"Häagen-Dazs Mint Chip Dazzler is a
portable sundae with three scoops of mint chip ice cream, hot fudge, Oreos,
chocolate sprinkles, and whipped cream. Nutritionally, its like eating a T-bone
steak, Caesar salad, and a baked potato with sour cream (1,270 calories and 38
grams of saturated fat)."
You should go to the CSPI website to
check out the entire article. But I want to share this eye-opening quote from
CSPI senior nutritionist Jayne Hurley:
"It’s as if these ice cream shops
were competing with each other to see who could inflict the greatest toll on
our arteries and waistlines. It’s not just regular ice cream, but premium.
It’s not just one scoop, but two or three. It’s not just a cone, but
a chocolate-dipped waffle cone. It’s not just hot fudge, nuts, and whipped
cream but every conceivable combination of cookie, candy, and chocolate."
Every other week or so, I take my kids
to Stewart's Drive-In for an ice cream treat. Since I am following a low-carb
diet, the super high-carb concoctions are off limits for me. One thing I've
learned: a small is no longer small -- order "baby" servings and walk away
satisfied, but not stuffed.
Keep in mind that a single scoop of
premium ice cream provides 250 to 350 calories and a half a day’s worth of
saturated fat. Is your head swirling yet? It should be easy to see that once
you begin tinkering with "plain" you begin playing with diet fire.
Many ice cream parlor offerings top
1,000 calories. And it doesn't stop at ice cream alone. CSPI says one large
Baskin-Robbins Vanilla Milkshake has 1,070 calories and 32 grams of saturated
fat -— that’s like drinking THREE McDonald’s Quarter
Pounders!
A medium chocolate shake at Burger King
has 500 calories, 8 grams of fat (5 saturated), 25mg cholesterol, 440mg sodium,
and 95 grams of carbs.
Another CSPI insight: "One sundae at
Friendly’s, the 5-scoop Candy Shop Reese’s Pieces, has 1,310
calories, a whole day’s worth of fat, and two whole days’ worth of
saturated fat." I can hear a swelling number of you now... asking, "But Mr. Bad
Food... what about frozen yogurt? It tastes like ice cream but it just has to
be healthier... doesn't it?"
Well, yes... and no.
Frozen yogurt is lower in fat than ice
cream. But order a Toffee Coffee Cappuccino Chiller at TCBY and you get the
calories and saturated fat of two pork chops, a Caesar salad, and a buttered
baked potato. The TCBY travesty has 1,200 calories and well over one day's
recommended saturated fat.
Susan Burke, eDiets director of
nutrition, notes, "Yogurt is very healthy if it’s low in fat and
doesn’t contain much added sugar. Some may think that if yogurt is
healthy, then frozen yogurt is healthy, too. Well, read the label on the
Haagen-Dazs Strawberry Cheesecake Craze Frozen Yogurt. One scant 1/2-cup
serving has 220 calories, 8 grams of fat and 4 grams of saturated fat!
That’s only 30 calories less than the regular Haagen-Dazs Strawberry Ice
Cream!
"You can definitely make a healthier
choice. The same 1/2-cup serving of Haagen-Dazs Strawberry Diet Frozen Yogurt
has only 130 calories, 2 grams of fat and only 1 gram of saturated fat! You can
enjoy twice the amount and still have half of the fat and only a quarter of the
saturated fat.
"Make it your goal to read the labels
or ask the counter help for the numbers you need -- nutritional knowledge is a
great thing!"
Most chains will scoop up low-fat ice
cream, frozen yogurt, sherbet, or sorbet with only 100 to 200 calories and
little or no saturated fat per. Earlier, Mr. Bad Food mentioned a fast-growing
chain called Cold Stone Creamery. If gluttony has become the national religion,
then Cold Stone is chief god. Go to their website (www.coldstonecreamery.com)
if you dare. Maybe I'm boring, but the images of their outrageous mountains of
ice cream and "toppings" turn my stomach. Please don't go here on an empty
stomach.
When it's all said and done, portion
control is the key to a healthy diet. Keep in mind that the recommended serving
size for ice cream is typically a half-cup... that's four ounces, not a pint or
a half-gallon. Four ounces of ice cream would about fit in the palm of your
hand. Don't try it -- it will be cold and messy!
Not an eDieter but you'd like to take
the plunge? Simply
click
here and start winning the losing battle!
