Remember the old days when cookies were the size of an Oreo, not nearly as big as a Frisbee? When a regular order of fries at McDonald’s was 3 ounces,…
Category: Calories in Food
Tufts University researchers set out to analyze the calories in the most popular dishes at 30 randomly selected ethnic restaurants in the Boston area. The restaurants were all small or…
How many calories in that cereal? How much sodium in that soup? For nearly two decades, Nutrition Facts labels have answered those questions…except in the one section of the supermarket where you might need them the most.
If you are trying to figure out the calories in meat and poultry, you’re pretty much on your own. Exceptions: Most ground meat and poultry have Nutrition Facts (along with deceptive lean claims). And a few companies put Nutrition Facts on brand-name meats or poultry voluntarily.
In fact, many stores have posters listing the nutrition facts of fresh meat and poultry. But odds are, you haven’t noticed them. In some cases, they’re above or on the sides of the meat case. And even if your vision were sharp enough to read the fine print, the cuts on the posters don’t always match what the store is selling. So good luck with that.
“Dessert for breakfast is a trend that we have been following for several years,” Eleanor Hanson of Foodwatch recently told Restaurants & Institutions magazine. Foodwatch is an Edina, Minnesota, consulting firm that analyzes food trends.
“We’re seeing streusel in cereal, chocolate in muffins and scones, and monster-size cinnamon rolls. Blurring is occurring on the sweets continuum.” In light of this continuing trend, we’ve put together a short list of 5 foods you shouldn’t eat for breakfast.
We examined nutrition information supplied by the manufacturers of popular breakfast items from fast- food chains and supermarkets. The results should sound a wake-up call. If restaurant foods came with the same “Nutrition Facts” labels that are on all packaged foods, the lines at Tim Hortons, McDonald’s, and Burger King might be a lot shorter.
Borrowing a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook, Coca-Cola has quietly funded the formation of a new nonprofit organization of scientists who downplay the role that excessive calories play in the world’s…
A small piece of fried chicken, a few fries, and about a cup of cola have 500 calories. So do a bowl of mixed melons, chicken and seasonal tomatoes, rice pilaf, baby arugula salad, and two cups of unsweetened iced tea.
Which dinner is likely to leave you feeling less hungry?
Studies show that, day after day, people eat about the same weight (or volume) of food. So choose low-calorie foods that make you full. That’s the idea behind The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet, a recent book by Pennsylvania State University’s Barbara Rolls.
Pad Thai is wildly popular. Most people have never heard of Pad Pak. Which of these easy Asian dishes is better?
Pad Pak—stir-fried vegetables with chicken, shrimp, or tofu and a small side of rice—wins, hands down. That’s because Pad Thai— rice noodles, shrimp, bean sprouts, egg, tofu, and crushed peanuts—is such bad news.
At Pick Up Stix, for example, the Chicken Pad Thai has 670 calories and 2,110 milligrams of sodium. At Pei Wei, the calories for this most well known of Asian dish (even for the Vegetable & Tofu Pad Thai) hover around 1,500, and the sodium rounds to a hard-to-believe 5,000 mg—enough for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
There is plenty of evidence showing that high calorie fast food sugar drinks lead to weight gain. Studies find that people don’t compensate for liquid calories by eating less the rest of the day.
Since 1998, Americans have been wising up. Based on data from the industry publication Beverage Digest, per capita consumption of “carbonated sugar drinks” (which includes regular soda and energy drinks, but not sports drinks, fruit drinks, ades, teas, and sugary waters) dropped by a remarkable 25 percent. Regular Coke is down by 34 percent and Pepsi by an astounding 51 percent.
Eating foods with fewer calories per bite can help people eat less and stay trim. But what’s the best way to cut calorie density?
One day a week for four weeks, scientists provided all the food (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and evening snack) eaten by 59 adults aged 20 to 45. On those days, the researchers lowered the calorie density of the entrées by 20 percent in one of three ways: adding less fat (butter or oil), increasing fruits and vegetables, or adding water. (For example, the researchers added water to a Tex-Mex pasta casserole and a chicken rice casserole by turning them into soups.)
Call it sneaky. Call it smart. Once you know how to purée vegetables, you can secretly swap those puréed vegetables for other ingredients in some dishes, people will eat fewer calories and won’t notice the difference. This is also a great trick for eating fewer calories for people interested in losing weight. You can also use puréed vegetables as a way to change things up with your regular recipes.
If you puree vegetables, will you reduce calories consumed?
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University offered 41 young men and women breakfast, lunch, and dinner once a week for three weeks.
At each meal, one dish—the carrot bread for breakfast, the macaroni and cheese for lunch, and the chicken-and-rice casserole for dinner—contained puréed vegetables in place of other ingredients.