Post 'em here. All those disappointing meals you thought were healthy but are really high calorie

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Replies

  • MsMaeFlowers
    MsMaeFlowers Posts: 261 Member
    I didn't think it was healthy, but I was still amazed at the calories in "1 serving" of shrimp pasta I had the other night at a restaurant. 1600 calories. Not counting the garlic toast they served with it, or the drinks I didn't have (I just stick with water). That's an entire day's worth of calories.... more than that for some people.

    Salads can be surprising sometimes though. Forgot to check calories on a dressing the other day before putting it on, and found out after that the 3 tbsp I used added up to 240 calories.
  • OhMsDiva
    OhMsDiva Posts: 1,073 Member
    Since we are on alcohol now...wine. I never really thought much about having a couple two three glasses until I had to log them.

    That part. Friends laugh at me now when I say I had 2 or 3 ozs of wine, but it works for me
  • OhMsDiva
    OhMsDiva Posts: 1,073 Member
    Thinking I should have a nice healthy bowl of oatmeal instead of bacon for breakfast HA

    Mm, bacon. Though, a serving of good old-fashioned is only 150 calories. It's the additives that pile up the calories (much like any food though).

    I buy center cut bacon. 2 slices for 50 calories. I love bacon
  • OhMsDiva
    OhMsDiva Posts: 1,073 Member
    aeloine wrote: »
    Rice and pasta.

    A serving is so much smaller than I would want.

    I cut both out for a couple of months and replaced with salads. Slowly integrating back into my diet, but BOY -- 1/4 of dry rice doesn't look satisfying AT ALL. I could eat a TUB of salad for the calories. But maybe I'm just a volume eater.

    Same here. I just recently bought a bag of brown rice for the first time in 2 years. Pasta. I do not even bother. I do not want to weigh pasta and when I do that sad little serving makes me want to cry.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,740 Member
    Texas Roadhouse 8 oz. salmon - just the fish is 690 calories. (They do some sort of herbed butter sauce on it, plus tartar sauce.) Add a potato (380-650) or sweet potato (350 - 770) and salad (230 + dressing) and bread (227 per roll) - and in one meal I can undo the calorie burn from my longest long run.
  • bbontheb
    bbontheb Posts: 718 Member
    DX2JX2 wrote: »
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    DX2JX2 wrote: »
    7 calories?

    Even if that's accurate, I would be worried about getting on the scale because it would mean leaving the toilet.
    Sigh. My joke went so far over your head, astronauts will have to retrieve it.

    Or your joke crashed and burned so hard that FEMA has chosen to divert resources from hurricane relief just to deal with it.

    To be honest, even now that I know it was a joke I still don't get it. Maybe it's because I steer clear of any cleanse-related thread?


    I don't get it either haha
  • thegeans
    thegeans Posts: 42 Member
    I got a cauliflower "steak" at Mom's Organic recently. Come back to MFP and find it's 691 calories. Not "unhealthy," but a reminder that estimating calories is sometimes impossible!
  • aeloine
    aeloine Posts: 2,163 Member
    aeloine wrote: »
    Most of these high calorie meals have outrageous calorie counts because of added fat, typically in the form of cheese, sauce or dressings. You can cut so many calories on restaurant salads by omitting any croutons or tortilla strips and getting the dressing on the side. Dressing on the side allows you to have more control over what you consume and you can better estimate how much is eaten.

    ETA: there is something fundamentally flawed about your calorie counting practices if you thought anything with 1/4 cup of dressing would ever be low calorie. Unless your balasmic is 100% vinegar, that's an enormous amount of calories. Personally, I don't like to eat a meal where 75-90% of the calories in the meal come from...dressing

    Yes, that's what this post is about.

    1/4 cup is what cooks on the line will put in for a salad when the dressing is not on the side. To them, it's just one ladle. Clearly, we know better than that now. In the past, salad seemed like the healthy choice but now we know it's packed chock full of bad things.

