Winter's coming, time to get the soup out!

If there is one thing that can warm you up on a cold winters day, it is undoubtedly a nice warm mug of soup. There are so many popular varieties of soup out there, but which is your favorite? Recognising the fact that winter is well and truly upon us, I have recently created a new section on the calories found in popular soups, such as mushroom, tomato, minestrone and chicken, to name but a few. This is something that will be growing over the next month, so keep up to date by checking back with us.

Despite being high in sodium, most soups have some impressive nutritional values, and are well worth including in your diet, for reasons other than to warm you up! You can contribute to various nutritional levels in your body quite handsomely through a simple cup of soup, and whats more it is one of the easiest and cheapest foods to purchase and prepare!

If there is any particular soup that you would like to know the nutritional value, or calorific content of, why not tweet me or leave a comment here, and I will add it to the site.

You can see our calories in soup menu here.

Do you eat peach skin?

Peaches are an amazing juicy and delicious examples of a fruit, but do you eat peach skin? I have always assumed that this goes without saying, and everybody eats the skin to peaches.

However, just the other day I found myself curiously watching somebody peel a peach before they started to eat it. This was no place for me to intervene, but I just couldn't help myself. I sat myself down next to a young lady who was quietly reading her book (yep you guessed it fifty shades of grey!), and asked just what made her peel the skin of a peach?

She seemed rather surprised that a stranger would accost her for something like this, I mean normally people are bothered for charity donations, or the like, but here was some random guy questioning how she ate her fruit. Fortunately she answered though and said that she was not too keen on the texture of the peaches fuzzy surface, and had been taking the skin off before eating them for several years now.

After mentioning that she though that this made no difference to it's nutritional goodness, I had to point out that she was getting rid of most of the fiber that the peach offers, as this comes from the skin. Seemingly a little disappointed about this, she thanked me for letting her know before I got up and headed off.

Besides offering a decent dose of vitamins A and C, the best thing about a peach is the fact that it acts as a good source of fiber.

So do you eat peach skin, and if not, why not?

To find out all about the nutritional values, and calories found in a peach, please click the below link.

http://www.calories-in-foods.com/calories-in-peach.php

New site developments

As we aim to make the www.calories-in-foods.com site more user friendly and straight forward, we are implementing menus for the different types of foods that we have listed.

The two latest menus feature calories in nuts and seeds, and also calories in fish and seafood.

They make it incredibly easy for the user to distinguish between different foods, and negate the need to fiddle around with drop down boxes, or having to type in different foods, like they would have to on other sites. All you need to do on our site is click the mouse and read away, it could not be more easy to use.

The following menus are constantly being added to as we strive to make the site bigger and better, if you have any ideas for foods or beverages that you wish to see added, please leave a comment here, or on our facebook page.

http://www.calories-in-foods.com/calories-in-nuts-seeds.php

http://www.calories-in-foods.com/calories-in-fish.php

http://www.facebook.com/pages/calories-in-foodscom/167776159969126

Snack on nuts and seeds

Any time you think of a snack, the first things that come to mind are chips, cookies, and other such tasty treats, even though we all know that they are not good for us. The problem is that they are always so readily available, they fill a gap, and they taste great.

However, the fact is that they don't do us any good at all as they are loaded with sugar, and contain barely any nutrients.

There are loads of foods that are good for you, and taste nice as well, that can act as highly nutritious snacks, and none more so than nuts and seeds.

On my website I am currently developing an extensive menu showing not only how many calories are in nuts and seeds, but also their nutritional values. This is because I feel that it makes sense to highlight exactly how good a food is for you, so that people don't just make a decision on whether to eat something based on the calories that it contains.

Let's look at a couple of examples.

Calories in almonds, and their nutritional benefits

You may look at almonds and think that they are relatively high in calories, this is because in just 1 oz of them there is 164 calories. However, look at the nutritional values that this serving contains:

Vitamin E - 7.3 milligrams, 37% of the total you need in a day.
Protein - 5.9 g, 12% of the total needed in a day.
Fiber - 3.4 g, 14% of your RDA.
Vitamin B2 - 0.3 mg, 17% if all you need in a day.
Magnesium - 75 mg, 19% of all your body needs in one day.
Phosphorus - 136 milligrams, 14% of all you require in a day.
Copper - 0.3 mg, 14% of your RDA.
Manganese - 0.6 mg, 32% of your RDA.

There are some serious nutritional benefits to take note of here, and they are surely enough to positively outweigh the almond calories that you may have initially been concerned about.

Even with there being 13.8 g of fat in this quantity, it is vital to recognise that just 1 g of this is the saturated fat that you want to avoid.

So that is a great example of how the calories in nuts, should not put you off eating them.

How about seeds?

Seeds aren't just something you feed to birds, there are thousands of people into their health foods that will strongly praise the many benefits that you can obtain from eating seeds such as sunflower and squash seeds.

Just like in 1 oz of almonds, there are 164 calories in the same quantity of sunflower seeds. There is also a total of 14.4 g of fat, but again a very small amount of this is saturated fat, 1.2 g to be precise.

