Chinese New Year is coming. That means lots of festive treats, which also means lots of binges and bulging waistlines.
Recently, an article in the Singapore Straits Times, ‘Bulge-Free Binge’ (with the online version here), tackled just this topic. It showed pictures of various festive foods, giving the caloric count for 100g of each type of food. However, it only provided stock standard food photos which certainly did not represent 100g of whatever was pictured.
This made it very difficult to form a basis of comparison between the food items. Besides, who weighs their food during any festive season!
So instead of that confusion, here is a lineup of 100g of common Chinese New Year Goodies, all pictured on the same 10.5-inch diameter plate. The Calories for each are listed below each picture (You would have consumed that many calories if you ate everything pictured on any single plate).
100g of Cashews: 611 Calories
100g of Prawn Rolls: 506 Calories
100g of Bak Kwa (Barbequed Pork): 410 Calories
100g of Melon Seeds: 258 Calories
100g of Love Letters: 430 Calories
100g of Kueh bangkit (tapioca flour cookie): 383 Calories
100g of Pineapple Tarts: 410 Calories
Now look at those and ask yourself how much easier it is to eat 100g of pineapple tarts as compared to 100g of love letters. How many less calories do you think you’d consume if you ate “just a little less” pineapple tarts?
Given that the average female weighs 55kg and needs ( 14 x Bodyweight in Pounds ) Calories to maintain her weight, and that the average male weighs 70kg and needs ( 15 x Bodyweight in Pounds ) calories to maintain his weight. We are looking at about 1700 calories for the average female per day, and 2300 calories for the average male per day. Now think about how easy it is to exceed those values (or simply calculate your own) during a typical Chinese New Year day of eating.
In order words: get some perspective.
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I’m trying a 1200 kcal diet and great article. Thanks.