    It's helpful to remember that vinaigrette has a ratio of 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. So if you have 1/4 cup, that's 4 tablespoons. 3 of 4 tablespoons is likely pure oil...so you're looking at roughly 360kcal from the oil in that dressing.

    I hear some people make a vinaigrette that is 2/3 thick, aged balsamic and 1/3 oil. And that they carry it in their purse in a fine tip squeeze bottle and weigh it out to the gram. Of course, I would not know anyone like this.

    Is that like reduced balsamic? I know you cook it down for caprese salad....
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
    aeloine wrote: »
    aeloine wrote: »
    Most of these high calorie meals have outrageous calorie counts because of added fat, typically in the form of cheese, sauce or dressings. You can cut so many calories on restaurant salads by omitting any croutons or tortilla strips and getting the dressing on the side. Dressing on the side allows you to have more control over what you consume and you can better estimate how much is eaten.

    ETA: there is something fundamentally flawed about your calorie counting practices if you thought anything with 1/4 cup of dressing would ever be low calorie. Unless your balasmic is 100% vinegar, that's an enormous amount of calories. Personally, I don't like to eat a meal where 75-90% of the calories in the meal come from...dressing

    Yes, that's what this post is about.

    1/4 cup is what cooks on the line will put in for a salad when the dressing is not on the side. To them, it's just one ladle. Clearly, we know better than that now. In the past, salad seemed like the healthy choice but now we know it's packed chock full of bad things.

    It's helpful to remember that vinaigrette has a ratio of 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. So if you have 1/4 cup, that's 4 tablespoons. 3 of 4 tablespoons is likely pure oil...so you're looking at roughly 360kcal from the oil in that dressing.

    I hear some people make a vinaigrette that is 2/3 thick, aged balsamic and 1/3 oil. And that they carry it in their purse in a fine tip squeeze bottle and weigh it out to the gram. Of course, I would not know anyone like this.

    Is that like reduced balsamic? I know you cook it down for caprese salad....

    A high quality aged balsamic will be fairly viscous as far as vinegars go--the grape just is reduced, fermented, then aged for 12 or 18 years or so. So on a Caprese, you can use a fine balsamic out of the bottle, or if you just have a thinner balsamic, you can reduce it.
  • HardcoreP0rk
    HardcoreP0rk Posts: 936 Member
    aeloine wrote: »
    aeloine wrote: »
    Most of these high calorie meals have outrageous calorie counts because of added fat, typically in the form of cheese, sauce or dressings. You can cut so many calories on restaurant salads by omitting any croutons or tortilla strips and getting the dressing on the side. Dressing on the side allows you to have more control over what you consume and you can better estimate how much is eaten.

    ETA: there is something fundamentally flawed about your calorie counting practices if you thought anything with 1/4 cup of dressing would ever be low calorie. Unless your balasmic is 100% vinegar, that's an enormous amount of calories. Personally, I don't like to eat a meal where 75-90% of the calories in the meal come from...dressing

    Yes, that's what this post is about.

    1/4 cup is what cooks on the line will put in for a salad when the dressing is not on the side. To them, it's just one ladle. Clearly, we know better than that now. In the past, salad seemed like the healthy choice but now we know it's packed chock full of bad things.

    It's helpful to remember that vinaigrette has a ratio of 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. So if you have 1/4 cup, that's 4 tablespoons. 3 of 4 tablespoons is likely pure oil...so you're looking at roughly 360kcal from the oil in that dressing.

    I hear some people make a vinaigrette that is 2/3 thick, aged balsamic and 1/3 oil. And that they carry it in their purse in a fine tip squeeze bottle and weigh it out to the gram. Of course, I would not know anyone like this.

    Is that like reduced balsamic? I know you cook it down for caprese salad....

    A high quality aged balsamic will be fairly viscous as far as vinegars go--the grape just is reduced, fermented, then aged for 12 or 18 years or so. So on a Caprese, you can use a fine balsamic out of the bottle, or if you just have a thinner balsamic, you can reduce it.

