Summer Food Myths – Thumbs Down

According to an ABC News video on Yahoo!, some Summer foods aren’t as healthy as you might think.  The video focused on food that people assumed was healthier than a classic summer dish, such as a turkey burger rather than a hamburger.  So you don’t have to watch the video for yourself, I’ll break down what they explained.

Turkey Burger: While you might think a turkey burger is healthy for you, it still has a lot of fat.  As much as 17 grams, which the nutritionist in the video explains is as much as 4 pads of butter.  Gross!  She explains that a better healthy alternative for the grill would be shrimp and vegetable kabobs.  Since shrimp are 70% water, they are very low in calories (about 5 calories per large shrimp).

Soft Pretzels: One soft pretzel has 500 calories and as much carbohydrates as six slices of bread.  That’s as many calories as five servings of cotton candy.  The nutritionist says that a good alternative is french fries, but only if they are made from real potatoes and fried in vegetable oil.  (Somehow i don’t think she means fries from McDonalds).  She explains that the potatoes have several nutrients and a small serving size will have about half as many calories as the pretzel.

Club Sandwich: By the pool, you might be tempted to go with a club sandwich over a burger because you think it’s healthier.  Don’t do it!  With the mayo, bacon, and cheese, a club sandwich has about 800 calories, or the equivalent of two burgers and a six chicken nuggets.  Personally, I’d take the two burgers and nuggets, but the nutritionist said that she’d go with a chilled potato salad instead because cooked potatoes served cold are a good source of resistant starch, which “revs up” our calorie burning ability.  

Frozen Yogurt: While fro-yo is lower in calories than regular ice cream, a serving still has 40 grams of sugar, which is twice as much as the suggested amount for a whole day.  That’s sixteen cubes of sugar!  Instead, the nutritionist suggests the dark chocolate dipped strawberries, which has only 35 calories and 4 grams of sugar per strawberry.  Also, strawberries have a lot of other great nutritional value as well with vitamin C, fiber, and antioxidants that you won’t get from the frozen yogurt.  

So I hope that corrected some myths about healthy summer food.  Now I feel like making some shrimp kabobs for dinner tonight.  Here’s a link to the video.