Here’s The Exact Calorie Count Of 16 Healthy Foods That Are Shockingly High
Knowledge is power. Dont get it twisted.
by The Candidly Team
Calories isn’t a bad word. It’s a powerful word. So many of us were assaulted by the diet-culture of the 80s where Snackwells and margarine were considered “health foods” that we’ve overcorrected into denying the reality of calories in, calories out.
Of course now that we’re older and wiser (?) we focus on eating actually healthy whole foods, grains, things that aren’t processed, and we write about how to do more of that in very simple, thoughtful, not-impossible ways like THIS, THIS, THIS, and THIS.
But if you’re over 40 like us, you’ve likely noticed the scale creeping up, or more worrisome, your blood pressure, and we are not ones to take this lying down. And we’re certainly not going to start taking a bunch of prescriptions before we see if we can’t assert some control over our own bodies and outcomes.
And a lot of that starts with food. And while macronutrients like protein and fiber are hugely crucial to be aware of, the reality is, if we are eating more calories than our bodies burn, we will gain weight. We just will. And so, to have power over that equation, we have to actually know how many calories are in the foods we’re eating. We can’t list everything, but we chose 16 foods that we ourselves realized were much denser calorically than we realized, but because they’re all “healthy” we ate them all with total abandon.
We’re not telling you not to eat these things. They’re all excellent sources of nutrition and part of a nourishing daily diet. But knowledge is power.
So here’s the knowledge.
1. Cereal
Serving size: 1 1/4 cup
Calories: 150
Many cereals are just gussied up candy bars, but even a “healthy” cereal’s serving is about a cup. Go pour cereal into a cup and see the serving size. It’s … shocking to say the least. And now add milk. And then think about that as a “little snack” before bed.
2. Shredded Cheese
Serving size: 1/4 cup
Calories: 110
Cheese is delicious. Of course it is. It’s also astonishingly high in calories. We beg you to go look at how much a 1/4 cup of shredded cheese is. It’s like, the amount of cheese we’d stuff in our mouths as we’re making the quesadilla. Are we saying not to eat cheese? No. It’s just very good information to have.
3. Peanut Butter
Serving size: 2 tbsp
Calories: 210
Apples and peanut butter are, of course, delectable. And at around 300 cals, a lovely snack—though we have realized peanut butter is actually not a protein source, it’s a fat source, and as women over 40 who want to maintain our weight, we commit to getting 15-20 grams of protein in every snack and this one is only about 8 grams. So we actually shifted our thinking about peanut butter—because it’s a fat, which means we limit it because it’s so calorically dense. So we treat it more like a treat. Which means we drizzle it on yogurt after dinner in a treat-like way, and for a muchhhhhhh more filling snack, we do half a cup of low-fat cottage cheese (Good Culture, obvs) with one jammy, hard-cooked egg all with a small tiny drizzle of honey (try it, you won’t believe it) along with half an apple. All clocking in at 232 cals BUT it has 18 grams of protein. Which means it will actually keep us full.
4. Most Salad Dressings
Serving size: 2 tbsp
Calories: 140
It’s sooooo easy to be sucked into salad dressing fonts and designs that trick us into thinking that because they look natural, that somehow they’re also low in cals. Sooooo not true. Even Primal Kitchen dressing, which touts being made with avocado oil, racks up these kinds of numbers. So when you think about how we actually dress a salad, which is maybe eight tablespoons, just keep in mind that that’s 500 calories. On your healthy, healthy salad. And listen, it’s not your fault. Everything is designed to trick us. So don’t be tricked.
5. Olive Oil
Serving size: 1 tbsp
Calories: 120
So … make your own dressing at home! And yes. Of course we recommend and champion that. Especially with a good, high-quality olive oil. Especially since olive oil is linked to heart health, can lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, reduce inflammation, manage gut health, protect our bodies against free radicals, and now there’s even studies may lower our risk of dementia. So. PLEASE believe us when we tell you—you should incorporate olive oil into your diet. Definitely, no question. There isn’t a day that goes by where we don’t eat it in some form. However, it’s very easy to have a very heavy hand when making salad dressing at home. Or marinating something. Or glug glug glugging it onto a pan for frying. It took us far too long to realize that all of our “eyeballing” our olive oil into recipes meant we were getting an extra 500 calories a day that we didn’t even account for! Yes! That alone could be the difference in eating the right number of cals to maintain your weight vs steadily gaining weight each week. It’s truly astonishing and eye opening.
