Which food would you consider the biggest waste of calories? Definition, something that adds calories to your diet but does nothing for you in terms of taste or pleasure. An ice-cream sundae that you thoroughly enjoyed is not a waste of calories. A rancid, greasy hamburger is.



My list:

Anything drowned in mayonnaise
Extra cheese
Peanut butter gobs
Marshmallows
limp french fries
Salami

a salad swimming in salad dressing
Tradition soups - they have what, 14g of fat or something? Might as well eat a chocolate bar

I don't care about calories.

I'm not clear on the criteria for "wasted." Are you saying that extra cheese is wasted b/c you don't like extra cheese and would rather not have it as part of the food you are eating or for some other reason?

Nice!

I"m saying that calories are wasted if I eat a fatty food that I don't enjoy. I get the extra calories without the benefits of added pleasure. If adding an extra spoonful of sugar to my coffee will make it taste better, then it's not wasted calories (although it might not be healthy.) If adding the spoon will make the coffee taste overly sweet but I drink it anyway, that's wasted calories. Adding extra cheese to pizza won't make me enjoy the pizza more so it's wasted calories.

Nice II!

Why would you eat something that does nothing for you in terms of taste or pleasure (and presumably health*)?


*In other words, even if you don't like peas, eating them is good for you, so it's not a waste of calories.

Ok, but then isn't any food that you don't like, but eat anyway, "wasted?" And, why are you eating it if you don't like it?

What bothers me more than the fat is the sodium. I think they have like 400mg.

Mushrooms.

9

What goldfish said. If you eat something you don't like but it's healthy, it's not wasted calories.


Lots of reasons for eating an overly fatty food that you don't like that much. Sometimes you're hungry and that's what there is. Or you're eating out somewhere and that's what's served. There's a cost-benefit analysis to be made. Is the taste of the food enough to override the cost in calories or not?

Sugary as opposed to diet sodas.

Regular hot chocolate instead of the lo calorie kind.

I agree about the full fat salad dressing. I always use lo fat dressing.

Full fat milk.

Ditto. I was going to include these and forgot.

Just make your own dressing....

What the heck. Who would eat food they don't like for those reasons?

You don't like it enough to pay the high cost in calories. That's the difference. If you'd offer me the same food but it was fat-free, I might go for it, all other things being equal.

i think sugary soda is a waste of calories, even though i like it.

regular ice cream instead of the stuff that's 1/2 the fat (still not healthy, but at least not 25g of fat per serving).

airy junk food (like cheese curls) where it doesn't leave you full like solid junk but still you've wasted lots of calories on it.

extra oil in cooking when most dishes don't need it and probably taste better without it (i.e., applesauce instead of oil in cake batter).

No calories are wasted if you enjoy them...

But if I had to pick something, it would be bread...

Keep in mind that "diet" foods don't always correlate with weight reduction.

I haven't had any problems losing weight while drinking diet drinks.

Waste of calories:
sugary drinks
salad dressing
unecessary oil
unecessary mayo

Puff pastry dough.

Not for me.

(Well, plain dough, yes, but with the right fillings it's totally worth the calories. IMO.)

my mother refuses to buy these, she says 'it's just a bunch of chemicals'

Waste of calories (imho):

beef
fried food
fried, breaded food (oy!)
mayonnaise
tahini
sugar in teas and coffee
large portions
whole milk vs. low fat

not a wate of calories (imho)

regular soda (in small quantities)
(regular) ice cream
bread
desserts (in small portions)
cheese
pasta
egg yolks
low fat milk vs. skim milk

Yuck. Tradition soups=ramen bastardized up the wazoo..

Whole milk is not a waste of calories imo... not that I'm a big fan of milk in general.
Fried foods -it depends.

Yes.

My top picks are:

Bagels - delicious but ridiculously high in calories.
Those Little Square Yellow Soup Croutons - delicious but they are ridiculously calorie-dense.
Any Prepackaged Baked Goods You Might See In a Gas Station Convenience Store - 400 calories for a slice of pound cake, or a cookie? WTH?
Regular Salad Dressing - honestly, the low- and non-fat versions are pretty darn good. At a small fraction of the calories.
Many Breakfast Cereals - you know, the fancy ones that are loaded with sugar and other goodies. Some of them exceed 200 calories for a 3/4 cup serving - and let's be honest, nobody has just 3/4 of a cup for breakfast.
Whipped Cream and Chocolate Syrup - fine in the kitchen, overkill in the bedroom. Don't make a healthy activity unhealthy.

Second helpings. Generally the first plate/bowl/whatever is enough to satiate hunger, and adding the extra calories (sometimes doubling them) doesn't significantly improve your dining experience.

white grains, white pasta, white bread.

frosting.

There are so many, now that I’m trying to stave off these last few lbs …..

The frosting is the best part of the cake. I used to dip pretzels in frosting and eat them.....

ugg...

Sounds good.

It reminds me of Pocky. (highly addictive chocolate covered pretzels from Japan)


Hurray!!!

That sounds (and looks) a bit too much like something else for me to be able to stomach...

But I LOVE chocolate covered pretzels, but they are darn near impossible to find in Israel. There's something about the salt/sugar combination....

If I make my own salad dressing without oil it wouldn't taste as good as a really good low calorie bottled one. I would just squeeze a fresh lemon and season the juice with salt pepper and splenda. Why did Rokeach fold? I LOVED their lo cal lemon vinaigrette dressing and so did one of my daughters; we both bought cases of the stuff.

By the way I'm not sure what Melech means by saying diet foods don't equate with weight loss. Well for me they did, and non diet foods certainly had the opposite effect.

lo-cal salad dressing is a complete no no for me--uch, all the chemicals and gums they put in it!

I think aspartame tastes foul so diet soda is simply a waste of money.

and real ice cream is worth every calorie. homemade ice cream, so good.

wasted calories: things that come from chemicals instead of real food. margarine is a waste of calories. butter is not.

also, fried food dripping in oil: not only high-cal but pointless. fried food should be crisp and non-greasy, otherwise it's not worth the calories and the potential heartburn.

whole milk.
whipped cream.
creamy dressings.
cheese and croutons on soups and salads.

Aspartame tastes aweful, and it's bad for many people. It gives me headaches or depression sometimes...

Definitely I have never had homemade ice cream that was worth the calories - I've never tried making it myself and those I've tried were very mediocre, and I'm being generous.
Now, Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough or Cherry Garcia, or Haagen Dazs Green Tea - those are the real thing...