My favorite vietnamese dish!

What I had consumed for lunch was Vietnamese noodle soup, which in Vietnamese is called pho.  My mother prepared this dish for lunch and pho is something that I love to eat everyday if I could.  I usually eat this dish about twice a week and what is basically is, is a broth made from chicken or beef and usually that takes two days or overnight to prepare but since she made a small batch it only took about two hours.  And it is served with rice noodles and whatever kind of meat is preferred to be served with it along with some other things such as onions, scallions, been sprouts, basil, and lime.  Some pastes that are optional that can be added to pho to make it either sweeter or more spicy is a brown paste we call tuong and that is what would make the pho more sweet.  In English, it is called hoison sauce and another paste called tuong ot, which would make the pho more spicy, and the product in English is called Sriracha.  So, I had my pho with beef, which is Vietnamese is called pho tai.  The pieces of beef were cut thinly and into medium strips and served on top of the noodles and I also added the two pastes and lime.  

Now there isn't a standard calorie count for this dish only because there are so many different components put together for this dish.  There is the broth which can be made with either chicken or beef, the noodles, the pastes so each of those has different calories.  According to www.mypyramidtracker.gov they did have vietnamese pho bo on there which I was surprised to see because that was what I had exactly and in order to figure the calories for this dish we would have to break everything down and figure the calories separately.  So according to www.mypyramidtracker.gov I put that I had three servings of one cup of vietnamese pho bo which I think they only calculated the broth plus the noodles, so the total calories is 527 which I think sounds reasonable because the pastes would add more calories.  Below is a picture of my favorite brand of hoisin sauce.

Nutrition Facts for Hoisin Sauce (serving size one tbsp)

Calories: 35

Calories from fat: 5

Total fat: 0.5g

Saturated fat: 0.1g

Polyunsaturated fat: 0.3g

Monounsaturated fat: 0.2g

Cholesterol: 0mg

Sodium: 258mg

Total carbohydrates: 7.1g

Dietary fiber: 0.4g

Sugars: 4.4g

Protein: 0.5g

Calcium: 1%

Iron: 1%

I would say that I put about one a half tablespoons of hoisin sauce into my pho so that would be an extra 52.5 calories.  The popular chili sauce that is sold in stores is called Sriracha and the picture is below.

Nutrition Facts for Sriracha (serving size is one tsp)

Calories: 5

Calories from fat: 0

Total fat: 0g

Monounsaturated fat: 0g

Polyunsaturated fat: 0g

Trans fat: 0g

Cholesterol: 0mg

Sodium: 100mg

Total carbohydrate: 1g

Dietary fiber: 06

Sugars: 1g

Protein: 0g

I would say that I use about two teaspoons worth of sriracha sauce, so a total of 10 calories.  So the total amount of pastes that I put into my pho totals to 62.5 calories, if I add the calories of the two paste to the calories from the pho it would total to 589.5 calories, which I think is about right since I only add the two pastes along with lime to my pho so I stand by that calorie count.  I think this is a pretty healthy meal, but the other thing that I would look out for is the sodium that this meal contains.  I would say that it is pretty high in sodium count so people would want to watch out for that.  The total amount of calories also depends on what people put in it as well.  People could add more hoisin sauce if they like it sweeter or if they like it more spicy they could add more sriracha.  People could add bean sprouts, basil, and all the other vegetables included.  Instead of beef, other people prefer chicken, or just plain old pho with rice noodles and broth.  Pho is made differently each time to that person's liking so it all just varies from the that person who is preparing their own pho.  So I would not say that there is another dish that would be a healthy alternative to this one, it just depends on what you put in it.  My boyfriend puts absolutely nothing in his pho, he just likes to eat it plain with just the broth and rice noodles, on the other hand my mom likes to put the whole works in there including the basil, lime, bean sprouts, both pastes, so it all just depends on the person. 

