Summer food

by Christina Parrella (Subscribe to Christina Parrella's posts)
May 20th 2008 12:15PM

Categories: Fitness, Nutrition & Supplements

Summer is a time for outside grilling, barbecues and summer cocktails, which usually means you'll be consuming a lot more calories. You'll be shocked by the amount of calories in some of our favorite summertime foods -- like corn. Try boiling your corn as opposed to grilling it, this will save you about 10 grams of fat and 30 to 100 calories per ear.

If you enjoy slathering your corn in a little butter, don't worry about the added calories because summer is also a great time to get outside, enjoy the weather and get active. You can burn off 60 calories in one cob with a fun 15-minute walk. The best summer workouts are those that allow you to strike the best balance between calories in and calories out.

What do you guys do to burn off those extra summer calories?

Comments (3)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

marcie0305 5-20-2008 @ 2:00PM

hmmmm, I have issues with some of the things stated in the AOL article...

First of all, saying grilled corn has less fat than boiled is ridiculous! I think what they are trying to say is, the "carnival" type corn that is grilled is then dunked in butter (or whatever that is) which adds fat. I was told at the NC State Fair last year that many vendors were adding sugar to the butter and buying feed corn (meant for the purpose of fattening animals for slaughter) instead of more expensive (and naturally sweet) sweet corn. I say buy some local sweetcorn, throw some organic butter on it and grill it in the husk with your favorite herbs & sea salt - and don't feel guilty about it!

Cole slaw - again I would worry about the extra sugar more than the mayo - and if it's made with yogurt than all the better!

Coconut - again - the shredded kind indeed has added sugar. I don't normally buy "fresh" coconut for anything, but I do buy coconut oil for cooking because I believe there is a reason people in Pacific nations have very little heart disease - the good, wholesome, plant-based fats are good for you and needed for cell building & repair.

Cool Whip - indeed, a lot of scary ingredients in this. However, telling people to opt for the fat-free version isn't really the best advice. There is still hydrogenated vegetable oil (trans fat) in the "fat-free" version, they probably just add enough to get away with calling it "free" under government guidelines. Even then, I'm skeptical, the ingredients listed on both "free" and regular are **identical**, with the exception of the use of SODIUM HYDROXIDE in the "free" version - which, my friends, is lye. I see that there are some food applications for lye, but I prefer to stay away from ingredients also used to unclog drains...I would reccommend buying a regular old can of whipped cream, organic would be better because it would not have corn syrup.

Sno-Cone - good advice here, but steering people away from yogurt because of the fat? Sigh. Take a read at what your own Laura Lewis said recently about fat:

http://www.thatsfit.com/2008/05/15/life-fit-chat-with-laura-lewis-the-fat-rules-for-weight-loss-su/

BTW, I am doing an experiment, I have cut sugar and most white foods out of my diet and *increased* the amount of (healthy) fats I eat, so technically my calorie intake is the same or more as it was before. I have already lost two pounds. But I am taking off for the holiday (and my birthday) and shall resume next week. Stay tuned!

:) Marcie
http://feedingblackmail.blogspot.com

Dr.J 5-20-2008 @ 4:17PM

Marcie!
Too bad "ThatsFit" doesn't hire you to write for them! Although a lot of the articles are decent, many appear to just be knocked out for the quick $ per item their writers get :-(

PS Some writers more than others.