by Gurumantra | May 15, 2016 | Food
Which Of Your Favorite Ethnic Cuisines Come With The Most Calories?
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 independently owned and did not have nutrition information about their meals on their menus or on their websites. The dishes came with their usual side orders.
The average calorie content of the 157 meals the researchers analyzed: 1,327 calories. That’s about twice the amount of calories in a meal that a typical person needs to maintain a healthy body weight.
And that’s not counting appetizers, desserts, and drinks!
No wonder we eat less when we choose home-cooked. David Schardt has an in depth story at Nutrition Action.
→ Read full article
by Gurumantra | Jun 11, 2014 | Health
This from Healthy Holistic Living
It’s hard enough to know what food choices to make in order to restore, maintain or expand your optimal health.
Here are a thirteen lies that Tommy Flanagan might have told. Don’t be fooled.
Thirteen Nutrition Lies That Made The World Sick and Fat
by Gurumantra | Jan 31, 2014 | Diet, Food, Weight Loss
If you’ve ever tried dieting or losing weight, calories are part of most weight control strategies. Here’s a real public service for dieters. Check out the sizes of many of our favorite foods that come in at 200 calories. Where weight loss is concerned, sometimes more really is less!
Your peanut butter’s nutrition label — which states that 2 tablespoons = 188 calories — gives you a general idea of how much you’re consuming, but you might put down the spoon altogether when you see what that looks like next to 200 calories of celery, carrots or apples. (Cheese lovers, be warned: What you are about to see may be traumatic.)
WiseGeek created a brilliant series of photos capturing exactly what 200 calories looks like among 71 different foods (see the full collection here) and sorted them from low- to high-calorie density.
Why did they choose 200 calories? You try fitting 500 calories of celery on a plate! The creative minds behind this project specifically chose 200 calories because they wanted to provide tangible volumes for the entire range of items. Trying to show 100 calories of certain highly caloric foods — butter or oil, for example — would have rendered minuscule portion sizes, while something as high as 500 calories would have been too difficult to represent in low-calorie foods.
Why did they choose these particular foods? Many of the items happened to be in the WiseGeek pantry; others were chosen because WiseGeek wanted to display foods in a wide variety of categories. They avoided prepared foods like lasagna or cheesecake, since their calorie contents can vary by recipe.
The photographers ensured all foods were displayed proportionately by using the same camera, setup and dishware (for photos that used plates or bowls) for all of them. The plate is 10.25 inches in diameter, and the bowl is 6.25 inches.
An apple doesn’t sound like such a bad snack now, does it?
Celery
1,425 grams = 200 calories
Coca-Cola
496 mL = 200 calories
Apples
385 grams = 200 calories
Whole milk
333 mL = 200 calories
Canned sweet corn
308 grams = 200 calories
Sliced smoked turkey
204 grams = 200 calories
Eggs
150 grams = 200 calories
Cooked pasta
145 grams = 200 calories
Avocado
125 grams = 200 calories
Jack in the Box cheeseburger
75 grams = 200 calories
Jack in the Box french fries
73 grams = 200 calories
Sesame seed bagel
70 grams = 200 calories
Bailey’s Irish cream
60 mL = 200 calories
Glazed doughnut
52 grams = 200 calories
Medium cheddar cheese
51 grams = 200 calories
Snickers chocolate bar
41 grams = 200 calories
Doritos
41 grams = 200 calories
Fried bacon
34 grams = 200 calories
Peanut butter
34 grams = 200 calories
Butter
28 grams = 200 calories
by Gurumantra | Sep 2, 2013 | Diet, Food
This post from Unreal Eats is Healthy Living’s original video series, where we go behind calorie counts and health claims to examine what’s really in the processed foods that scream loudest in our food environment.
You wouldn’t be amiss in thinking that a restaurant’s salad is a more nutritious and healthful option than their cheeseburger. But, in the case of fast food menus, that calculation doesn’t always pan out.
In our latest Unreal Eats, we explored the calorie and nutrition profiles of fast food salads to see if it really is possible to eat healthfully at some of our country’s most notoriously caloric restaurant chains.
We found that although fast food chains have put a big emphasis on developing “healthier” menus (see: McDonald’s “Favorites Under 400 Calories“), the nutrition content of salads turn out to be approximately the same as their counterparts without the health halo. In fact, in terms of calories and fat content, salads rarely fare much better than the unhealthy sandwiches and burgers we associate with fast food restaurants.
And that mirrors a 2012 study, which found that although fast food menus grew between 1996 and 2010 to include 53 percent more dishes and snacks, the average number of calories in each item hadn’t changed.
“Entree salads, which are increasing in number, can be bad, too. With fried chicken on top and regular dressing, they can have more calories than a burger,” lead researcher Katherine Bauer, an assistant professor in the department of public health at Temple University, told HealthDay at the time of the study’s release.
Which goes to show that adding lettuce won’t make your meal healthier.
Video & Editing by Amber Genuske
Reporting by Meredith Melnick
Producers: Laura Schocker, Meredith Melnick and Amber Genuske
Assistant: Rachael Grannell
