Um, I used this calorie counter for vegetables on caloriecount.about.com, and my "snack-bowl" of veggies averaged like 314 calories, and that's even without my Greek yogurt or turkey slices.
I had no idea I was consuming that many calories. I kind of thought veggies had super low calories, that you could eat as many as you wanted. I guess you can't eat as much of any food as you want, though.
what veges are in there? most are very low and that does suprise me. Avocado is high in cal, not sure I can name any other high cal ones off the top of my head
I think it depends on what veggies they are, I know peas are not as virtuous as they pretend to be I find that they may be more calories than I would like (isn't everything?!) but they fill me up at least.
Last edited by Theyda; 04-08-2011 at 07:02 AM.
Reason: stupid spelling
carrots are a little higher, (I am not a fan of carrots so not too much of an issue for me), peas are quite high in calories.
the extra fibre is a great thing though! so I wouldn't worry so much and enjoy! I love my salads, but I love olives, and antipasto, and a sprinkle of sunflower and peptia kernels. (helps get some of those omega fats in)
Is your veggie bowl from a package or are you buying them individually and chopping them up? Did you enter in everything individually or did you choose a generic entry for "mixed vegetables"? The former (entering it individually) is much more accurate than the latter, though I still do the latter because I get lazy
So for one side of the argument, I entered in 1 cup of each of the items you listed (which would make for a pretty big salad) and got 150 calories. I think whatever your counter is generating may be a bit off, unless you are using a pre-packaged salad that has some sort of sauce or something in it?
That said, calorie counting is so eye-opening for this very reason- because we often forget that everything has calories and they add up very quickly!
Still 314 cals for just a regular bowl of vegetables without any sauces, oils, etc seems high... unless you are eating a ton of carrots in it perhaps.
Well, I'm not good with measuring. I may have gotten the measurements off.
I chopped up three carrots, two sticks of celery, grabbed maybe two or three handfuls of the spinach leaves, and about five or six radishes. The broccoli was prepacked, though, but I only had a small handful. All of the veggies came by themselves except for the broccoli. But they were all in their own bags, except that the spinach came in a plastic tub. The spinach and carrots are organic, but the rest aren't, because I can't find them organic.
It's not really a salad. It's just a bowl of raw veggies, that I snack on when I'm hungry. That was my new diet plan, to curb my appetite between meals. Actually, it also was one of my meals. Yesterday it was my lunch, but today it's my breakfast. lol.
Last edited by 3FCer344892; 04-08-2011 at 07:23 AM.
That really surprises me too. You might want to go through and make sure you picked everything raw. I've notices that some of the calculators assume that fat has been added in cooking.
I tend to eat for dinner one huge Spanish onion one large green pepper and some frozen add in of whatever I have. This is a huge bowl and I too am shocked that just my onion is like 200 calories listed. So nowminstead of eating very large bowls I am cutting that onion which is larger than a softball in half. I thought I could over dose on veggies too but the calories in some are less/more in others.
You can try weighing the vegetables instead of using volume measures and see if the calorie counter comes out more accurately. I mean, a cup of broccoli could vary quite a bit depending upon how fine you cut it; a cup of spinach could vary depending upon how tight you pack it. But, 100g or 6 ounces of a vegetable won't depend upon those factors.
Also, keep in mind that your body will process 300 calories of veggies differently from 300 calories of cheetos or 300 calories of ice cream. The fiber, water, vitamins, and other healthy stuff are great for you, so even if you're eating a lot of calories, you're also getting stuff you need. And the volume and fiber will keep you full longer, meaning that you won't be starving an hour later like you might if you ate a candy bar. So I agree that you may have been overcounting the calories, but even if you are eating 300 calories of veggies, I don't see anything wrong with that.