Soft Serve, Spray Butters, and Pretzels

We continue our series of Two-Faced Foods with a look at prepared soft serve, spray butters, and pretzels! This series is all about foods that can make or break your weight loss efforts depending on how they’re prepared or how they’re consumed.

Soft Serve: Be careful not to confuse soft serve ice cream with soft serve frozen yogurt because they look alike, taste a lot alike, but have very different nutritional stats. When you’re out walking the boardwalk on a hot summer day and get to thinking about a cold treat, make sure you know what’s coming out of that soft serve machine! A ½ cup serving of a typical soft serve ice cream has 222 calories and 13 grams of fat whereas a ½ cup serving of a typical soft serve frozen yogurt only has 140 calories and 3 grams of fat.

Spray/Squirt/Spritz Butters: Butter alternatives that claim to have zero fat are a wonderful invention allowing fat-conscious people enjoy the decadent taste of butter on popcorn, pasta, toast, pancakes, and all their favorite foods. The only issue with these butter substitutes is that the serving sizes are soooo small Anyone whose ever spritzed a piece of toast with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter knows that it takes more than 5 spritzes (the serving size) to coat the bread, but did you know that two tablespoons of the stuff equates to 12 grams of fat and 120 calories? That’s only half the fat of real butter. The key to this food is not opening the top of the bottle and pouring the liquid directly over your food! Let your finger do the spritzing because if you’re finger starts cramping up, it’s a good sign that its time to put the bottle away!

Pretzels: Pretzels are often heralded as a diet staple because they’re bland-tasting and low-in-fat. But just because something tastes dry and plain doesn’t make it figure-friendly. While it’s true that pretzels are low fat, they are also dense, salty, and high in carbohydrates due to their main ingredient; nutritionally-vacant white flour. They’re also easy to eat mindlessly, one after the other, and the calories can add up quickly. If you’re craving pretzels, they’re certainly not the worst snack you could eat. Opt for a whole-grain variety because whole-grain pretzels have some fiber and that will at least fill you up and keep you satisfied between meals!

Check out the previous installments of this series:

Two-Faced Foods: Part 1 CLICK HERE

Two-Faced Foods: Part 2 CLICK HERE

Two-Faced Foods: Part 3 CLICK HERE

Two-Faced Foods: Part 4 CLICK HERE