Mary_RD's Journal

Calories in Thanksgiving Food
Nov 24 2009 12:00

Thanksgiving and dieting do not usually go together.  Damage control is the order of the day.  But at Calorie Count, knowledge is power, and so let’s Stop and Look at typical Thanksgiving foods.

Pick and choose from your favorite foods based on the Calorie Count.  Search Calorie Count’s Recipe Browser for recipes entered by our members, and use the Recipe Analyzer to analyze your own recipe and to create a lighter versions.  Also, look for ideas at Eating Well and Cooking Light magazine websites and from About.com’s Guides to Low Calorie and Low Fat Cooking. 

And so, without further ado, here are the calories a la carte.

Beverages

Apple cider, 1 cup: 115
Champagne Punch, 6 ounces: 124
Wine, 3.5 ounces: 84
Kahlua Sombrero, 4 ounces: 340

Appetizers and First Courses

Mixed nuts, 1 ounce: 170
Candied Pecans, 1 ounce: 139
Cheese ball, 1 ounce: 110
Crackers, 5: 80
Crudités selection, 8 ounces: 75
Sour Cream & Onion Dip, 2 tablespoons: 60
Chex Mix, 2/3 cup: 130
Stuffed Mushrooms, 6 small: 386
Deviled Eggs, one: 59
Cheese Puffs, one: 71
Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce, 3: 30
Fruit Cup, 1/2 cup: 70
Sherbet, 1/4 cup: 55
Pumpkin Soup, 8 ounces: 70

Salads

Tossed salad with Oil and Vinegar, 10 ounces
Ambrosia Salad, 1 cup: 183
Molded Jell-O Salad, ½ cup: 103

Main Course

Dinner Roll, 1 small: 87
Butter, 1 pat: 36
Cheesy Corn Bread, 2" X 2": 96
Turkey, roasted white meat, 4 ounces: 180
Turkey, roasted dark meat, 4 ounces: 323
Turkey Gravy, 1/4 cup: 50
Stuffing, 1/2 cup: 190
Mashed Potatoes, 1 cup: 190
Candied Yams, 1/2 cup:  210
Sweet Potato Casserole, 3/4 cup: 624
Honey Glazed Carrots, 1/2 cup: 45
Green Beans Almondine, 1/2 cup: 220
Green Bean Casserole, 1/2 cup: 75
Peas and Pearl Onions, 1/2 cup: 40
Jellied Cranberry Sauce, 1/4 cup: 110
Cranberry Relish, 1/2 cup: 76

Dessert

Pumpkin Pie, 1/8 of a 9" pie : 316
Apple Pie, 1/8 of a 9" pie : 411
Pecan Pie, 1/8 of a 9" pie : 503
Vanilla Ice Cream, 1/2 cup: 145
Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Filling, 1" round: 306
Chocolate Cream Pie, 1 large slice: 535
Baked Apple, 1 apple: 182
Tea, brewed, 8 ounces: 2
Coffee, black: 10 ounces: 5
Coffee with Cream and Sugar, 10 ounces: 120
Coffee with Baileys Irish Cream and Sugar, 10 ounces: 186

The numbers are derived from Calorie Count’s database of 106,000 foods and ingredients, and from the 278,000 recipes entered by our members over time. If your particular food is not in the database but you have a food label, you can enter it using the "add it here" link at the Food Log section of your Account Page.

See more calories in Thanksgiving food from the Guide to Walking at About.com:

• Thanksgiving Calorie Calculator
• Thanksgiving Calories: Pre-Burn or Burn Them Off

Your thoughts....

Do you have Thanksgiving Day foods or recipes to add?

Party Like a Natural Eater
Nov 12 2009 12:00

In a past Blog, I covered the differences between chronic dieters (also called ‘Restrained Eaters’) and Natural Eaters who have not experienced deprivation diets.  The disparity rests with the restrained eaters' narrow boundaries, rigid control and inevitable feelings of guilt; the natural eater shares none of these.  For restrained eaters, all is presumed well as long as they stay within their narrow boundaries, but when they breakthrough and eat “forbidden food” (or even anticipate overeating), restrained eaters lose their resolve and that can lead to a binge.  For restrained eaters, the holiday season is particularly problematic.

