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Star Bulletin Alan Titchenal & Joannie Dobbs Health Options
Alan Titchenal
 & Joannie Dobbs
                   Sunday , January 29, 2006

 

No winners yet in calorie count contest

IT WAS a contest that nobody won. Our "Health Options" column on New Year's Day launched a contest challenging readers to propose common objects that would serve as examples of food measures (such as a tablespoon) and simplify calorie counting. We requested that the objects be widely used and readily recognized by most people. Also, the objects could not be things that come in different sizes -- such as end of a thumb, a computer mouse, etc.

This might seem like an easy task, but we did not get any entries that met all of the contest criteria. So the contest is extended until we receive entries that are good descriptions of the classic volumes described in our New Year's Day article. Without a winner, we decided to try another approach to simplify calorie counting.

While watching Michelle Wie in the Sony Open, we came up with the "Golf Diet," based on the amount of calories in a golf-ball-size amount of various types of foods. If you have handled a golf ball, it is fairly easy to picture an amount of a food equivalent to the size of a golf ball. Knowing how many calories are in that amount of a variety of foods can simplify estimating calorie intake from a meal.

The volume of a golf ball is 40.7 milliliters or 2.7 tablespoons. Here is a list of the approximate number of calories for various foods in golf-ball-size portions:

Food Calories

Vegetable oil 320

Peanut butter 250

Chocolate bar 200

Cheddar cheese 160

Cream cheese 130

Mozzarella cheese 120

Spam 85

Bread 65 to 85

Fruits, dried 50 to 80

Ground beef 15% fat 65

Rich ice cream 60

Chicken thigh w/skin 60

Chicken thigh/no skin 50

Tuna, canned in oil 50

Potato salad 45

Chicken breast with skin 45

Poi 40

Oatmeal, flavored 40 to 50

White rice 40

Beans, canned 35 to 50

Chicken breast/no skin 40

Reduced fat ice cream 35

Brown rice 35

Cottage cheese, 2% fat 35

Tuna, canned in water 30

Spaghetti noodles 30

Breakfast cereals 10 to 35

Fruits, fresh 20 to 30

Vegetables. 0.2 to 10

For contest information, see the January 1 Health Options article



Alan Titchenal, Ph.D., C.N.S. and Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S.
are nutritionists in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences,
College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, UH-Manoa.
Dr. Dobbs also works with the University Health Service

© 2006 Honolulu Star-Bulletin -- http://starbulletin.com
http://www.nutritionatc.hawaii.edu/HO/2006/333.htm

NutritionATC
Human Nutrition, Food & Animal Sciences · University of Hawai`i at Mānoa
1955 East-West Road · Honolulu, HI 96822
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