Category Archives: Food

Food

Soft drinks–sugar levels / calorie counts compared

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In my calorie obsession I’ve checked the sides of cans of drinks with a view of getting a perspective of what the healthiest of the bunch is. Of course, they’re all pretty bad for you but I put together a little spreadsheet (obsessed, much?) of some of the top brands in the UK and compared the data – all off their own websites. A few interesting insights for you.

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The top 5 lowest sugar soft drinks produced by Britvic and Coke* in the UK, for a 330ml serving:

  1. Tango Apple (approx 1.65 teaspoons of sugar**)
  2. Tango Cherry (approx 1.81 teaspoons of sugar)
  3. Schweppes Lemonade (approx 3.31 teaspoons of sugar)
  4. Tango Orange – 3.30 teaspoons of sugar
  5. Lilt – 3.64 teaspoons of sugar

The result of the Coke vs: Pepsi shootout:

Coke – 139 calories to Pepsi’s 138.6. Coke has slightly less sugar at 35g (8.33 teaspoons) to Pepsi’s 8.64. Draw?

Sprite vs 7UP – 144 calories to Sprite, 135.3 to 7UP, with comparable amounts of sugar (around 35g). 7UP is the marginal winner.

Does anyone have 8 sugars in their cup of tea or coffee? Slightly terrifying.

Note: anyone who wants to can edit and add to the spreadsheet, just fill out all the fields you can. My method is not particularly scientific so any thoughts on the methodology, let me know in the comments field. I know this isn’t comprehensive, but hey – I’m not paid to do this. So feel free to help fill it out if you fancy it!

Also – if anyone else has done a better job of this than me, please let me know as I’m interested! I’d also be interested to know if recipes for major soft drinks vary across countries – people always say Coke is sweeter in the developing world, but obviously the Malaysian Coke website doesn’t have nutritional information on it, so my standard benchmark is not immediately useful as a test of the theory!

* Coke’s website was far more helpful, letting you work out caloric counts by serving side. Who needs to know how many calories are in 100ml of something?? Silly BritVic.

** teaspoon of sugar estimated at 4.2g per teaspoon

Food

Tesco Finest Chicken Mulligatawny Soup review

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Trying out a new, improved soup review format. Hope you like!

Description: “Chunky and filling, made with lentils and rice, fragrant Indian spices and enriched with coconut.” Pretty bang on, Mr Tesco food copy-writer. Spicier than you’d expect, and chunky like a boss, as you might be able to tell from the picture.

About: Mulligatawny is a colonial soup, derived from a Tamil soup – the word literally translates to “Pepper water”, according to Wikipedia, based on some of the original constituents. Since then, it’s evolved to mean different things to different people – the Americans often make it with cooked apple, for example – but the essence of a curried soup with lentils seems to be at its core.

Health: Not great – 480 calories for the 600g tub, including 24g of fat (9.8g of saturated fat!), but good amounts of protein and fibre.

Taste: Spicy, chunky, chock full of well-cooked lentils, tender, fibrous chicken, and full of flavour. Absolutely delicious – as good as or better than Waitrose’s Keralan Chicken soup.

Full-o-meter: This fills you up. Combination of lots of fibre and protein with the coconut cream in this makes it a substantial soup indeed. But then, for the calories, you’d expect it.

Make it yourself?: Doesn’t look too bad, although I struggled to find a recipe that matched the Tesco pot. This guy’s looks OK, although cut the apples and nutmeg, and this one on the BBC looks OK.

Verdict: 4/5. A whole point knocked off due to healthiness concerns, otherwise it would score full points.

Food

Moma–the best breakfast?

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momaoatiebreakfastSomeone came up with the inspired idea of  blending smoothie, yoghurt and oats together to form a healthier breakfast, and, having had a free sample on my way in yesterday I decided to give it a fully paid trial today. Here’s how it stacks up against some arbitrary criteria:

1) Taste, pretty good. Hence going back to it. I’m a fan of oats and yoghurt (not so much of smoothie) but it works as a combination. If you like two or more of the ingredients it’ll probably tickle your taste buds. I got the strawberry and banana edition, which, oddly enough, tastes of strawberries and banana.

