bottle could be conveniently bought at the gas station, soda mixed at the fountain lost some of its appeal, although, in my experience, people would come for conversation and camaraderie along with the soda.

Lately there’s been a resurgence of soda fountain drinks – many made with home made syrups and organic milk and served by both top notch restaurants and new soda fountains which also aim to be neighborhood gathering spots.

How to Make An Egg Cream

An egg cream is sweet and fizzy and initially were made almost exclusively in New York City.  Most people think chocolate — a lot of New Yorkers insist on Fox’s U-Bet Chocolate Syrup — but they can be made with vanilla or strawberry syrup, too.

Most of the “new” makers of egg creams – as well as “old-timers” — agree that cold seltzer made from a carbonator with taps  — not the push button soda gun you see behind bars or two-liter bottles of club soda — gives the popping and lively bubbles that make the best drinks. Our fountain had big gas tanks to provide the seltzer water – which inevitably needed changing (by my father) during a very busy lunch hour!

We always used a coke glass and that’s what I remember an egg cream being served in when I ordered it in other places, too.  An egg cream needs to be drunk quickly – gulping is okay – because it’ll lose its fizzy head if it sits too long.

Ingredients for a home made egg cream:

• Cold whole milk (low fat or skim won’t foam well)
• Cold seltzer:  a soda siphon with a cartridge that carbonates water is great – otherwise, use very cold seltzer
• Chocolate (or vanilla or strawberry) syrup

Preparation:

Some recipes suggest adding the milk first, but this is how we made it (in an 8oz. coke glass):

• Put about an inch of syrup into a soda glass (you can adjust for sweetness with more or less syrup)
• Layer on about an inch of cold milk
• Fill to the top with cold seltzer
• Stir with a long spoon until it gets a fizzy head

Drink up!

The post Soda Fountains And Egg Creams: Try This At Home appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

One whole side of the subway car I was in was filled with posters for New York City’s “Are You Pouring On The Pounds” campaign — aimed at teaching people to reduce their sugar intake (and lose or keep off weight) by cutting down on sugary drinks. It also encourages New Yorkers to drink water, seltzer or low-fat milk instead of the sweet stuff.

The posters are filled with liquid pouring out of bottles of soda, “sports” drinks or sweetened iced tea and turning into blobs of fat as it reaches the glass. Large graphics leave you with no doubt about the number of teaspoons or packets of sugar in each drink — or the total amount of liquid sugar that you could drink daily – as shown in the photo above.

For example: a 20 ounce bottle of soda is equivalent to 16 packets of sugar and a 32 ounce gigantic size cup – the kind so popular in movie theaters, gas stations, and arenas — contains the equivalent of 26 packets of sugar.

Do You Forget To Count The Calories You Drink?

It’s hard to overeat without noticing it. But, many people who gain weight — and can’t figure out why — forget to include the calories in what they drink.  Sugary drinks can add hundreds of calories and they don’t even make you feel full.

On average, Americans now consume 200 to 300 more calories each day than 30 years ago, with nearly half of those calories coming from sugar-sweetened drinks. A survey of adult New Yorkers shows that more than 2 million drink at least one sugar sweetened soda or other sweetened beverage each day – often at 250 calories a pop. Teenagers who drink sugary beverages get an average of 360 calories from them each day.  (They’d have to walk 70 city blocks to use up that many calories.)

Some Facts

A teaspoon of sugar weighs about four grams and each gram of sugar has four calories – or about 16 calories per teaspoon of sugar. On average, Americans consume about 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day – the equivalent of around 350 calories.  (Added sugar refers to the extra, empty calorie, added sweeteners, not the sugar that naturally occurs in foods like fruit and milk.)

The quickest way to decrease some of that sugar is to cut down on soda and sweetened drinks.   Sugary drinks, including sweetened tea or sweetened water that claims to be healthy, account for about one-third of added sugars.

Eating large quantities of sugar can lead to obesity and health problems like diabetes and heart disease. The American Heart Association recommends a daily max of six teaspoons of added sugar for women and nine teaspoons for men.  That’s quite a bit less than 22 teaspoons Americans generally average.  Too many spoonfuls of sugar may create the need for medicine rather than making it easily go down!

The post A Healthy Eating Lesson On The Subway appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Lazy, Hazy Days Of Summer

It’s summer.  It’s hot.  You’re thirsty.  You want some shade and something cool – or maybe ice cold – to drink.

Just remember – a lot of those cool, refreshing drinks come with a hefty dose of calories.

Check Out The Calories

You might be surprised at the caloric content of a drink you have been having for years.  There is a wide variation in the number of calories even in the same category of drinks.  Do a little research and learn your best choice and then make that your drink of choice.  You often can be satisfied with, for instance, a bottle of beer that has around 100 calories rather than another brand that has around 300.

Of course, there’s always water, plain or flavored (beware the vitamin enhanced kinds with added sugar)!

