How Many Calories Does Our Favorite Junk Food Hide?

Can enjoyment be measured in numbers? Do the numbers matter before the ritual of devouring a delicious pizza, a toasted round of everything, or a special double cheeseburger with french fries when we return hungry and tired from work? Probably not, you will answer as you dip your double-fried potatoes in the ketchup, waiting for the beer foam to settle.

French fries

Not only do they correspond to a huge amount of calories, but they burden us with a lot of fat (13-36%). They are even more aggravating when it comes to pre-fried potatoes, something that 

corresponds to more oil, therefore more burden on our health.

Calories: From 380 (small portion) to 750 (extra large portion).

The solution: Replace them with a healthier side dish (eg rice) or, if you are going to prefer them anyway, "vote" fresh and not pre-fried.

Fried chicken

Fried chicken nuggets - the so-called nuggets - may deceive us, as we consider chicken to be a "lean" food, but here we are dealing with fried food, and therefore particularly fattening.

Calories: From 236 (the portion of 6 pieces) to 790 (the 20 pieces). The percentage of fat per 100gr. reaches 20-40%.

The solution: Choose small portions or share them with others. Alternatively, choose grilled chicken fillet rather than fried.

Burger

In the case of the burger, the rule of "abundance" applies: The more ingredients we load it, the bigger the "bomb" of calories and fat. Specifically, if we get a double burger, the calories are doubled, if we "upgrade" from a simple burger to a cheeseburger we add 50 calories, while if we like the bacon, we almost double the caloric value of the meal.

Calories: They start from 245 for the simple burger with bread, burger, and ketchup or salad, while they can reach 490 if it is a double burger (fat percentage 8-28%).

The solution: Do not load the burger with cheese, bacon, and greasy sauce. If you can, make your own burger to make it homemade. Do not accompany it with french fries (above you have already learned why).

Puff pastry

We prefer them in the morning as an easy solution, when we stop in the oven to get a cheese pie or a spinach pie, which we mistakenly think is an "innocent" choice. If the dough is frozen, the burden on our body is even greater. See below what "hides" each type of dough/pie.

Calories: Cheese puff pastry small 400 calories, ham cheese pie 650, bought cream 410, twisted spinach pie 585, village spinach cheese pie 680 and calzone sausage 700 calories, with fat per serving reaching 20 to 35 lines.

The solution: Prefer to eat Thessaloniki breadsticks or buns instead of puff pastry - especially frozen ones.

Sandwich

The "consequences" of the sandwich vary greatly, depending on the type of bread and the ingredients we use. We should know that a bun alone has 280 calories (as many as four slices of toast), a baguette 300, while the ingredients can weigh from a little (such as tomatoes, vegetables, ketchup, and mustard) to a lot ( bacon, cheeses, cold cuts, cheese salads, etc.). Of course, the heavy artillery in the "field" of sandwiches is the club sandwich that contains cold cuts, bacon, mayonnaise, and cheese and is always accompanied by potatoes, so it easily reaches almost 2/3 of the daily calories that one must get in one day..

Calories: From 330 for a simple tomato and ketchup/mustard sandwich, up to 940 for the club sandwich including potatoes.

The solution: "Ask for the club sandwich without mayonnaise, with turkey instead of bacon and accompany it with salad instead of potatoes", advises Ms. Kolotourou, while she suggests that we prefer wholemeal bread, cheese, and low-fat sausages, vegetables, and vegetables in sandwiches or mustard instead of other sauces.

Pizza

Calories: A special piece of pizza can contain from 220 to 400 calories.

The solution: Choose a thin dough and "load" it with vegetables (mushrooms, peppers, onions) instead of cold cuts and cheeses. Share it with other people, and stop eating if you are full.

Souvlaki

Our "national" fast food is probably one of our best choices, as long as we do not "overload" it. Equally preferable to the other options is the portion of meat that can be found in fast-food restaurants (steak or portion of a straw). See below the calories offered by each option, from the least to the most fattening.

Calories: Chicken straw (130), pork straw (180), chicken or pork straw pie (330 and 360 respectively), round chicken or pork pie (350 and 370 respectively), kebab pie (420).

The solution: Ask for an oily pie (you immediately save over 100 calories), prefer the straws instead of the greasy round, and choose tzatziki instead of other sauces.

Salads

Yes, salads can be included in fast food, as most fast-food restaurants offer salads of chefs, Caesars, etc. While they have a "good name" as healthy options, we must be careful not to turn them into calorie bombs. (adding for example cheese, bacon, croutons, a lot of oil).

Calories: Caesar salad contains about 500 calories, Chef 640, Cretan 360, while a more complex salad with a green base, chicken, croutons, parmesan, sauce, etc. can reach 830 calories.