foods you thought were low cal...but aren't!!

banana chips!!

holy crap i didn't know they were deep fried!!

any others you found suprising??

I was surprised about bagels, muffins, smoothies, fruit juices, cereal, nuts, raisins & other dried fruit, salad dressing, poptarts, cheesecake, peanut butter, alcohol

Marie Calendar pot pies! I about died when I found out how many calories were in those babies...around 1000 if i remember correctly, they are delicious but BEWARE!

OJ!

Used to drink no-sugar-added orange juice by the buckets. I just assumed it was low-cal! But 110 cals per cup? Sheesh. That's my limit per day now - 1 cup. And sometimes that makes me sad

Original Post by xev667:

Mozzarella sticks (like string cheese, not fried).  Okay, they're not bad, but not in the way I was scarfing them down.

 I had no friggin idea that they were not that great for you either! I figured 80 calories wasn't too bad. But then I joined CC & saw that they get a C grade!!

I haven't been recently, and I don't really go anymore but a few months ago my friend started working at Nandos so a bunch of us used to go there every week or fortnight to chill with him. I thought, as far as fast foods go, Nandos was relatively healthy because I mean, I've seen them cook it and all it is is chicken and a coating sauce which is grilled, not fried or anything, but according to this website  - a leg and a breast is 750 calories! Woah

I know this site is American, so that may be it - I'm British and here they grill the chicken at every Nandos I've been to and I find 750 calories a bit much for two pieces of grilled chicken. Do they fry the chicken in America?!

Original Post by plum_seed:

I know this site is American, so that may be it - I'm British and here they grill the chicken at every Nandos I've been to and I find 750 calories a bit much for two pieces of grilled chicken. Do they fry the chicken in America?!

Heck yes they fry chicken here.  Buffet-style restaurants, chain restaurants like KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), Church's, Popeye's, all feature fried chicken.  KFC has recently come out with their grilled chicken, probably because everyone is starting to try to have "healthier" options for their customers.  It probably started with Subway (sub sandwiches) offering apples instead of potato chips.  Other fast food restaurants stopped offering their "biggie size" drinks and french fries (crisps, right?).  Even some Food Network shows have hosts cooking fried chicken.  Some of those "healthier" options from the restaurants may be better for you, but that's when people go overboard and eat too much of it.  Best to look up what you're going to eat before you go.  You may stay home and cook instead!

ETA:  Keep in mind, we're probably the only country that fries twinkies, Snickers bars, etc.

http://www.abekleinfeld.com/images/Patty%20&a mp;%20Kids%20Visit%206-05/Deep-Fried-Twinkies -6-05.jpg

http://alloveralbany.com/images/fried_candy_b ar_after.jpg

Original Post by jannid:

bagels. Once I read the labels I decided that whole wheat muffins were just fine.

 I know! But, I found Thomas' 100 calorie Bagels! 4 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber in them too!

I used to LOVE pot pies....but I always look at the back of the package for nutrional facts now (since starting this in january) one day I thought, what the heck....I've been doing so great, I'll get one. But, when I flipped it over and saw the calories....I put it right back in that freezer. No way!

Regarding alcohol: 1 oz of Captain Morgan Rum & add Diet coke for just 60 calories....nice.

Thank you for your reply xev667! I nearly lost my faith in chicken, and hahaha, gosh! I don't think the healthier options would work as such but then again, it's not the fast food that's the problem, it's the people eating it right?!
and thanks again haha, i might just do that, home-made stuff's tastier too (most of the time)

ps. scotland had the first deep fried mars bar

so we're not that far behind you :D

what is it about deep fried candy bars? They are so disgusting and yet so... appealing at the same time : )

It's like we want to see if we can eat the most unhealthy thing on the planet without dying on the spot : )

i think it's just the novelty of it. people do eat them but not massively at all, it's just for the stupid sake of it. like i saw a place that does deep fried battered pizza, but i think it's just for novelty, but obviously some people enjoy that ****!!!

there's one thing i saw in a blog, deep fried dough doused in cola syrup, so essentially deep fried cola

that sounds weirdly appealing

We have deep fried ice cream in Canada. It's like a single scoop. I've never tried, but it's a hit at the pub down the road...

Original Post by hilary88:

We have deep fried ice cream in Canada. It's like a single scoop. I've never tried, but it's a hit at the pub down the road...

OMG I shared one with my sister once! It's DELICIOUS :)

Crunchy and Hot on the ouside, Soft and Cold on the inside...and soo pretty that I ALMOST didn't want to eat it!

It was vanilla ice cream, with fried dough outside and covered with syrup (caramel?). It's on the ''10 things to eat before you die'' list xD

...well worth the stomach ache afterwards. (It's VERY rich)

I think the biggest shock is when you first start off doing a food journal, and seeing what you are eating, and the calories they really are. My big shock was fast food. Whenever my wife worked evenings, I'd be too lazy to cook dinner for myself, so I would "rationalize' that I should get McDonalds, Burger King, etc. This would happen 2 maybe 3 times a week. When I started logging in what I was getting at fast food restaurants, I couldn't believe the number of calories per visit I was ingesting. Nowadays, I still visit fast food, but maybe once or twice a month, and even then I am cautious about what I will eat there, and also any impact from that day's food intake.

Pork ribs. I know that sounds silly, but I always thought that they were mostly bone, but took a realtively long time to eat since you had to work it off the bone with your teeth. I thought since it took longer, I was actually getting satisfied on not that much meat; I thought I was eating much less meat than I would if I were eating, say, steak.

Then I looked around and discovered that there are in fact close to three ounces PER RIB, and that they were around 200 calories apeice! And that's just for the meat--add to that the fact that I normally slow-cooked them in Coke (it's a Georgia thing), and I was topping 1000 calories with what I thought was only a few bites of meat.

I still plan to occassionally make my slow-cooked Coca-Cola ribs, but only for special occasions, and I won't eat more than two, myself.

Well its not that I was necessarily shocked but whenever I check the nutrition labels of certain all natural healthy cereals, it sometimes blows my mind to see 200 calories per 3/4 cup and sometimes up to 12 grams of sugar.

Cascadian Farms Vanilla Almond Crunch has 16 grams of sugar per cup and 200 calories, I guess I just didnt think that much sugar would be in the cereal (natural or not), I can handle the higher calorie cereals if there is decent protein and fiber and unsat fat, but didnt realize how many calories came from sugar.

dried fruit, fruit juice, veggie chips

When I first measured a serving of dry pasta I was so disappointed that I got out my scale to weight it just to make sure.

Sad sad day.

*sigh* I remember when I thought that whole wheat bagels with reduced fat cream cheese were low cal. And jumbo bran muffins. Oh and I definitely used to think that dried fruits, nuts, and granola were low cal enough to eat in giant portions lol oh how naïve I was

Popcorn (Not really high calorie but, I thought a regular sized smart pop bag had just 30 calories XD)

Gquaqamolie .... ^^;

Bannanas in general I thought where a big less

Learned early, but still surprising: Nuts.

Ice cream, 1/2 a cup, when I was little I ate HALF A BOX T.T

Granola

Macadamia nuts!!!!

They're so light, I thought they would have less calories than denser nuts.... they have a LOT MORE than other nuts.  About 18 calories in one smallish macadamia nut and close to 1,000 calories in a cup of whole macadamia nuts...not even chopped and in little pieces to fill the cup.  I could easily down a cup of macadamia nuts in a heartbeat if I had them around.

On my list of "do not have on the premises."