Mr. Bad Food's Excellent Atkins
Adventure
This just in: thanks to the expert help
of eDiets chief fitness pro Raphael Calzadilla, I have overcome my weight loss
plateau and dropped another 2 pounds. So, after 8 weeks on the
Atkins
Nutritional Approach, Mr. Bad Food is down a total of 22 pounds. Atkins,
eDiets and Raphael... it's the triple play that's keeping this writer on the
right track to health and wellness.
I know many of my fellow low-carb
crazies (and I say that lovingly... as someone who is crazy about this eating
plan) will appreciate the "Ode to Atkins." Regular contributor Joanne Eglish
served up this bite-sized poem:
After a lifetime of grapefruit and
rice,
The Atkins eating plan tastes mighty nice.
Mushrooms grilled with
a juicy steak,
Real butter... forget about fake!
Imagine fried eggs and
bacon in the morn,
I'm feeling like a dieter reborn.
Noon we greet with
avocado and chicken,
And my inner Colonel says it's finger-lickin'!
I'm
a tad hungry come mid-afternoon,
Cheese with olives sends me over the
moon.
Come and join my dinner fun,
Start with shrimp... and lose a
ton!
Sounds corny, I know. But the truth is
Atkins allows you to eat well and lose weight. Now isn't that
Atkins
Nutritional Approach a refreshingly different approach to dieting?
Reader Feedback
I stumbled upon your recent article on
the Atkins Nutritional Approach and wanted to say, "Me too!" I am also 44 and
ecstatic to have lost 30 pounds on Atkins since April. I could have lost more,
but after the first 2 months I went all the way to maintenance... this diet is
miraculous! I remain in ketosis and just got rid of a bunch of old clothes. I
am enjoying every bit of this and the loss of many carbs is not a high price to
pay. There is obviously science behind this... I am thrilled and getting
compliments I haven't heard in a long time. Good luck with your Atkins' life.
God Bless that man for all his work and the flak he stood up to.
Penny
While talking with a fellow Atkins
dieter, I admitted to still craving breaded chicken and mozzarella sticks from
time to time. She admitted that she and her husband were the same way and found
a solution without breaking the diet. Pork rinds are a great substitute for
breading. Crush the pork rinds, dredge chicken in them, shallow fry them (I use
only extra virgin olive oil) and you have fried chicken. Do the same with
string mozzarella cheese and you have mozzarella sticks. Remember to eat
healthy -- these are for getting you through the worst cravings and still
maintaining the low carb way of eating. Keep making me laugh!
E.
Gibson
One thing I find silly about
calorie-counting dieters is their need to buy pre-packaged easy to prepare
food. Don't cry about having to count calories on your pre-prepared dinner --
MAKE your own dinner! I know everyone is busy, but if you want to eat healthy,
cook for yourself! I'm a busy student going to school fulltime, working and
living on my own and I still manage to cook a few meals for myself each week.
The other days I just eat leftovers. There are plenty of good-tasting, healthy,
easy-to-prepare-from-scratch recipes out there! Just go to your library, or
surf the web and find them. Kick the pre-packaged food industry in the butt by
learning to cook from scratch! Oh, and don't forget to support your local
organic farmers!
Rachel
Psych student and frugal gourmet
Thanks to everyone who took a minute or
two to write me this past week. I try my best to keep up with the email so drop
me a line. Whether your subject is something good... something bad... or even
something ugly... Mr. Bad Food welcomes all!
Leave 'em Laughing
20 Signs You've Grown Up
1. You keep more food than beer in the
fridge.
2. 6 a.m. is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
3. You
hear your favorite song on an elevator.
4. You watch the Weather
Channel.
5. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
6. Jeans and a
sweater no longer qualify as "dressed up."
7. You're the one calling the
police because those darn kids next door won't turn down the stereo.
8. You
don't know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.
9. Your car insurance goes
down and your payments go up.
10. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of
McDonald's leftovers.
11. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
12. You no longer take naps from noon to 6 p.m.
13. Dinner and a movie is
the whole date instead of the beginning of one.
14. Eating a basket of
chicken wings at 3 a.m. would severely upset rather than settle your
stomach.
15. A $4 bottle of wine is no longer "pretty good stuff."
16.
You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
17. "I just can't drink
the way I used to," replaces, "I'm never going to drink that much again."
18. Ninety percent of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real
work.
19. You no longer drink at home to save money before going to a
bar.
20. You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that
this doesn't apply to you!
Well, until next week, the fridge door
is closed. But if you have any questions and/or comments -- or even a tasteful
joke, a Hall of Shame nominee, or a great recipe to share -- feel free to write
me, eDiets editor-in-chief John McGran, at john@ediets.com.