    How's the sugar content compare? Because reduced balsamic is incredibly sweet. What's driving the viscosity of the aged balsamic? Is it sugar? Or something else.
  • aeloine
    aeloine Posts: 2,163 Member
    aeloine wrote: »
    aeloine wrote: »
    Most of these high calorie meals have outrageous calorie counts because of added fat, typically in the form of cheese, sauce or dressings. You can cut so many calories on restaurant salads by omitting any croutons or tortilla strips and getting the dressing on the side. Dressing on the side allows you to have more control over what you consume and you can better estimate how much is eaten.

    ETA: there is something fundamentally flawed about your calorie counting practices if you thought anything with 1/4 cup of dressing would ever be low calorie. Unless your balasmic is 100% vinegar, that's an enormous amount of calories. Personally, I don't like to eat a meal where 75-90% of the calories in the meal come from...dressing

    Yes, that's what this post is about.

    1/4 cup is what cooks on the line will put in for a salad when the dressing is not on the side. To them, it's just one ladle. Clearly, we know better than that now. In the past, salad seemed like the healthy choice but now we know it's packed chock full of bad things.

    It's helpful to remember that vinaigrette has a ratio of 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. So if you have 1/4 cup, that's 4 tablespoons. 3 of 4 tablespoons is likely pure oil...so you're looking at roughly 360kcal from the oil in that dressing.

    I hear some people make a vinaigrette that is 2/3 thick, aged balsamic and 1/3 oil. And that they carry it in their purse in a fine tip squeeze bottle and weigh it out to the gram. Of course, I would not know anyone like this.

    Is that like reduced balsamic? I know you cook it down for caprese salad....

    A high quality aged balsamic will be fairly viscous as far as vinegars go--the grape just is reduced, fermented, then aged for 12 or 18 years or so. So on a Caprese, you can use a fine balsamic out of the bottle, or if you just have a thinner balsamic, you can reduce it.

    How's the sugar content compare? Because reduced balsamic is incredibly sweet. What's driving the viscosity of the aged balsamic? Is it sugar? Or something else.

    Serious question: are you supposed to put sugar in vinegar when reducing it? The BF loves caprese salad but I think I goofed up when making the drizzle last time.
  • HardcoreP0rk
    HardcoreP0rk Posts: 936 Member
    aeloine wrote: »
    aeloine wrote: »
    aeloine wrote: »
    Most of these high calorie meals have outrageous calorie counts because of added fat, typically in the form of cheese, sauce or dressings. You can cut so many calories on restaurant salads by omitting any croutons or tortilla strips and getting the dressing on the side. Dressing on the side allows you to have more control over what you consume and you can better estimate how much is eaten.

    ETA: there is something fundamentally flawed about your calorie counting practices if you thought anything with 1/4 cup of dressing would ever be low calorie. Unless your balasmic is 100% vinegar, that's an enormous amount of calories. Personally, I don't like to eat a meal where 75-90% of the calories in the meal come from...dressing

    Yes, that's what this post is about.

    1/4 cup is what cooks on the line will put in for a salad when the dressing is not on the side. To them, it's just one ladle. Clearly, we know better than that now. In the past, salad seemed like the healthy choice but now we know it's packed chock full of bad things.

    It's helpful to remember that vinaigrette has a ratio of 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. So if you have 1/4 cup, that's 4 tablespoons. 3 of 4 tablespoons is likely pure oil...so you're looking at roughly 360kcal from the oil in that dressing.

    I hear some people make a vinaigrette that is 2/3 thick, aged balsamic and 1/3 oil. And that they carry it in their purse in a fine tip squeeze bottle and weigh it out to the gram. Of course, I would not know anyone like this.

    Is that like reduced balsamic? I know you cook it down for caprese salad....

