Friday, August 25, 2006

Star*!%*&ucks!

Ok, I admit I took some blogger license with the post title. I've got nothing against Starbucks and in fact enjoy their coffee very much.

I am however going to use them to illustrate why the visible posting of calories on food items would be helpful.

Let's take a hypothetical 45 year old 150lb woman who like most North Americans, is inactive. According to the metabolism calculator I've referred to in a prior post, she likely burns 1800 calories daily.

Like most days, she decides she's going to hit Starbucks for coffee and breakfast. Having read about the health benefits of whole grain oats she chooses the Island Oat Bar and a Caramel Frappucino (hold the whip cream).

The Island Oat Bar has 760 calories including a heart busting 8 grams of saturated fat while her frappucino has 390 calories for a grand total of 1150 calories (more calories than 2 Big Macs or 4 McDonald's Cheeseburgers) or 65% of her total daily burned calories. Small wonder she's gaining weight and small wonder when she goes to her doctor to complain, she reports, "But I really don't eat very much". The fact is, not very much of high calorie food can still lead people to high calorie intakes.

As far as I'm concerned, it's only a matter of time until there is legislation to have calories on menuboards. Until that time, the onus is on each of us to find the calories ourselves.

A great website to look up calories is www.calorieking.com.

Remember you can gain weight on an all-salad diet if you eat enough salad and you can lose weight on an all ice-cream diet so long as you don't eat too much.

At the end of the day, it's the calories that count.