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Key points
- Watching baking shows may not help dieters resist certain foods, but knowing what goes into a dish could make them more aware of caloric content.
- If dieters are not aware of the ingredients in foods, excess calories may be eaten.
- It can be difficult to find out how many calories are in foods purchased at a restaurant or bakery.
During this past summer, when even reruns of BBC television shows were disappearing, we found ourselves watching episodes of the Great British Baking Show from 2020. Paul and Mary, the original hosts, were in a series demonstrating how to achieve perfection in whatever complicated baked good they were making. (And making the viewer wonder: how did Mary stay so thin, given the amount of food she was always eating?)
Watching these programs had an unexpected benefit: learning how incredibly caloric some baked goods are. In one episode, they were making brioche, a buttery yellow bread I had seen in my supermarket but never bought. As I watched Paul and Mary mix the ingredients, I was aghast at seeing them add 9 ounces of butter and six eggs to the flour, water, and yeast mixture. Were they making cake or bread? Later on, I learned that a slice of the brioche would probably contain about 270 calories. In comparison, a thick slice of plain white bread would have about 110.
I was also unaware of the high fat content of a dessert that did not look or taste particularly caloric: crème brûlée. This is a custard-like dessert topped with sugar with may be heated to form a layer of caramel on the surface. ”How many calories could custard contain?” I thought as I watched it being made. Many, as it turned out: Four egg yolks, 10 oz of cream, and another 10 oz of heavy whipping cream, along with 3 ½ oz of sugar, went into this dessert. I have eaten this creamy custard never suspecting I was consuming egg yolks infused with whipped cream and sugar.
Watching baking shows may not strengthen the dieter’s ability to resist the temptation to make or buy yummy pastries or buttery slices of bread. But knowing what goes into making a particular pastry, pie, cookie, or custard at least allows the dieter to be aware of how caloric the food is. I may want to eat crème brûlée again, but this time I know it has considerably more calories than fat-free frozen yogurt.
It is hard to know how often ignorance about the caloric content of what we are eating contributes to the failure to lose weight. The dieter weighs in every week at a support group or doctor’s office and on some weeks no weight is lost. The dieter is upset, chagrined and guilty, but protests that she/he followed the diet. But if the dieter is not aware of the ingredients that go into foods that do not look fattening but are, then enough excess calories may be eaten to prevent weight loss. A friend with whom I was having dinner once pointed to a diner sitting next to us who was repeatedly dipping his bread into a saucer of olive oil. “I bet he thinks eating all that olive oil is not only good for him, it is much less caloric, than if he put butter on the bread,” she said. “Did anyone ever tell him that a tablespoon of olive oil has 126 calories, and 1 tablespoon of melted butter has about 100? And his bread is soaking up way more than one tablespoon of oil.”
How would one know this detail? Maybe it was mentioned briefly in a talk on nutrition at a dieting support group meeting, or noted by a dietician on a food plan. Maybe someone thinking of going on a low-carb, high-fat diet assumed that consuming a few saucerfuls of olive oil would only enhance weight loss. Or maybe just as the dieter is biting into an authentic French croissant, a companion mentions that on the British baking show, the dough is covered with a thick slab of butter during an early step in the preparation of this delectable pastry, and so the croissant in mostly flour and fat.
Much of the time, we have no idea about the calorie and nutrient contents of what we are eating. We can read labels from foods we buy in the supermarket, but most restaurants never put calories or nutrient contents of the food on their menus. And surely dinner parties, receptions, catered affairs, and convention meals are not going to have any information either about what is in the food being consumed. Has anyone heard a server at a restaurant who, while describing the various exotic ingredients in a dish, mention the amount of butter, oil, cream, cheese, or other fattening ingredients to the diners? It is possible to find menus of many restaurants on the Internet, but the ingredients are rarely (if ever) displayed.
How would I know that the carrot ginger soup is at least 40% cream, or that the sautéed spinach comes in a puddle of oil? Prepared foods available in supermarkets such as Whole Foods may look wholesome, but the customer doesn’t know what ingredients were used in the dish or that the foods, prepared hours earlier, are kept fresh with oil. And then there is the home chef who may share a recipe with the guests, but doesn’t mention all the ingredients: perhaps sugar, cream, cheese, bacon, or oil. Years ago, I asked my hostess at a dinner party how she prepared a delicious fish dish. “Oh, it is a simple recipe. I coat the fish with a thick layer of mayonnaise before adding my spices.” Who would have thought, mayonnaise? The addition of such an ingredient changed what would have been a relatively low-calorie dish to one with more calories than the guests, certainly me, would have wanted to eat.
Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be too many solutions to this problem, mainly because we often don’t even know what to ask. How many people would ask about the butter content of a croissant before ordering one from a French bakery? How many of us think of asking whether there was mayonnaise on the fish?
Of course, keeping to a rigid food plan as one must whose medical situation (diabetics, for example) depends on, knowing what foods are being eaten to eliminate the possibility of consuming foods that are incompatible with dieting, or not gaining weight is imperative. But for those who may have a little wiggle room in how many calories or grams of fat they can eat, the answer may be to eat and enjoy that slice of brioche or dessert of crème brûlée, just not very often, and in small to moderate amounts.