Wendy's

What I had for lunch today was spicy chicken nuggets, french fries, and chili from Wendy's.  The reason why I chose to eat at Wendy's today was because I really wanted to try the new fresh cut fries that my boyfriend has been raving about.  He compared it to Wing Stop fries and I love their fries, unfortunately it tasted nothing like Wing Stop fries which I turned out to be disappointed in.  Other than the fries, I ordered what I would normally order there.  I would typically order the five spicy chicken nuggets and a small chili.  Even though it was really inexpensive, I was overly full when I left the restaurant.  The total cost of the meal was about $3.65 which is a small amount of money for a lot of food.

Nutrition Facts

Five Piece Spicy Chicken Nuggets:

Weight: 75g

Calories: 230

Calories from fat: 140

Total fat: 15.0g

Saturated: 3.5g

Trans fatty acids: 0.0

Cholesterol: 35mg

Sodium: 690mg

Carbohydrate: 14g

Dietary fiber: 1g

Sugars: 0g

Protein: 10g

Vitamin C: 4%

Iron: 2%

Value Size Natural Cut Fries:

Weight: 77g

Calories: 220

Calories from fat: 100

Total fat: 11g

Saturated: 2.0g

Trans fatty acids: 0.0

Cholesterol: 0

Sodium: 270mg

Carbohydrates: 29g

Dietary fiber: 3g

Sugars: 0g

Protein: 3g

Vitamin C: 6%

Iron: 4%

Small Chili:

Weight: 227g

Calories: 220

Calories from fat: 60

Total fat: 7g

Saturated: 3.0g

Trans fatty acids: 0.0

Cholesterol: 35mg

Sodium: 870mg

Carbohydrates: 22g

Dietary fiber: 6g
Sugars: 6g

Protein: 18g

Calcium: 8%

Iron: 15%

I got the nutrition facts from Wendy's official website and out of all the websites that offer nutrition facts I like this one the best because it adds up all the nutrients listed.  Another thing about this Wendy's nutrition facts page is that they list out all the ingredients used to make each order.  Even the condiments eaten with what meal.  So the total calories of this meal was 680 calories which in my opinion is not that bad because I base my diet on a regular 2000 calorie diet.  So 680 calories out of the way for lunch is not that bad, especially if I have 1320 calories to spare for breakfast and dinner.  I would have to say that this meal is high in sodium, so if someone is concerned about high blood pressure they could take out the chili which has the most amount of sodium in it.  Personally, I did not think that the chili was not that salty, I felt that the new fresh natural cut fries had a ton of salt on it.  I am the person that like a little bit more salt than usual on their food but I felt that they put too much salt on the fries.  So I would ask for no salt for my fries and just get the packets of salt and put how much I want on it.  Even though I always tell myself that I need to consume less fried food from this place, I cannot resist because food from Wendy's is good.  If I still wanted to consume chicken that was not fried, a healthier alternative would be to order the grilled chicken sandwich, which is 370 calories but it comes with vegetables like lettuce, pickles and tomatoes.  If i wanted to go a little more healthier and stick with chicken, I would get the grilled chicken go wrap, which is 260 calories.  So those two options would be a better alternative to the five spicy chicken nuggets.  Another thing to keep in mind at Wendy's is that if your vegetarian, fish is not always the better alternative. The premium fish fillet sandwich at Wendy's is a whopping 500 calories, my whole lunch which included three items almost equaled to this one fish sandwich so that is not a good alternative.  So, prior to going to Wendy's or any other restaurant, it is always good to go check out the nutrition facts online and see what you would get and how many calories it is, or how much sodium what item contains and then you can make better choices.

A tasty little treat that I had later on today was a drink from Starbucks.  Starbucks are known for their high calorie frappucinos, and today I got an vanilla bean frappucino. The size that I got in this frappucino was a grande and according to their to nutrition facts on their website it is 390 calories.