Case in Point: The Holiday Party 

The Restrained Eater and the Natural Eater go to the holiday party.

Restrained Eater:

• Panics at the thought of “blowing the diet”.  (One slip and it’s over.)
• Feels embarrassed about eating in front of others.  
• Eats only a small amount of food at the gathering.  
• Feels guilty if she slips and overeats, but feels deprived if she doesn't.  Either way, she picks a time to overeat when she is alone.

Natural Eater:

• Welcomes the party and thinks about the people she'll see there.   
• Readily eats in front of other people.
• Eats to appetite (i.e. uses hunger/satiety levels to gauge her intake.)
• Eats her favorite foods and balances "what I like with what I need".
• After the party, does not feel guilty or deprived.  

Advice from Natural Eaters

"Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first."

The natural eater knows that she will definitely eat her favorite food.  She also knows that her favorite food tastes better when she is not already full.  And so, why make a false display of healthy eating only to spoil dessert?  This is a party after all! It has nothing to do with day-to-day eating.  And, as it turns out, satisfied people usually stay within their calorie budgets.

Sense and Sensibility

Of course, the natural eater reins it in (without the guilt) because she doesn’t feel like waking up bloated, hung-over, and feeling generally ucky.  She practices (at least some of) these behaviors as an expression of self-love. 

Natural Eater:

• Focuses on looking great: hair, skin, nails, makeup, flattering outfit.  (She does not tell herself, like Bridget Jones, that her bottom is the size of Brazil.)
• Eats lighter throughout the day to “make room” for party food, but she is not famished upon arrival.
• Prepares a healthy dish to take along. (At least there will be something decent to eat.)
• Checks out the entire array of food before digging in.
• Does not rush to enter the food line first.
• Does not overfill her plate.
• Sits to eat with the other eaters and enjoys her food.
• Doesn’t waste calories on mediocre food or any food she doesn’t really love.
• Eats slowly and consciously to notice when she is full.
• Knows she can always go back for more of something really wonderful.
• Doesn’t sit near the table when eating time is over.
• Limits alcohol to one or two drinks.  (Drinking like a fish is not sensible.)
• Dances because it feels good to move.
• Feels great when she wakes up the next day

Your thoughts....

What are your holiday party plans?

Size Matters
Nov 26 2009 12:00

Are your eyes really bigger than your stomach?

Apparently, yes. It seems that the larger the plate, bag or spoon, the more we eat. Researcher Brian Wansin, professor of marketing at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab studies the psychology behind what people eat and how often they eat it. He and his associates have studied how visual perception of food affects how much we eat or drink.

The question is: What makes people stop eating? Is it the physical feeling of fullness or what our eyes perceive instead?

To Your Health

In one study by Wansink, adults and children, pouring their own drinks, believed that there was less in short, wide glasses than in tall, slender ones, even though the amounts were the same. They were more likely to refill the short, wide glasses. 

Here, visual cues, not physical ones, accounted for how much people drank.

A Bottomless Bowl

In another study by Wansink, participants were offered soup, either in a standard bowl, or unbeknownst to them, in a "self-refilling" bowl to see how much was consumed. The standard bowl was an accurate visual cue of portion size while the self-refilling one was not.

Again, the theory was that people use visual estimates of food and liquids more than physical satiety signs. If you alter the visual cue, do people keep eating, even if no longer hungry?

Sure enough, participants with bowls that kept refilling ate 73 percent more soup than those with the normal bowl. What's more, they didn't perceive that they ate more, and didn't feel fuller than those eating from the normal bowls.

Nutrition Experts Are Not Immune

In another experiment by Wansink, participants, including many nutrition experts, were given bowls and spoons of different sizes and told to help themselves to ice cream for a celebration. Those with larger bowls and spoons took more; those with smaller bowls and spoons took less.