    A high quality aged balsamic will be fairly viscous as far as vinegars go--the grape just is reduced, fermented, then aged for 12 or 18 years or so. So on a Caprese, you can use a fine balsamic out of the bottle, or if you just have a thinner balsamic, you can reduce it.

    How's the sugar content compare? Because reduced balsamic is incredibly sweet. What's driving the viscosity of the aged balsamic? Is it sugar? Or something else.

    Serious question: are you supposed to put sugar in vinegar when reducing it? The BF loves caprese salad but I think I goofed up when making the drizzle last time.

    Many people include sugar, honey, etc when they make a balsamic reduction. I have no idea how long you'd have to reduce it to get the desired texture if you DIDNT add a sugar. But for me...I just dont make it, because it is too sweet for me in general.
  • aeloine
    aeloine Posts: 2,163 Member
    aeloine wrote: »
    aeloine wrote: »
    aeloine wrote: »
    Most of these high calorie meals have outrageous calorie counts because of added fat, typically in the form of cheese, sauce or dressings. You can cut so many calories on restaurant salads by omitting any croutons or tortilla strips and getting the dressing on the side. Dressing on the side allows you to have more control over what you consume and you can better estimate how much is eaten.

    ETA: there is something fundamentally flawed about your calorie counting practices if you thought anything with 1/4 cup of dressing would ever be low calorie. Unless your balasmic is 100% vinegar, that's an enormous amount of calories. Personally, I don't like to eat a meal where 75-90% of the calories in the meal come from...dressing

    Yes, that's what this post is about.

    1/4 cup is what cooks on the line will put in for a salad when the dressing is not on the side. To them, it's just one ladle. Clearly, we know better than that now. In the past, salad seemed like the healthy choice but now we know it's packed chock full of bad things.

    It's helpful to remember that vinaigrette has a ratio of 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. So if you have 1/4 cup, that's 4 tablespoons. 3 of 4 tablespoons is likely pure oil...so you're looking at roughly 360kcal from the oil in that dressing.

    I hear some people make a vinaigrette that is 2/3 thick, aged balsamic and 1/3 oil. And that they carry it in their purse in a fine tip squeeze bottle and weigh it out to the gram. Of course, I would not know anyone like this.

    Is that like reduced balsamic? I know you cook it down for caprese salad....

    A high quality aged balsamic will be fairly viscous as far as vinegars go--the grape just is reduced, fermented, then aged for 12 or 18 years or so. So on a Caprese, you can use a fine balsamic out of the bottle, or if you just have a thinner balsamic, you can reduce it.

    How's the sugar content compare? Because reduced balsamic is incredibly sweet. What's driving the viscosity of the aged balsamic? Is it sugar? Or something else.

    Serious question: are you supposed to put sugar in vinegar when reducing it? The BF loves caprese salad but I think I goofed up when making the drizzle last time.

    Many people include sugar, honey, etc when they make a balsamic reduction. I have no idea how long you'd have to reduce it to get the desired texture if you DIDNT add a sugar. But for me...I just dont make it, because it is too sweet for me in general.

    Ohh.....

    Thanks @HardcoreP0rk!
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
    aeloine wrote: »
    aeloine wrote: »
    Most of these high calorie meals have outrageous calorie counts because of added fat, typically in the form of cheese, sauce or dressings. You can cut so many calories on restaurant salads by omitting any croutons or tortilla strips and getting the dressing on the side. Dressing on the side allows you to have more control over what you consume and you can better estimate how much is eaten.

    ETA: there is something fundamentally flawed about your calorie counting practices if you thought anything with 1/4 cup of dressing would ever be low calorie. Unless your balasmic is 100% vinegar, that's an enormous amount of calories. Personally, I don't like to eat a meal where 75-90% of the calories in the meal come from...dressing

    Yes, that's what this post is about.

    1/4 cup is what cooks on the line will put in for a salad when the dressing is not on the side. To them, it's just one ladle. Clearly, we know better than that now. In the past, salad seemed like the healthy choice but now we know it's packed chock full of bad things.

