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.

Hooray!  2 people guessed it right! (If you're wondering what "it" is, it's "Mystery Food Theatre", an idea I picked up from Kidsmomo's {kidsmomo.com} "Mystery Book Theatre."  Every so often, I give a food's nutrition information and a hint about what it is and leave you to guess what it is in the form of a comment.)  Anyway, the answer was water.  Someone guessed "diet soda", but they tend to have about 5 calories per serving.  Coke 0 still probably has a little sodium, though.  Yes, soda has a little salt.  So, 150 calories, 8 grams of fat (1.5 of those are saturated), 180 milligrams of sodium, cholesterol free, 17 grams of carbs, 1 grams of fiber, 1 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein per serving.  It has a really long ingredients list, as usual, with a lot of chemicals and hydrogenated oils.

Jamie Oliver is getting closer to his goal of stopping the march of highly processed foods, but he's far from done.  bum bum BUM!!!!

Plenty of things have a long ingredients list.  Did I mention that?

First off, for Mystery Food Theatre, the answer is... Nesquik!!!  Now, this week's, even without any hints, should be obvious.  It has 0 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, potassium, and cholesterol, 0 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of protein, and no vitamins or minerals.

Second off, I will be talking about a show: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.  Jamie goes around to different cities, stays there for a couple weeks, and tries to make the people there eat healthier. (This also means "no highly processed foods" to him.)  He goes to a school in a city that was found to be the unhealthiest city in the world by a government statistic, and they're having pizza for breakfast.  For lunch, they have pizza or chicken nuggets.  He asks them what they had for dinner, and they basically had either chicken nuggets or pizza.  When Jamie Oliver cooked chicken and the kids had a choice between pizza and chicken (which Jamie made from scratch with a store-bought chicken), they chose the pizza.  I'm not telling you how it ends to keep the suspense.  (You can watch it on their website somewhere at ABC.com.)

Third off, Bye!

Now, what you've all been waiting for: the late Mystery Food Theatre!

If you don't know what I'm talking about, check my earlier posts.  So, the answer is... General Mill's Kix! (As "Me" pointed out, it is a little low in fiber, but still, it's better than Lucky Charms.)  This chocolate milk making product has half a gram of fat (0 saturated), 14 grams of carbs (<1 fiber, 13 sugars), 60 calories, and <1 gram of protein in 2 tablespoons.  Leave a guess as a comment!

Everybody loves a good glass of chocolate milk!

The supercallifragillisticexpiallidocious post

Sorry, I just wanted to type that word.  So, today, for Mystery Food Theatre, instead of using an Eat This, Not That! book, today, I actually looked at the nutrition label on the product.  This time, it's a breakfast cereal, like before with Smart Start (not so smart).  By the way, last week's answer was Hardee's Monster Biscuit.  Anyway, this cereal has 110 calories, 210 milligrams of sodium, 3 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugars, and is nearly fat-free.  Comment on this post guessing what it is!

Trans fatty acids, also called trans fats, are some of the worst kinds of fats.  Before being made into trans fats (they're produced artificially), 2 carbon atoms are double-bonded and certain groups of atoms are bonded on one side of the molecule.  After hydrogenation (which turns the fats into trans fats), one of the groups of atoms shifts to the other side of the molecule, changing the molecular structure slightly.  To see an example of these molecules, go to http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/chemweek/pdf/fats&oils.pdf.  The images are on the second page.

I love being on time for Mystery Food Theatre! Every week, I choose one food to give nutritional information on.  I also give a hint on what it is, and it's up to you to guess what it is.  So, the answer to last week's mystery food theatre is... Cici's Pizza Buffet Macaroni and Cheese Pizza!!! (gross!)  It made the worst pizzas in america list in one of Eat This, Not That!'s books (of course).  So, now for the next mystery food theatre: with 710 calories, 51 grams of fat (17 saturated), and 2250 milligrams of sodium, this monster of a biscuit comes as the worst breakfast sandwich in... Guess which book it is.  (C'mon, you can guess.)  Leave a comment on this post guessing what it is!

This week, I'm on time for mystery food theatre!  Yay!

Last week, I posted a question on what a certain food was, given its nutrition facts and a hint.  The surprising answer is... (drumroll, please) Kellogg's Smart Start Cereal Maple Brown Sugar!!!  Someone (sorry, you'll have to leave your name in your comment if you don't have a blogspot account), as last time, came close with Captain Crunch, but no one got it right.  Now, for my next Mystery Food Theatre! According to one of Eat This, Not That!'s books (again) (their best and worst), this pizza buffet gimmick has 460 calories, 8 grams of fat (3 saturated), 660 milligrams of sodium, and 78 grams of carbs.  Also, If you can, guess which list this pizza made: best or worst.  Leave a comment on this post trying to guess what it is!