What Can We Take Away From All This?

• Be aware that what your eyes see can override your physical sense of being full.
• Eat off smaller plates and bowls.
• Use more delicate silverware and serving utensils.
• Buy tall, slender glasses instead of short, wide ones.

Your thoughts......

The Truth about Gluten-Free Diets
Nov 10 2009 12:00

Chances are you know someone who follows gluten-free diet (why else would supermarkets and restaurant chains point out the gluten-free foods?). Gluten-free diets are catching on at college campuses. Oprah Winfrey's "21-day cleanse" included gluten elimination. But should you be jumping on the gluten-free bandwagon?  Let’s sort out the science from the hype.

Who needs a a gluten-free diet?

A gluten-free diet is used to treat celiac disease, a genetically determined immune system reaction to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley (and sometimes in oats too).  With celiac disease, gluten ingestion causes the intestines to become inflamed.  Inflammation eventually damages the absorptive surface, leading to malnutrition and other medical problems. When people with celiac disease eliminate gluten, they feel better in a few days, although it takes 2 to 3 months or longer for their intestines to heal.

The classic symptoms of celiac disease are crampy abdominal pain with bloating, gas and diarrhea, but some patients experience anemia, joint pain, headaches, and skin rashes instead - or no obvious symptoms at all.  Not long ago, celiac disease was thought to be rare (about 1 in 3,000 in North America), but new prevalence estimates are actually much higher and have been set closer to 1 in 133 (and 1 in 22 when a close relative has the disease.)  No one knows for sure why celiac disease has become more common.  The newer tests to find it are easier to use, but that doesn't seem to be the reason.  Theories abound, and according to the New York Times, one theory favored by some scientists hypothesizes that humans are overdosing on gluten because wheat has become so common in the Western diet.  Stay tuned....

What is a gluten-free diet?

Here's the real problem: the gluten-free diet is not easy to follow. Gluten is hidden in so many foods; for instance, gluten may be an ingredient in deli meats, soy sauce, vinegar, marinades, salad dressings, canned soup, thickeners, sour cream, ice cream, whiskey, beer, and many other foods.  Forget about easily going out for pizza and even Communion wafers! And warn the hostess that you are the dinner guest from hell. 

Gluten-free dieters must make a lifelong commitment to diligently read all food labels and ferret out sources of gluten-free food. To that end, many organizations have risen to provide reliable information.  Among the best are celiac.com and zeer.com.  Our own About.com has two guides to gluten: the Guide to Celiac Disease and the Guide to Gluten-Free Cooking.  

Gluten and YOU

And so, while a gluten-free diet is critical for celiac disease, it is just not necessary for John and Jane Q. Public.  When followed correctly, the gluten-free diet is inconvenient, expensive and presents nutritional challenges by limiting foods.  And if you think you may have celiac disease, see a doctor for evaluation before starting the diet because the gluten-free diet can impact the results of the diagnostic tests.  And so, if you need a gluten-free diet for medical reasons, then do your homework and follow it to the letter.  And for everyone, celiac or not, be suspicious about the information passed off as science.

Your thoughts....

Have you thought about going gluten-free?  Do you have celiac disease?

Easy Thai Red Curry Chicken
Nov 07 2009 16:30

From About.com's Guide to Thai Food.

This easy Thai Red Curry is fragrant and sumptuous, and can be made anywhere from mild to red-hot, depending on how much spice you prefer. It's a healthy and hearty curry dish that will awaken your senses and boost your mood. Note that in Thailand this curry would be simmered in a wok over a stovetop, but in this case I have adapted it to suit Western cooking methods so that it can be baked in an oven (easier for most North Americans). This means it can be put together and in the oven in under 20 minutes! ENJOY!

Click to see the Nutrition Fact label for one serving.

This recipe was first posted on About.com's GuideSite to Thai Food.