Major nutrition offenses

So, everyone, I recommend keeping watch on the calories, as always, because there are some major calories out there!

Example:

Authentic Texas Pecan Fudge Cake: sounds healthy, right?  :)  Anyway, nutrition label for 1 slice (which is about 1/6 cake):

460 calories (290 from fat)

That 290 should warn you about a lot of fat, and here it comes:

32 grams fat

Yeah, a lot, but it's not too bad, because

5 grams saturated, 0 grams trans

That 5 is still 25% of your daily saturated fat intake, but all the rest of the fat is still poly and monounsaturated fats.  HOWEVER, the cake still has 49% of your daily fat intake.

0 milligrams cholesterol

That's good, at least.

90 milligrams sodium

That, too.

38 grams carbs

Dun dun DUUUUUUUUUUN!

3 grams fiber

uh-oh... this must mean a lot of sugar.

27 grams of sugar

6 grams of protein

It has a decent amount of some good nutrients (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, protein), but this is swamped out by the really bad ones.

Oh, and did I mention?  It has a 12-line ingredients list with HFCS.

Authentic, right?  (Not!)

Keep your eye out for these kinds of things!  Try to make some things at home, such as whipped cream (you can certainly find recipes online, and it will probably have less sugar.  It's easier to make than you think, and so is frosting.) and frosting.  (This was just mentioned, and the store-bought has loads of trans fats, especially Pillsbury.)  Other things: bread (surprisingly easy if you have a bread machine, and still easy if you don't), cake (okay, these are a little hard to make.  If you want, make cupcakes.  My sister makes vegan ones without margarine all the time.), and so on and so forth.

So, time for...

Mystery Food Theatre!

(description: every week, I choose a food, give the nutrition information, and type in a hint about it.  You're supposed to guess what it is by commenting on the post.  To keep other people from accidentally seeing your answer, this week, I'll have everyone type their guesses after shifting each letter one letter forward in the alphabet, where z turns into a.)

Last week, someone (that someone is edejean) got close, but no one guessed right.  The answer:

Peanuts!  (Kroger's, lightly salted)

So, this week, we have something that takes about a day to make.  In 1 tbsp, there are 100 grams fat (45 from fat), 5 grams fat (1 saturated), 180 milligrams sodium, 12 grams carbs, 7 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, and 1 gram of protein.  I've had this myself, and it's spicy.  However, it contains chocolate.  Odd, huh?

So, leave your guess in code, remember.  That's it for now!

Schlosser

I WENT TO A TALK WITH ERIC SCHLOSSER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  YAY!!!!!!  (Eric Schlosser is the author of Fast Food Nation and Chew On This!)  In case you aren't able to guess, I'm a big fan of him.  I very rarely eat fast food.  On a fast-food filled year, I might go out once or twice.  (Besides the less occasional, but still relatively occasional, stop for slushies at Sonic.)  To the other point.  So, Now for my Mystery Food Theatre!  Every week, I choose a food, give the nut-rition information, and type in a hint about it.  Last week's answer was: Goldfish (Xtreme Pizza.  That was their name for that kind of goldfish, not mine).  160 calories (130 from fat), 14 grams fat (2 saturated, 4.5 poly, 7 mono), 60 mg sodium, 5 grams carbs (2 fiber, 1 sugar), and 7 grams of protein.  Leave a comment with your guess!

Breakfast, continued

Continuation:

Muffins:
They got a good reputation a while ago, but... not so good.  I saw some with 11 GRAMS OF FAT, 17 GRAMS OF SUGAR, AND <1 GRAM OF FIBER!!!  For 1/2 muffin, that is.  Total: 400 calories per muffin.  This was on a boy scout campout.  Some of the kids in my troop had two or three muffins.  But let's get to the point instead of criticizing muffins.  Try for ≤8 grams of fat, ≤10 grams of sugar, and ≥3 grams of fiber.  Oh, yeah, ≤250 calories per muffin.  These are not ideal, but it's hard to find muffins better than this.  Make sure to check the serving size.

Bagels:
Try to follow the same guidelines as bread.

Whipped cream:
Try to get whipped.  Less calories.  There's another reason to get whipped: spreading it's less difficult.  Wait, was that called whipped cream?  Correction: cream cheese.

Now, what everyone's been waiting for.  The answer: twinkies!  Next one: 0 calories, 0 fat, 0 carbs, 0 protein, 0 salt, 0 just about everything except for aluminum and rubber.  JOKING! (BTW, that was crutches.) Okay: nothing but a lot of iron.  Okay, it's iron ore.  Starting to sound fishy?  (Hint, hint)  Next: 140 calories, 5 grams fat (1 saturated, 1 poly, 2.5 mono), 280 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams carbs, 3 grams protein, 2% calcium, 6% iron.  11 line ingredients list.  THAT is what you're supposed to be guessing.

