Thursday, April 23, 2009

Calorie Thoughts

Only had a few minutes for lunch today, and decided to drive through KFC (figured I'd try one of their box lunches I'd seen advertised).

The meal was pretty filling for $6.99 + tax = $7.60. If I was just trying to get enough food to survive, it would be a good choice. The starving SNL Whopper Virgin should stop by KFC instead.

I don't usually think about calories at all, but figured I'd see about how many were in this lunch.
OR Filet Sandwich: 480 cal
Mashed Potato Side: 130 cal
Potato Wedge Side: 260 cal
Biscuit: 180 cal
Piece of Chicken: 370 cal ? wasn't sure which entry was right
32 oz Dr Pepper: 400 cal
Total: 1820 cal - fairly intense amount of calories!

Found a Calories / day calc which says that a 6'2", 185lb, 31 yr old male needs 2921 cal/day if moderately active and 3310 cal / day if very active. I'll call it 3200 cal / day. That leaves 1380 for the rest of the day. If lunch is my biggest meal of the day, that seems to check out fairly ok.

Haven't really done the calorie counting thing much before. I suppose it's semi interesting... Although not sure it's very productive. It might be good to know if one is routinely consuming a 1000 or more extra calories / day, or to know that the soda has more calories than anything except the sandwich. But as far as health is concerned, calories are probably not the main goal. The quality and type of food probably have a bigger impact on overall health. And I bet the caloric needs of an individual swing widely away from the Calorie / day calc for individuals with the same stats, depending on other things.

If I ran into a book called "Eat Healthy without having to obsess about it", I'd buy a copy. I have a feeling KFC would not be a highly ranked food provider in this imaginary book.