Nutrition Facts per serving (16 oz)

Calories: 390

Calories from fat: 140

Total fat: 16g

Saturated fat: 10g

Trans Fat: 0g

Cholesterol: 55mg

Sodium: 230mg

Total Carbohydrate: 58g

Dietary Fiber: 0g

Sugars: 56g

Protein: 5g

Vitamin A: 10%

Calcium: 15%

This particular frappucino isn't something I usually get from Starbucks, it was something I wanted to try and something that did not have as much coffee, unfortunately this did not have any coffee at all which meant no caffeine, but that was okay.   I got my vanilla bean creme frappucino regular, which means that I did not change anything and I kept the whip cream on it.  Now the calories can lessen by changing the milk from whole milk to nonfat milk, so instead of 390 calories, it will be 350 calories.  The calories from fat will change as well, the calories from fat with nonfat milk will be 100.  They do offer other milks as well, such as 2% and soy milk which will be lesser in calories than whole milk.  Another thing that adds a lot of calories to this frappucino and other drinks from Starbucks as a matter of fact is the whip cream.  This drink is 390 calories including the whip cream already but without the whip cream is 270 calories, that means that the whip cream is 120 calories.  That is a lot of calories from whip cream.  I never knew that whip cream could have that much calories.  So a better alternative for this drink would be to consume a smaller size which is a tall, with nonfat milk and no whip.  If I were to order that instead of a grande size with whip cream, it would only be 170 calories, which means 220 calories less from the original grande vanilla bean creme frappucino.

Seafood and dessert!

Today what I had for lunch was steamed snow crabs and fried shrimp.  According to www.mypyramidtracker.gov, I was able to put in what kind of snow crabs and the amount of quantity I consumed.  They did have steamed, hard shelled crab and I put the option of one snow crab leg, but for the number of servings, I put four, so that is a total of four snow crab legs.  There were a variety of shrimp options from their list but I chose the one that was breaded or battered and fried.  The size of the shrimp were medium shrimps (shelled) and the number of servings that I had consumed were four servings, so a total of four shrimps.

So according to www.mypyramidtracker.gov, this meal was a total of 148 calories, which in my opinion is not that bad.  This meal was very low in calories.  Some tips that I would suggest to make this meal a little healthier, even though I think it is already low in calories, I would eat the snow crab legs with a mixture of lime, salt, and pepper as a dipping sauce and instead of breaded and fried shrimp, I would eat it broiled so that would eliminate all the extra oils.  The way I made the snow crabs legs was simply boil them in hot water until it became fully cooked.  As for the fried shrimp, it was store bought and I just friend them in a frying pan with oil.  If I had the choice to cook the shrimp the other way, I would have boiled it.  Another thing, is that I could have added some vegetables as a side dish, I noticed that I did not technically have a side dish so I would have included some vegetables or rice for a little more carbohydrates.  Overall, this meal was low in calories so it was not that bad.

For this post and so on, I will post up what I had for dessert and today I had cream puffs.  I actually made my own cream puffs and cream puffs are popular among Asian cultures and can be found at many Asian bakeries.  What cream puffs are is that they are actually what they are called, cream filled puffs.  Below is a picture of my own cream puffs that I had made.

I would say that making cream puffs is a very tedious process and takes a while to do but in the end they are deliciously addictive.  My cream puffs were about a teaspoon in size and usually in Asian bakeries they are about the size of a palm of a hand.  The thing about making my own cream puffs is that I could change what goes in it.  For example, the cream consisted of instant vanilla pudding, heavy cream and milk.  To make this dessert a little more figure friendly I used fat free instant vanilla pudding instead of regular instant vanilla pudding, and low fat milk instead of regular whole milk and the heavy cream I kept the same.  The dough was simple, it just consisted of flour, eggs, butter, water, and salt.  But according to www.mypyramidtracker.gov a palm sized cream puff is about 300 calories and mine were only about a teaspoon in size so I am guessing that four of my cream puffs would equal one palm sized cream puff so four tiny cream puffs would equal 300 calories so since I consumed 6 of my cream puffs, it was about 450 calories, which is more than my lunch that I had earlier in the day! But I guess it made up for it because the calories were so low for my lunch.  So, the thing that I would keep in mind whenever I want to eat cream puffs is to eat less and that would make it a little healthier, psychologically. 