    It's helpful to remember that vinaigrette has a ratio of 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. So if you have 1/4 cup, that's 4 tablespoons. 3 of 4 tablespoons is likely pure oil...so you're looking at roughly 360kcal from the oil in that dressing.

    I hear some people make a vinaigrette that is 2/3 thick, aged balsamic and 1/3 oil. And that they carry it in their purse in a fine tip squeeze bottle and weigh it out to the gram. Of course, I would not know anyone like this.

    Is that like reduced balsamic? I know you cook it down for caprese salad....

    A high quality aged balsamic will be fairly viscous as far as vinegars go--the grape just is reduced, fermented, then aged for 12 or 18 years or so. So on a Caprese, you can use a fine balsamic out of the bottle, or if you just have a thinner balsamic, you can reduce it.

    How's the sugar content compare? Because reduced balsamic is incredibly sweet. What's driving the viscosity of the aged balsamic? Is it sugar? Or something else.

    It's just the reduction process--it's concentrated grape juice, basically. I haven't looked into sugar because I don't track it, especially not if it is natural. If someone is doing Keto, they probably would need to. But again, just a slight drizzle is sufficient to let ingredients shine through.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    aeloine wrote: »
    aeloine wrote: »
    Most of these high calorie meals have outrageous calorie counts because of added fat, typically in the form of cheese, sauce or dressings. You can cut so many calories on restaurant salads by omitting any croutons or tortilla strips and getting the dressing on the side. Dressing on the side allows you to have more control over what you consume and you can better estimate how much is eaten.

    ETA: there is something fundamentally flawed about your calorie counting practices if you thought anything with 1/4 cup of dressing would ever be low calorie. Unless your balasmic is 100% vinegar, that's an enormous amount of calories. Personally, I don't like to eat a meal where 75-90% of the calories in the meal come from...dressing

    Yes, that's what this post is about.

    1/4 cup is what cooks on the line will put in for a salad when the dressing is not on the side. To them, it's just one ladle. Clearly, we know better than that now. In the past, salad seemed like the healthy choice but now we know it's packed chock full of bad things.

    It's helpful to remember that vinaigrette has a ratio of 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. So if you have 1/4 cup, that's 4 tablespoons. 3 of 4 tablespoons is likely pure oil...so you're looking at roughly 360kcal from the oil in that dressing.

    I hear some people make a vinaigrette that is 2/3 thick, aged balsamic and 1/3 oil. And that they carry it in their purse in a fine tip squeeze bottle and weigh it out to the gram. Of course, I would not know anyone like this.

    Is that like reduced balsamic? I know you cook it down for caprese salad....

    A high quality aged balsamic will be fairly viscous as far as vinegars go--the grape just is reduced, fermented, then aged for 12 or 18 years or so. So on a Caprese, you can use a fine balsamic out of the bottle, or if you just have a thinner balsamic, you can reduce it.

    1 of my favorite condiments:
    l0pmhd1pmczd.png
    (it's in the database for those curious about calories/sugar content.. it's reduced to a thick glaze and in a squeeze tube). I usually drizzle about 8-10g on top of a salad (that I've also spritzed with some non-reduced balsamic vinegar spray and olive oil). Also nice on hard boiled eggs.
  • kaypee65
    kaypee65 Posts: 120 Member
    I generally make salads at home with my own vinaigrette. I use oil and vinegar infused vinegars and oils. Yep, there is added sugar. But when I'm only using a tablespoon of each it's not a big deal.

    In any case, I put about 1T vinegar, 1T oil, and 1t mustard in a nice salad bowl. Whisk with a fork or whisk. Add in 4 cups of salad stuff, and mix by hand. Literally, put your hands in the bowl to mix the salad. I get far better distribution of dressing/lettuce/tomatoes/cucumbers etc.

    My favorite from oil and vinegar is their fig. Nothing is better for a winter salad with pears and a bit of gorgonzonola tossed into a salad.