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Health Options
Joannie Dobbs & Alan Titchenal
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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 |
The contest is still open. Prizes range from $25 to $100. See the rules in the Jan. 1 "Health Options" article at
www.starbulletin.com.
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 Services and prepares the nutritional analyses marked with an asterisk in this section.
See also: Health Events