Non-Alcoholic Drinks:

Water and Sports Drinks

• Gatorade:  12 oz, 80 calories

• Propel:  24 oz, 30 calories

• SoBe Lifewater:  20 oz, 90 calories

• Glaceau Smart Water:  33.8 oz, 0 calories

• Vitamin Water:  20 oz, 125 calories

• Vitamin Water 10:  20 oz, 25 calories

Iced Coffee and Tea Drinks

• Dunkin’ Donuts Vanilla Bean Coolatta:  16 oz, 430 calories

• Dunkin’ Donuts Sweet Tea:  16 oz, 120 calories

• Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino:  16 0z (grande), 240 calories

• Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino, light:  16 oz grande), 110 calories

• Tazo Unsweetened Shaken Iced Passion Tea:  0 calories

• Iced Brewed Coffee with classic syrup:  12 oz (tall), 60 calories

Soda

• Coke Classic:  one 20 oz bottle, 233 calories

• Diet coke:  one 20 oz bottle, 0 calories

• Mountain Dew:  one 20 oz bottle, 290 calories

Alcoholic Drinks:

Beer

• Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale:  one 12 oz bottle, 330 calories

• Samuel Adams Brown Ale:  160 calories

• Amstel Light:  95 calories

Wine

• Red Wine:  5 oz, 129 calories

• White Wine:  5 oz, 120 calories

• Sangria:  8 oz, 176 calories

Alcoholic Drinks

• Mojito:  7 oz, 172 calories

• Frozen Magarita: 4 oz, 180 calories (the average margarita glass holds 12 oz, 540 calories)

• Mimosa:  137 calories

• Gin and Tonic:  175 calories

SocialDieter Tip:

According to CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest), carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet.  We tend to forget about the calories in sugared sports drinks and in sweetened ice teas, juices, and alcoholic beverages.  Alcohol has 7 calories per gram  — compared to protein and carbs which have 4 calories per gram and fat which has 9 calories per gram.     Couple the alcohol with sweetened juices, syrups, and, in some cases, soda, and you could be drinking a significant portion of your suggested daily calorie allowance.  There are low and lower calorie choices in each category of cold drinks.  Choose wisely, sip slowly, limit the repeats and/or alternate with water, seltzer, diet soda, or iced tea or coffee.

The post Are You Drinking Your Calories? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Do you have a clue about how much added sugar you eat each day?

Added sugar is the kind that doesn”t occur naturally, like in fruit, but is added during food processing, preparation, or at the table.

Because food labels show only grams or percentages of sugar in a product rather than the number of calories or teaspoons it contains, it’s hard to tell the number of teaspoons of sugar you’re eating. Food labels also don’t list which sugars are natural and which are added.  Sugar does masquerade under many different names and in many forms. You usually are aware that candy, cookies, and soda have sugar in them – although probably not how much.  You know when you are dousing your pancakes with syrup (how many teaspoons?) or dumping packages of sugar into your coffee for a “pick me up.”  But, who thinks of hamburger buns and crackers – or even ice cream or canned fruit — in terms of teaspoons of sugar?

Recommended Amounts of Added Sugar

The American Heart Association recommends that most women limit their sugar intake to 100 calories (25 grams), or around six teaspoons a day — men should limit their intake to 150 calories (37.5 grams), or nine teaspoons.  (Although there were no sugar recommendations for children, a national health survey found that 14 to 18 year olds consume 34 teaspoons of added sugar a day!)

Restricting yourself to the recommended limit might be difficult, since one 12-ounce can of soda has about 130 calories, or eight teaspoons of sugar. Data collected by a national nutrition survey between 2001 and 2004 suggested that, on average, Americans consume 355 calories, or more than 22 teaspoons, of sugar a day, the equivalent of two cans of soda and a chocolate bar.

What’s the big concern about eating too much sugar?

Eating a lot of added sugar is linked to the rise in obesity and is associated with increased risk for high blood pressure, high triglyceride levels, and other markers for heart disease, stroke, and inflammation. 

Because sugar just provides calories with no other nutritional value, for many people eating sugary foods and beverages can displace the more nutritious ones that are part of a healthy diet.

The Biggest Sugar Culprits

According to an article in Circulation, the biggest culprits for added dietary sugar are:

Regular soft drinks:     33%

Sugars and Candy:      16.1%

Cakes, cookies, pies:    12.9%

Fruit drinks (fruit punch and fruitades):  9.7%

Dairy desserts and milk products (ice cream, sweetened yogurt, sweetened milk:  8.6%

Other Grains:  (cinnamon toast and honey-nut waffles):  5.8%

SocialDieter Tip:

Added sugars have no nutritional value other than calories. Many of us can reduce our risk of heart disease by achieving a healthy weight.   There’s pretty strong evidence that decreasing the amount of sugar in your diets can help you achieve that.  You don’t have to eliminate sugar from your diet, just use your allotment wisely. Make trade-offs.  Use more fruit to add sweet flavor to cereals, yogurt, as dessert, and for snacks. Cut back on candy and way back on sweetened sodas, teas, and flavored waters. Help your kids learn that so much sugar is not necessary, train their palates when they’re young to enjoy less sweet food.  And, read labels, know where hidden sugar hangs out. Be aware and smart about what you buy and eat – both in and out of your home.

The post Are You On Sugar Overload? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

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?

The post A Soda a Day = How Many Calories in a Year? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.