I know I'm writing this 2 days late, but it is now 2 days after time to reveal...

Mystery food theatre!

Last week, I posted a question on what a certain food was, given its nutrition facts.  The answer is... BK's Whopper Jr. (without mayo) with onion rings!  I'm sorry for giving facts on a complicated order with nutrition that is not up-to-date.  (BK removed trans fats from their menu, according to Eat This, Not That! the Best (and Worst!) Foods in America!)  Jennifer McGraw came close, asking if it was a McDonald's happy meal, but no one actually got it right.  Oh, well.  This time, I'll post something that isn't as complicated.  This is a supermarket food, but it wouldn't be very intelligent to eat it.  According to a photo of the nutrition label in Eat This, Not That! For Kids! (anyone notice a lot of exclamation points in their books' names?), it has 220 calories, 2.5 grams of fat (.5 saturated), 5 grams of fiber, AND 17 GRAMS OF SUGARS.  The biggest problem, though, isn't the sugars, it's the long ingredients list, with 17 lines!  The aisle you might find it in has a lot of similar-shaped boxes, some with high sugar, some with high fiber.

Mystery Food Theatre

According to Eat This, Not That!'s book for kids, this "meal" has 430 calories, 19 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fats, 700 milligrams of sodium, and 4 grams of fiber.  I think that this restaurant removed trans fats from their menu since the kids' book was published, but I can't find my more recent book, so I can't know for sure.  It may be a kid favorite, but it isn't exactly healthy.  Leave a comment guessing what it is.  Next week, I'll reveal what it is.

Hello!

Welcome to this blog!  Anyway, I'm trying to inform people about nutrition as well as I can.  I will have to reveal what the worst food in America (You might be an international viewer, and this is probably the worst food in your country, too, if you are), at least according to Eat This, Not That!'s Best (& Worst!) Foods in America book, is Baskin & Robin's (The ice cream shop that says 31 on its logo) large chocolate oreo shake, with 2600 calories, 135 grams of fat, 59 grams of saturated fat, 2.5 grams of trans fats, 263 grams of sugar, and, surprisingly, 1700 milligrams of sodium.  I did a review of their book for kids on another one of my blogs, and here it is:

The reason I began to read this book (Eat This, Not That! for Kids!) is because my sister had high blood cholesterol and high blood fats. It is on nutrition, and most of the book is on what to eat at certain places, including at restaurants, school, and home. Specifically, the major sections are on: 8 rules of kid's nutrition, what to get at specific restaurants (there are a lot of these), what to get at groups of restaurants (Family, mexican, italian, etc.), at the supermarket, at school (Cafeteria, vending machine, packed lunches), at home, and exercise.

A lot of the restaurant information was helpful. I have three warnings: Don't get Chipotle's rice (160 calories, 4 grams fat {0 saturated}, 330 mg sodium, 30 grams Carbs), Chili's awesome blossom (over 2000 calories and over 2000 mg sodium, this nonspecific information is because the adult one is with my sister and she's at college), and DO NOT GET Chili's Pepper Pals® Country-Fried Chicken Crispers. This is the worst kid's meal in america, with 1110 calories, 82 grams fat (15 saturated), and 1980 milligrams of sodium. Anything on Chili's kids menu is better than this, including the corn dog and little mouth burger, but the quesadilla is rather unhealthy. A lot of the book has healthier substitutions for certain foods.

The Supermarket information was also helpful. Surprisingly, Sun Chips are recommended against. Baked! Lay's are better, apparently. Also, no apple chips. They are not incredibly bad, but Nabisco Garden Harvest Toasted Chips Apple Cinnamon are better. Also, these are surprising not thats: Apple Cinnamon cheerios, Yogurt burst Cheerios, Quaker Natural Granola Oats, honey & rasins, Raisin Nut Bran, Wheat Chex, Kashi GOLEAN Crunch! Honey Almond Flax, and these last three are going to be surprising: Nature's Path Envirokidz organic gorilla munch, Kellogg's Smart Start Cereal (There is no FDA definition for strong Heart), and... Kellog's Raisin Bran! (I am telling the truth. Raisin Bran is high in sugars.) A lot of stuff at the supermarket that acts like it's healthy is not incredibly healthy.

Anyway, there are also some healthier-than-usual recipes that are in the book, including Fettucine Alfredo. NO CHEESE FRIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2800 calories and 160 grams of fat per appetizer is way too much. Make homemade cheese fries instead of getting them at someplace like Denny's or Chili's. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but I will try them at some point.

Anyway, I liked this book. Many of these have images to help find what to get. I would recommend this book for parents looking for what to get for their kids, but parents should also look for the regular version of Eat This, Not That!, which is designed for adults.