2) Appearance, not so great. It looks like someone has eaten all of the constituent parts and thrown up in a plastic tub. It’s certainly not the artful dollop of compote on a tub of creamy porridge that’s become fashionable of late.

3) Healthiness (1) – from a nutritional perspective, there are a couple of claims in the marketing that are difficult to substantiate in terms of saturated goodness, etc – there’s not much nutritional information on the tub. Certainly its low in salt and relatively low in fat, but its not massively high on protein or fibre either.

4) Healthiness (2) – from a caloric perspective, it stands about even with a mid-sized bacon bap at 430 odd calories for the tub. Helpfully, the caloric values are given per 130g and the pack is 425g, so you need a calculator to scale up. Misdirection? Or am I being cynical?

5) Cost – £3! For yoghurt, oats and some blended fruit!

6) Fillingness – does better than aforementioned bacon sandwich here…

So, in short, I’m probably not buying this again. Taste and endurance don’t make up for everything else, especially not the exorbitant cost. A smaller packet, £2 price tag and maybe…

Food

The perils of canteen living

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curly friesOur new office has a cafeteria. This leads, in me, to two different things:

1) OOPSIATETHEWORLD. Case in point – curly fries, which sell at the princely cost of £0.60. Or less than a packet of crisps for a portion approximately the size of my head. It’s difficult to say no… One business I know refers to “The Corporate Stone” as the weight people put on in their first year of eating free/subsidized meals at the canteen. Something to avoid this year…

2) CHEFFYPORTION RAGE. The portion you get varies depending on the generosity of the café server. Yesterday’s baked potato only had about 30% as much casserole as it needed. Boo! I’m always reminded of Ramon in canteens, who was a server at my school. He always kindly on us and gave us snuck an extra piece of bacon or two onto our plates when his (mean, Porsche driving) catering manager wasn’t looking…

Today I’ve brought in my own soup. And am assiduously avoiding making eye contact with the office cookie jar (though not doing that well)… How are your 2011 diets going?

Food, Observational, Television

Should you keep milk in the fridge door?

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fridgedoorSo I know this is a burning question many of you have, reading the blog of a lactose-intolerant sci-fi loving, pr-consulting, soup-eating technologist, but hey – if I learn a valuable lesson from ‘House’ I like to pass on the love and help clear up the common misconceptions of this world.

The answer is no, as Dr Wilson revealed in a recent episode. His point – the fridge door is subject to the greatest variability in ambient temperature, so if you want to keep your milk fresh, stick it at the back of the fridge. I keep telling you, Karla, it’s the only medical drama worth watching – even though it’s never lupus, it’s both entertaining (Hugh Laurie is legend) and educational, apparently.

And whilst I do cope with a splash of regular milk in my tea, for all serious milk-drinking, baking etc., we get in the Lactofree – a genius invention for people like me and Curtis Donovan – and will keep you safe from the lactokinetics of this world (Misfits fans…).

Food

Eat Mexican chicken chilli soup review – Big Bold @eat_news

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Description: “A spicy Mexican chicken soup with haricot, cannellini and butter beans. We add jalapeno chillies and lime to keep it authentic. Garnished with a freshly made tomato and coriander salsa. Dairy / Spicy.”

Health: 360 calories for big (16oz) portion . Highish on fibre, highish on fat, high on sodium. On balance it’s not bad, but not one of their best.

Taste: Wow. It’s got a creamy, spicy kick – which feels like a contradiction in terms. The chunks of chicken are meaty and a delight, the beans are well-cooked and add great depth and texture, and the coriander in the garnish explodes in your mouth. Wonderful.

Full-o-meter: I think it’ll be reasonable, but I missed breakfast this morning so had to have a 180 calorie roll as a supporting act. Pretty full with the bread.

Verdict: 4.5/5. A strong contender. I’d recommend this unhesitatingly.