But just look at the nutritional benefits of sunflower seeds, before you discount them.

Protein - 5.8 g, 12% of your RDA.
Fiber - 2.4 g, 10% of all you need in a single day.
Vitamin E - 9.3 milligrams, 47% of the total you need in a day.
Vitamin B1- 0.4 mg, 28% of your total daily requirement.
Vitamin B3 - 2.3 mg, this is 12% of your RDA.
Vitamin B6 - 0.4 mg, 19% of your RDA.
Folate / Vitamin B9 - 63.6 micrograms, which works out as 16% of the total you need in a day.
Magnesium - 91 mg, 23 % of your RDA.
Phosphorus - 185 mg, 18% of your daily intake.
Copper - 0.5 mg, this is 25% of the total needed in a day.
Manganese - 0.5 mg, which comes to 27% of your total daily requirement.
Selenium - 14.8 micrograms, 21% of your RDA.

Again there are some massive nutritional benefits to take note of here, and there is no way that any kind of 'conventional' snack would put these kinds of numbers up.

It would be a very wise idea to use nuts and seeds as a snack, and not just on the odd occasion. They are highly nutritious, and there is such variety in them. Why not take a small quantity of them in to work or college with you, and pick on them if you are feeling hungry between meal times.

Additionally, if you keep these stocked in your house instead of sweet snack foods, then they are there when hunger strikes.

To check out our ever growing calories in nuts and seeds menu, please click on the link below.

http://www.calories-in-foods.com/calories-in-nuts-seeds.php

Find out about the calories in salmon

We have just put up a page covering the calories in salmon. On the page we have provided examples using the various different types of salmon that you can buy. These are:

• Atlantic
• Sockeye / red salmon
• Chinook / king salmon
• Keta / chum salmon
• Silver / coho salmon
• Pink / humpy salmon

We have covered the many ways that you will eat your salmon as well, smoked, baked, and even information on the calories in raw salmon.

Besides covering the calorific values of what is an incredibly popular seafood, we also highlight what the nutritional benefits of salmon are, as this is a fish that is a fantastic source of protein, as well as the minerals selenium and phosphorus.

Check out the latest page of the website via the following link:

http://www.calories-in-foods.com/calories-in-salmon.php

We are going to be making a specific seafood section in the coming month in order to cover a wide range of fish and shellfish, showing the calories they contain and the nutritional benefits that they can bring to your diet.

You can always leave your feedback on the page/site here on the blog.

 

Why should you eat carrots?

Ask anyone to name their favorite vegetable, and I guarantee you that a large proportion of the answers will be the carrot. The bright orange vegetable is one that is even promoted by celebrities, well if you can call Bugs Bunny a celebrity that is.  The main reason that a food is favored by anybody is the fact that it tastes good, hence why so many millions of people eat nothing by junk food these days. However, other reasons include the nutritional benefits that can be obtained from eating a food. Lets look at some of the main features of the carrot:

Number of calories in carrots:

In a large raw carrot weighing 2 oz there are just 32 calories

The three main nutritional benefits of carrots:

1. Vitamin A - You are going to be aiding the health and longevity of your vision by getting enough vitamin A. In just 100 grams of carrot you can get 835 milligrams of vitamin A, which is over the entire total that your diet requires in a day. So carrots are one of the best sources of vitamin A that you are going to come across.

2. Vitamin K - Another important vitamin that you need for a variety of reasons, these include to ensure your ability to absorb other nutrients, and to help blood to clot when needed. You can get a massive 13.2 micrograms of vitamin K in 100 grams of carrot, that is 16% of the total you should be eating in a day.

3. Vitamin C - You are able to get a brilliant dose of vitamin C through eating carrots. In fact just 100 grams of carrot will provide you with 10% of the total required in a day, equating to 5.9 milligrams. What an easy way to contribute to an critical vitamin that helps to keep your immune system strong, eating an incredibly tasty carrot!

High in fiber and water, and low in fat, what more can you want from a food that genuinely tastes fantastic?

There are many more vitamins, and also minerals that the carrot contains, and this makes it a very effective contributor to the nutrient levels in your body.

Eating foods that taste great such as the carrot, really is the simplest of way to keep yourself healthy and to avoid any nutritional deficiencies.

If you would like to learn more about carrot calories and the various other nutrients that the carrots contain, please visit the following page of my website:


http://www.calories-in-foods.com/calories-in-carrots.php

Double bubble

A lot of hard work has gone into the site over the past month in order to increase the number of foods and beverages that we have covered. We now have in excess of 100 pages crammed with not only information on calories in foods, but also the nutritional values that come with them as well.

We are aiming to build upon this in the coming weeks and months in order to make the site as simple and informative as possible.

We are also trying to focus on this blog to make it as topical and interesting as possible for people who are interested in the subject of calories, diet and weight loss.

If you are happening to have a quick read of this why not submit a comment and let us know what you think of the site and what you would like to see on there?