I am my father's child. Like a little squirrel, how I love nuts. Almonds, cashews, walnuts, peanuts, the whole lot of them. If I follow in my dad's footsteps, people will start giving me those neatly divided plastic trays of assorted nuts as Christmas gifts and I will be just tickled with that. Did you hear that? I'd be really happy with that.
Anyway, as protein packed and heart healthy as they are, nuts also pack a significant calorie punch. I was thinking about this the other day as I reached for yet another handful of peanuts, definitely the least healthy of them all. Considering I got them from the bulk goods section of the co-op, I didn't have that little square of nutritional information handy. (And I should add that I really have no business buying anything in bulk since I can never judge quantity which results in checking out with $14 worth of peanuts. For the love of God).
Maybe I should see how many calories I'm actually ingesting with these little buggers, I thought. I hopped online, did some searching and found this wonderful website, calorie100.com. I'm a super visual person so the cantaloupe to remote/Sun Chips to IPhone (7.5 chips equals 100 calories??) photos are very useful. Plus, I realized that I wasn't doing too bad with the ole' peanut intake. Hooray!
Yes, pictures are good, no? Even when the visual is just mentioned, it can really have an impact. A while back, I had read that your protein at a meal (for most people, this means meat) should be no bigger than a deck of cards. Well, la-di-da, that queen of diamonds visual has really stuck with me. It's also a good reminder just how out of control the American food industry has gotten with its portion sizes. Hard to blame the typical American for gaining weight when "normal" eating habits and food portions have been so horrifically skewed. I will now NOT talk about how Europeans really seem to have it together when it comes to forming a perfectly satiating, one scoop ice cream cone or a respectfully caffeinated, yet non-Venti cup of coffee.
But I will stop. You and I know better. But of course, engraining that image of your IPhone or TV remote into your brain can't hurt either.
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