Food

Eat Steak and Ale pot pie soup review – Big Bold @eat_news

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Sorry I’ve gone so long without a review. I’d pretty much tasted all the current line-up of Pret and Eat soups but – with Autumn here – there are some new ones on my radar! My office has also moved further away from Eat so it’ll take more willpower for me to make it over there… was today’s expedition worth it? Read on and you’ll see!

Spoon standing up in Eat's Steak & Ale Pot PieDescription: “A slant on a classic steak and ale pie, loads of beef in a rich hearty soup with a hint of Dorset Bitter Ale. Garnished with a puff pastry lid. non dairy / meat / pastry contains wheat.” Rich and hearty is right. The spoon stands up in this.

Health: 388 calories, high on protein, low on fat (but also low on fibre). Pretty good on the sodium stakes at 800mg for Eat – impressive. All in all, a good score!

Taste: Steaktastic. Seriously, this thing is chock-full of meat and stewed just enough to give it a lovely fibrous meaty texture but not so much that the meat dissolves. The veg is fresh, hearty and the overall impression is a bite of pie with every mouthful. The slight bitterness of the ale is evident, but not overpowering. All in all, awesome.

Full-o-meter: My diet’s flagged dramatically in recent weeks so suspect this will have me hungry mid-afternoon, but its certainly up from the chicken pot pie, and the ample quantity of meat and overall chunkiness of the soup earns it a high score here.

Verdict: 5/5. A new favourite, and a bonus that its more stew than soup. Worth the longer walk to Eat.

Food

Eat Ham, Pea & Mint soup review – Very Big Bold @eat_news

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Description: “A simple hearty soup with shredded Wiltshire cured ham, carrots and potatoes with a hint of mint. Less than 5% fat / non-dairy / pork.” Definitely not as green as other pea & ham soups, potato and stock are the dominant colours / flavours in this winter warmer.

Health: Not bad. 480 calories for the 32oz pot, 38g of protein, 12.4g of fat (pretty low!), and a not-awful 8g of fibre. More here.

Taste: Stocky, potatoey, and with enough chunks of ham and pea to be interesting texturally. The ‘hint of mint’ is pretty subtle (no bad thing), but I’m a bit disappointed at the sparseness of peas. It seems more of a garnish than a fundamental component of the soup.

Full-o-meter: OK. It’s a BIG pot. More peas might have contributed more fibre and helped it out a bit more here.

Verdict: 3/5. I’d probably have it again but Pret would have to be having one of its uninspired days. The ham is delicious but ham, carrot and potato soup doesn’t quite do it for me.

Food

Diet resumed

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Longtime followers of the blog will know the saga of my weight loss. Ahead of the wedding last October, I started dieting, losing about 19-20kg ahead of the wedding. The best part of a year later, I’m holding more or less steady – around 80.5kg to the pre-wedding weight of 79.5kg, depending on what the weighing scales feel like… BUT:

1) I’m on the threshold of overweight against a healthy BMI
2) My doc tells me that my threshold for BMI is lower on account of South Asian origins, so need to aim for BMI of 23 (instead of more normal 25)
3) New BMI target means I need to lose another 9kg or so, which was my long term weightloss goal anyway.
4) I’m not running due to an injury at the moment

So the diet has resumed, and a week in I’m already rediscovering the satisfaction I derived from last year’s obsessive geekery, diet-logging etc. Gyminee is proving invalauable.

I am, however, persistently hungry, quite tired etc., but thanks to quite a bit of exercise I’ve done between then and now, my fitness seems to be carrying me through this a bit more gracefully.

This does also mean that my journey of soupsploration will begin again; however there’s a piteously small selection of new offerings from Eat and Pret a Manger… so hoping for some variety come autumn.

Not sure how Hippo’s arrival in the autumn will change my dieting – some friends have said that they dropped weight on account of sleeplessness and baby-caring-busy-ness, but I can see myself eating more than strictly speaking necessary…!

Anyway, wish me luck and point me to vendors of good, interesting, meaty soups! Sorry for the slightly unstructured brain dump…