6. Nuts
Serving size: 1 oz
Calories: 204 (for macadamia but it varies per nut)
Listen, nuts are full of healthy fats. They’re a great snack option. Not for the person writing this article because she’s fatally allergic, but she’s heard tell of their health. But if you mindlessly munch on them because you think they’re healthy, it’s supremely easy to eat a dinner-level number of calories just from your healthy snack. Also when things are counted in “ounces” it’s another scam. Do you even even know what an ounce looks like? Of course not. Who can even picture it? So that means the only way to even KNOW what a serving size is, is to weigh it. Which really does suck the joy right out of eating. But truthfully, it’s actually helpful to see what an ounce looks like. Because we can assure you, it is very, very, very small.
7. Avocado
Serving size: 1 medium avocado
Calories: 240
We love avocados. Avocados are bursting with health. We actually wrote a whole thing here saying you should eat an entire avocado every day. That’s how excellent they are for our health. That said, it’s so very easy to down the equivalent of 3 avocados-worth of guacamole without even blinking. Or if you add even a half an avocado to your lovely turkey sandwich with whole grain bread that sandwich is likely to going to clock in at 750 calories with all the normal accouterments. And that’s perfectly fine and again, we love love love avocados and we certainly adore them on a big turkey sandwich. But then chips on the side and a lemonade and now we’re at 1100 cals. And that’s one meal. Which is again, OKAY, if you think about it within the context of your entire day and truly understand the number of calories you burn relative to what you eat. And if you don’t, and want to, try THIS. If you don’t, and don’t want to, also fine. But this article likely isn’t for you. Which is also fine!
8. Mayonnaise
Serving size: 1 tbsp
Calories: 100
Mayonnaise is, of course, the nectar or the gods. A big spoonful on THIS?! Truly nothing better. We would bathe in mayonnaise if we could. Which I guess we can. But mayonnaise is, sadly, just wildly calorically dense. We love it so much we use this to cut the cals by 75%, and we don’t want to live a life without it, but we love feeling empowered to know exactly how many calories we want to “spend” when eating it.
9. 80/20 Ground beef
Serving size: 6 oz
Calories: 418
The only thing better than mayo, is mayo slathered on a griddled, buttery bun enrobing a juicy, flame-broiled burger. Can you tell we are food people? Because we really are. But we are food people who also want to be able to control their own cholesterol and blood pressure. So, of course, we eat a gigantic burger like this sometimes. But we usually buy Laura’s ground beef which clocks in at around 210 cals for the same amount.
10. Granola
Serving size: 2/3 cup
Calories: 260
We specifically choose one of the more nutrient dense granolas on the market, packed with 16 grams of protein, made with coconut oil, with less than 10 grams of sugar per serving. So this is actually a superb choice given most of the other I’m-just-candy-masquerading-as-granola choices out there. But granola is the kind of thing that’s easy to pop in your mouth sort of mindlessly, again because it IS so good for you, that it’s very easy to have eaten 2 meals worth of calories with this little “snack.”
11. Chickpeas
Serving size: 1 cup
Calories: 269
Chickpeas are an AMAZING food full of gorgeous nutrients, especially fiber, and if there’s something more satiating and refreshing than a dense, chickpea, cucumber, and red onion salad dressed lightly with lemon and olive oil along with some sumac and flat leaf parsley, we haven’t tasted it. But like everything on this list, because it’s so wildly healthy, we tend to treat it like it’s not a calorie-dense food. But it is. A can of chickpeas is close to 500 cals. Once you rinse and drain a can of chick peas and perhaps tumble them out onto a parchment lined baking dish and sprinkle with garlic powder, paprika, and salt and roast at 450 for 25 min, you have the most addictive, delicious snack. Chips, who? EXCEPT. It’s very easy to mindlessly eat all of them. Or the whole tub of hummus. Or any of these things. Because healthy doesn’t mean free of calories. It just means unlike a bag of Doritos (god, Doritos) it’s actually helping your body function, move, thrive. But if we eat more calories of ANY type of food, even health food, we gain weight. It’s just that simple. Not easy, but simple.
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