How many calories do you drink?

Many of us routinely read food labels and keep track of the number of calories we eat. But how many calories do you drink?

Sweetened beverages such as soda and fruit drinks are the number one source of sugar in our diet. A 12 ounce can of Coke contains 140 calories, all from sugar. Snapple isn't any better: one bottle has about 220 calories.

Alcohol provides more calories than we realize as well. The higher the alcohol content, the more calories. Beer has 12 calories per ounce, white wine 20 calories per ounce, red wine 21 calories per ounce, and 80-proof spirits (gin, vodka, etc) 64 calories per ounce. Since nobody drinks just one ounce, it adds up faster than you think.

Calories in beverages don't make us feel full, either. In fact, we often eat even MORE when we drink alcohol, getting a double-calorie whammy.

Makes you want to drink a cool, tall glass of water, doesn't it?

Do you know how many calories you eat?

NYC made the news recently when it decided that certain restaurants would be required to post nutrition info, including calorie content, on their foods. The theory is that if we only knew the Big Mac and large fries we crave contain 1110 calories, we would order a hamburger and small fries, at only 500 calories, instead.

I doubt the calorie content makes much difference to the vast majority of people.

Everybody knows that fast food, fried foods, sugary foods, and snack foods are high in calories. We all know that the bigger the burger the higher the calories. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you that a piece of fruit has fewer calories than even a small order of fries.

Nutrition information is on every package of food we purchase, yet that doesn't stop most people from eating far more calories than they need. If we truly want to stem the tide of obesity, it will take more than information labels.

- We need to put more advertising dollars into healthy foods, and less into junk food.
- The government should subsidize the cost of healthy foods like fruit and vegetables instead of the components in high calorie foods like sugar and fat.
- Employees need more than a 15 minute lunch break.
- Every town and community should have sidewalks and bike paths in areas where people actually want to go.

I bet each of you reading this can add one or two items to this list, and we'd get more results than simply posting calorie information.

Soup's On!

I love soup, and recent research shows that we can eat fewer calories at meals that begin with soup. That's great news!

Barbara Rolls, a nutrition researcher famous for the book "Volumetrics" and her sensible approach toward weight loss by choosing foods with more volume and less calories, led this study. 60 men and women came to her lab for lunch and were served soup. After eating the soup, they were allowed to choose from a buffet lunch and eat as much as they wanted.

Eating soup first reduced calorie intake at lunch by 20%! All the soups were vegetable-based, which of course increases the nutritional value of the meal as well as reducing the calories. Eating high-calorie soups won't have the same effect, so stay away from creamy soups, soups made with cheese, or soups that are basically meat. The more veggies, the better!

If you want to eat fewer calories at lunch, or even at dinner, try serving vegetable-based soup first. Since it's summer, I'm mixing up a big batch of gazpacho!