Meat, meat and meat!!

This will be a double post only because I did not have any time out of my day yesterday to post what I had for lunch so I will be posting it on this post along with what I had for lunch today as well.  Yesterday for lunch, I had gone to a steakhouse for lunch.  I went to Texas Roadhouse which I would say is one of the better steakhouses than the others.  My entree was a 10 ounce rib-eye steak with a Caesar salad and french fries.  I also had about three bread rolls with butter.  Now this may seem a lot which is a lot.

The Texas Roadhouse website does not contain the Nutrition Facts so I went onto this website called www.mypyramidtracker.gov to enter and analyze the meal that I had consumed and it will give me the total calories for that meal.  I use this website for most of the meals that I have posted on this blog and it is really helpful for someone who wants to know their daily intake, so I highly recommend this website to keep track of someone's daily intake.  According to www.mypyramidtracker.gov this meal is 1133 calories, which is about more than half of my daily intake of 2000 calories.  To eat this much during lunch is not good, especially when it is 1133 calories, which means that I had to minimize what I ate for the rest of the day.  There are many ways to make this meal a little healthier and that is to change the side orders because there is not much you can do with the steak because the restaurant grills it the way they want to and serve it however it is made, so I would say to just leave the steak how it is ordered or consume half of it at that time and save the rest for later.  As for the sides, instead of a caeser salad, I would order a house salad with dressing on the side, that way you can monitor how much you put on your salad or you could just leave out the dressing.  Next, I could order steamed vegetables or a side of brown rice on the side instead of the french fries.  As for the bread rolls that they give out prior to the meal, it is all up to you to determine how much you would want to consume.  I ate three bread rolls which is quite a lot of carbohydrates so what I would recommend is to fight the resistance and just eat one.  If I substituted the side orders with what I mentioned, than this meal could be about 600 calories according to www.mypyramidtracker.gov.  Which is about 500 calories less that what I had actually consumed.  So this meal could be healthier if I were to made better choices.

Going on what I had ate for today, I had a hamburger and french fries from fuddruckers.  I ate a 1/3 hamburger and some french fries.  

 Nutrition Information

1/3 Hamburger 

Calories: 319 

Total Fat: 26g 

Carbs: 0g 

Protein: 0g

Potato Wedges:

Serving size: 3oz

Calories: 120

Total Fat: 3g

Carbs: 20g

Protein: 2g

If someone wanted a more healthier meal at Fuddruckers, they could definitely go for the vegetarian route, for example there is a veggie burger that is 170 calories or the salmon filet burger which is about 130 calories without the bun.  If someone wanted to stick with a meat burger they do offer the ostrich burger which is 194 calories.  And on request, Fuddruckers can also change out the white bun for a wheat bun.  Fuddruckers also offer various salad dishes, so that is another alternative if someone did not feel like eating a burger at Fuddruckers.  I always ordered potato wedges as a side whenever I go there but they do offer side salads, so that is a healthy alternative to potato wedges. 

Ramen Noodles

What I had today was Ramen Noodles, specifically the one that is called Daily Instant Noodles TomYum Shrimp Flavor. This is something that I like to eat when there is nothing else at my house or something that I just crave.  Ramen noodles or instant noodles is something that I eat once or twice a week.  This food item is popular among Asian cultures as well as other cultures in the United States.  I know that being a college student this is a very affordable food item.  Ramen noodles, especially the one in a cup is less than $1 so stacking up on these noodles would be something that most college students would do if they didn't have much of a budget to spend out eating at a restaurant or something.  What I do mostly is to buy the whole box and that could last me about three months or so.  Besides instant noodles being cheap, they come in a wide variety of flavor so that is another thing to look forward to when buying this product.  It is cheap and it has all these different flavors to choose from.  Other than this item being cheap and flavorful, I would have to say that these are not the healthiest meal a person could consume.  Eating these about once or twice a week, in my opinion is not good at all.  So it is good if it was consumed about once every two weeks.   

