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{ Nutrition }

Feasting at the Fair
Hot dogs, ice cream, popcorn...when it comes to food at the fair, who's counting calories? Nutrition experts are!

Calories Counting
Calories are units of energy so small that a single apple provides thousands of them. To ease calculations, energy is expressed in 1000-calorie units known as kilocalories (shortened to kcalories, but commonly called calories). When you read that an apple provides "100 calories," that actually means 100 kcalories. The abbreviation for the term kcalorie is kcal and is used in many scientific books and journals.

Think Metric
Most food labels and many recipe books provide "dual measures" listing both household measures, such as cups, quarts and teaspoons, and metric measures, such as milliliters, liters and grams. This practice gives people a chance to gradually learn to "think metric."

It All Adds Up
Many members of the international scientific community have adopted a common system of measurement , which is known as the International System of Units (SI). For example, the SI unit for measuring food energy is the joule (not the kcalorie). While many scientists and journals report their findings in kilojoules (kJ), many others, particularly those in the United States, use kcalories.

To convert energy measures from kcalories to kilojoules, multiply by 4.2. For instance, a 50-kcalorie cookie provides 210 kJ: 50 kcal x 4.2 = 210 kJ.

Menu Measurements
Select all the items you would be likely to eat at the fair and find out your total kcalories and kilojoules.

Food Item / kcal

Carbonated:
Cola beverage 12 oz 152
Diet cola w/ aspartame 12 oz 4
Diet cola w/ saccaharin 12 oz 0
Orange 12 oz 179
Root beer 12 oz 152
Lemon-lime 12 oz 147

Lemonade, from concentrate 8 oz 99
Milk shakes, chocolate 10 oz 359
Milk shakes, vanilla 10 oz 314

Ice cream vanilla, soft serve 8 oz 372
Yogurt, low fat, plain 8 oz 144
Yogurt, fruit added 8 oz 232

Apple pie 1/6 of pie 1 piece 374
Cherry pie 1/6 of pie 1 piece 427
Popcorn popped in oil/salted 1 cup 55
Caramel coated popcorn 1 cup 151
Polish Sausage 1 oz 92
Egg roll, meatless 1 each 101
Egg roll, with meat 1 each 114
Pizza, combination, 1/12 of 12" round 1 piece 123
Pizza, pepperoni, 1/12 od 12" round 1 piece 121
Corndog 1 each 292
Cheeseburger w/ bun 1 each 261
Hamburger w/ bun 1 each 252
Hot dog/ frankfurter w/ bun 1 each 210
Peanuts, oil roasted, salted 1 cup 837
Caramel apple (2 3/4 diam) 1 each 187
French fries 10 fries 155
Potato chips 14 chips 150
Cod (batter fried) 4 oz w/ potato chips 14 chips 346
Dill pickle, medium 1 each 12
Onion Rings, breaded 2 81
Corn on cob 5 "long 1 each 83

Soft pretzels 1 each 400
cotton candy/candy floss 1 cone 100
elephant ears/funnel cake 1 each 600
salt water taffy 1 each 30

Citation:
Whitney, Eleanor and Sharon Rolses. Understanding Nutrition. New York: West
Publishing Co. 1996