Breakfasts

Oatmeal squares.  Everyone thought of that.  Am I making myself that obvious?  So, this week's mystery food has 150 calories, 4.5 grams of fat (2.5 saturated), 20 mg cholesterol, 220 mg sodium, 27 grams of carbs, 19 grams sugars, and a measly 1 gram of protein.  The really bad thing that makes it famous, however, is the 37 ingredients, including hydrogenated shortening!  Steve Ettlinger decides to figure out where these ingredients come from in a book called... I'm sorry, I can't tell you.  The title includes the name of the food.  Why did I just say that?

Breakfast guidance:

Waffles and pancakes:

Ideally, you'll want something with less than 5 grams of fat, at least 4 grams of fiber, and a decent amount of protein.

Butter:

Organic or grass-fed is good, but those may be too expensive.  Do NOT buy margarine.  A lot of "trans-fat-free" margarines contain an amount of trans fat rounded to zero, and others have a lot of trans fat.

Syrup:

Do not buy syrup other than maple.  I probably just told you not to buy any syrup, due to how expensive maple syrup is.  Another idea is to make your own syrup out of fruit.  There are different ways to do this, so I'll leave you to figure out how.

Cereal:

At least 3-4 grams of fiber and less than about 7 grams of sugar, with a LOT of vitamins, best-case scenario.  If you're used to hypersweetened cereals, start out at about 10-ish grams of sugar.  Also, pay attention to vitamins.  If there are things saying "This is healthy," remember: the FDA might not have definitions for many of the terms.  For an example of a "healthy" cereal that isn't so great, look for Kellog's Smart Start.

Bread:

Try for twice as much fiber as sugar.  If you usually eat white, start with one of the whitewheat kinds.

Jams, Jellies, and Preserves:

No added sugar, no added artificial sweeteners, and fruit or something that comes from fruit as the first ingredient.

Peanut butter:

Peanuts and salt, Peanuts and sugar, or just peanuts.  Reduced fat or no-stir are no-buys.

Eggs:

Eggs are bad for you: fact or fiction?  Muriel over here says that eggs are good, because they contain HDL (good) cholesterol, healthy fats, and a lot of protein.  Albert says that they have a lot of fat, calories, and cholesterol.  Now, for the moment you've been waiting for: eggs are good!  Muriel, you are moving on to the next round!

Donuts:

There are almost no good donuts.  Try the least trans fat, and if there's a tie, least sugar.  If they're STILL tied, highest fiber.  If there's still a tie, least calories.  Then least fat.  You probably won't get to least fat as long as you live, because there probably won't be a sugar tie.

Juice:

Look for 100% made up of only the advertised juice.

Milk:

Any percentage of fat will work pretty well.

Leave comments on this post for other breakfast suggestions!

Ok, a lot of people guessed that my answer was Hershey's syrup, but what they didn't guess was that it was the special dark.  That had little importance, so I'll count them right.  The winners are... Yummy and Nan-Naw!!!  Great job!!!  So, anyway, as a new MFT, this oatmeal-based cereal from Quaker has 210 calories, 2.5 grams of fat (1 each of poly- and monounsaturated and the rest is saturated), 250 milligrams of sodium, 44 grams of carbs (5 fiber {2 soluble}, 10 sugar, and 29 other), and 6 grams of protein per serving.  And yes, not cheetah-related meant not CHEETos.  (Cheetos also have a picture of a cheetah on the bags.  Plus, they use the same cartoon cheetah in commercials.)

So, my cat needs to eat healthier, but you can't just find a nutrition label and ingredients list on a bag of cat food, can you?  Part of the problem might just be exercise.  Everyone, including cats, dogs, and sloths, needs it.

Today, there's a guess to mystery food theatre (in which I choose a food and give its nutrition information and a hint, plus you're supposed to guess what it is, but you don't have to), and the answer happens to be... the unhealthy Doritos (spicy nacho flavor)!  So, as a special dark chocolate product practically MADE of HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup), this has 90 calories, 0 grams of fat, 30 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 20 grams of sugars, and less than 1 gram of protein.  It's practically vitamin-free.  Sounds like empty calories, huh?  It can be used to make chocolate milk.  Not as empty, but still empty.  As a bonus question, try to figure out what I meant by "not cheetah-related" last week.

So, I'm currently reading Nutrition for Dummies, and it's actually pretty reliable!  (It's not 100% reliable, but then again, what is?  Not even I'm 100% reliable.  For proof, look at the fact that I'm putting in a review today for a different book than planned.)  It's not the most recommended book, but it's not bad.  Yes, I'd recommend it.  I might do a review about it, but not today.

Apology (see last post)

Sorry, but I forgot to give a hint.  Anyway, they're crunchy, not cheetah-related, and covered in orange powder.