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Nutrition Facts - Fat to Calories Ratio Per Serving Size
Dietary Fat in the Daily Diet & How Fat Influences the Numbers on our Weight Scales
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Fat is necessary in a healthy diet but too much fat can make us fat. Some fat calories are sneaky, too. Although a food may contain a reasonable amount of calories, it's important to review the nutrition fact label to reveal hidden fat calories.
Many times, more than 3/4's of the calories of a food may be derived from fat.
Example: A typical homemade BLT contains about 350 calories but about 60% of those calories are derived from fat. It's also loaded with sodium - and with these things in mind, a BLT isn't a very wise diet choice. It doesn't mean that a BLT can't be a part of a healthy diet.
What it does mean is that we must ask ourselves if we truly want all that fat in our bodies - in our arteries.
A solution to those foods that we love to eat, but are not so good for us, is to de-fat them a bit. The BLT can be trimmed in fat by thoroughly draining the bacon and blotting excess grease away with a paper towel. Turkey bacon would also make a healthier BLT. Light Mayo or fat free Mayo or salad dressing are another low calorie, low fat items that can healthy-up our BLT.
Our BLT example is a good example of why nutrition labels are so helpful and important to the dieter. While most products at the market contain labels, consumers continue to play a guessing game while dining out. Speaking of which, let's review the nutrition facts for a fast food BLT sandwich.
It's a bit surprising to see that the grilled BLT contains more cholesterol than the crispy BLT while total lipid fat values are more in the crispy sandwich.
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The Sonic Restaurant BLT Toaster® Sandwich contains 490 calories - 280 of those calories from fat, 31 fat grams, 7 saturated fat grams, 0 Trans fat, 40 mg of cholesterol, 960 mg of sodium, 39 carbohydrate grams, 2 dietary fiber grams, 6 sugar grams, 14 protein grams, 8% Daily Value (DV) Vitamin A, 6% DV Vitamin C, 8% DV calcium, 6% DV iron, and it weighs 141 grams.
Foods With High Fat Content-to-Overall Calorie Ratio
Potted meats, cheese souffle', most cheese, whipping cream, cream, sour cream, butter (100% fat), peanut butter.
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