I just read this article that had plates of food at 300, 350, and 400 calorie food that was home made and from restaurants. It really was eye opening!


What Does 300 Calories Really Look Like?

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about! This is why I pack my lunch and eat at home so so often. And frankly, the stuff I make tastes better.

(Although you can do pretty well at Panera if you try.)

That's a great article. All the homemade items looked really good. I will really think about this before I order takeout. Thanks for posting.

That's an awesome article, TFS.

and think of the money we're saving eating good healthy homecooked meals!

Ugh. This article made me want to look up the Panera Bread dinner I had on Sunday as a splurge. I THOUGHT I did well with my choices...

1/2 sandwich 1/2 salad combo
bacon turkey bravo (I did remove half of the bacon and all of the cheese)
chicken cobb salad (hated the chicken so barely ate it, and tried to avoid the bacon in it)

590 calories and add on the half bag of chips I ate. Arghh!!! I had water to drink.

What's most irritating is that my meal consisted of over TWO THOUSAND mg of sodium! That's more than I normally eat in a day!

Back to the kitchen for me, and less eating out. Thank you for the eye opening article.

Good post.

yeah, restaurant food can be pretty scary esp. because things that sound like they are ok can be packed with hidden fat/calories and salt.

I'm going out to a restaurant this weekend and yes, I will be one of those annoying people asking a million questions about how stuff is cooked and requesting things grilled and steamed with no added fat. (Not that I'm anti-fat, but the steak or salmon I'll be getting has enough on it's own, thanks! lol!)

Wow! I already knew how much difference there is, but the one with all the fruit and yogurt over frozen waffles actually looked good...I think we might be having that for dinner sometime soon...looks positively decadent. Thanks for the link! I have to show it to Robert when he comes home for dinner. He likes waffles but I never make them, from scratch. Never thought to buy frozen...duh! I don't buy much ready made food except for frozen veggies for Robert and sometimes frozen fruit for me.

You made my day!

Barb

The kind of sad thing to me is, a lot of the stuff on the left that is "home made" -- really isn't. It's Lean Cuisines and things. Is that what people think is homemade nowadays?

People who are taught to cook can even make stuff like what's on the right side, only better, with lower calories and fat and salt. I made orange chicken last week, with orange sauce made from real orange peel and ginger and garlic and cilantro, and it wasn't that hard (it was in the slow cooker), and it sure didn't have 1150 calories like the P.F. Chang's one. And there's a whole bunch of it left over frozen in little portioned bricks waiting for the next time I want it.

Barb: Waffles and yogurt is one of my favorite meals. I actually spread greek yogurt over the waffle and top it with fruit. Sometimes I'll also add walnuts and honey. I've been experimenting with frozen waffles and Eggo's low fat nutragrain ones are only 70 calories a piece, though I have yet to look at the ingredient list.

Bronzeager: Good point. I'm trying to teach my nephew how to cook because his mom mostly feeds him McDonald's. He's really into it, though he is only 10 so I'm a little nervous about letting him chop vegetables. I feel like a lot of my friends really don't value cooking their own meals though.

Bronzeager - I agree it is sad. We as a culture use a lot of premade food. Even people who cook hardly make everything from scratch. Can you imagine the time it would take to make your own butter, mayo, ketchup, mustard, pasta sauce, bread, peanut butter, etc.. ?

We are a society of convenience. It is more and more common for people to eat out vs. even cooking convenience foods at home. (This reminds me a scene from the Food Revolution where all the kids knew what a french fry and ketchup was but couldn't identify a potato or a tomato.) Making things from scratch is definitely the best I agree. The sad thing for me is that it is so much easier to calorie count a premade portion of something than it is to figure out the calories in an item I've made from scratch.

I so needed to see that this morning! After the gym, I wanted SO bad to go to Chick Filet for a breakfast combo. I just sat down to figure what I'm going to have to eat (yes...still mulling over that chicken biscuit!) And I cracked open the Calorie King book. Yikes. What a bad bad habit!!

Going to go upstairs now & fix myself a bowl of fruit, an egg & grab a few nuts. I think I need to print that out & cut out the pics to put here by my desk!

Good for you! And I think with 10 he'll probably be OK. I'm pretty sure my brother and I were both fooling around with matches, pocketknives, slingshots and fishhooks at that age ... at least your nephew will be supervised.

Renwomin, that is so funny you should say that. Some of the other blogs I follow are cooking/baking ones (Chowhound, the FreshLoaf and The Kitchn especially), and you should see what those people get up to. I think ketchup is the only one I haven't seen someone apparently making regularly, and if I did a search I might find them! Pickles are probably pretty close. It's funny how at the same time that so many people are eating only fast food and convenience foods, there's this sort of retro backlash of some people turning toward the opposite (even learning to raise their own chickens etc. in backyards). I don't do stuff like that regularly, but they are handy sources for me living overseas, and being able to find out how to make my own bagels and pretzels, say, if I really want to.

Martha Stewart and the TV cooking shows I think really started to make it popular again (replacing Julia Childe in her era), but I think at the same time they had the effect of making cooking look like something complicated, and requiring elaborate ingredients. Maybe we need the old fashioned home ec again to teach the basics to kids who don't learn it at home.

I'll be the odd one here. For me, it is NOT all about how much I can eat. Personally, I would rather eat something I really liked even in a very small amount than load up on bulky foods because it is lower in calories. I don't choose foods because of their calorie counts, I choose foods I like and eat the amount I can afford in my calorie allotment.