Nutrition Facts:

Calories: 417 Kcal

Total Fat: 16.4g

Saturated Fat: 9.6g

Trans Fat: 0.9mg

Cholesterol: 0.0mg

Sodium: 1,512.0mg

Carbohydrate: 59.0g

Dietary Fiber: 0.0g

Sugar: 7.0g

Protein: 8.3g

 Looking at the nutrition facts, this bag is 417 calories which is not that bad if someone would base their diet on a calorie count basis but what I am mostly concerned about is the sodium intake from these ramen noodle packets.  Ramen noodles are mostly talked about how bad they are for a person to consume cause it has so much sodium.  This particular package contains 1,512 mg of sodium but converted to grams, it is 1.512 grams, which is more than a person should consume on a 2,000 calorie based diet.  Another ingredient that could cause this meal to be bad is the ingredient called MSG, which stands for monosodium glutamate, which enhances the flavor a lot.  This ingredient usually comes in a packet mixed with other ingredients to give flavor to the noodle and broth.  Too much consumption of MSG could lead to some side effects including headaches and chest pain.  Psychologically, to make this meal a little healthier is to eat this about once every two weeks which I should be doing but other than that if someone wanted to still eat this meal I would recommend to leave out the seasonings that come with the instant noodles and make their own broth for the noodles.  Another way I like to eat it is without the broth as well.  I would cook the noodles first with hot water and then drain out the water, to that I would add my own Asian vinaigrette.

Rice Noodles and Pork

What I ate for lunch today was rice vermicelli noodles and shredded pork with cucumbers and fish sauce.  This might sound like an odd combination but it is a typical Vietnamese dish we call, bun bi.  This dish is a very healthy meal and I would say that it would be a healthier alternative to one of the dishes that I posted a few days ago and that would be spring rolls.  This dish here is similar to spring rolls except there is no rice paper to roll these into little rolls.  All these ingredients are what would be in a spring roll.

This noodle dish ranges from about 400 calories and this could also very depending on what you put in it.  Mine was simply about one and a half cup of vermicelli noodles, one ounce of shredded pork and one quarter of sliced cucumber.  This dish is usually served with a side of fish sauce, and what is it in the fish sauce is obviously fish sauce, sugar, lime, garlic (optional), and chili (optional).  This fish sauce usually goes over the noodles and pork and it adds a little more flavor to the dish.  To make this dish a little healthier even though it is already healthy is to substitute the pork with seafood, like fish.  That can be a vegetarian option, or if someone preferred chicken, shredded white meat will be good.  More vegetables would be tasty for this meal as well, like carrots, basil, cilantro.  Overall this is a healthy meal and there would be minor changes to make this meal a little healthier.

Fried Chicken and Rice

Today, for lunch I had two pieces of fried chicken and a side of fried rice.  I ate two drumsticks only because I prefer drumsticks and about a quarter of a cup of fried rice.  The fried chicken was bought from Popeyes and the rice was homemade.  The rice was made by oiling a pan, then putting white rice in the pan (preferrably dry rice), salt, pepper, and garlic.  This is a classic rice recipe that I usually eat with fried chicken.  Only because I grew up with this combination. 

Popeyes Drumstick:

Grams: 63

Calories: 110

Protein (g): 11

Carbs (g): 3

Dietary Fiber (g): 0

Sugar: 0

Fat (g): 7

Trans Fat (g): 0

Saturated Fat (g): 2.5

Cholesterol (mg): 92

Sodium (mg): 280

About a cup of white rice can range from 150 to 200 calories depending what you put in it.  Regular white rice is about 181 calories; with the oil, garlic, salt and pepper, it could be roughly about 200 calories.  A healthier alternative for this meal would be to order something skinless and no breading.  A skinless leg or drumstick would be 50 calories which is a lot less than a fried leg or drumstick.  If white meat is preferred rather than dark meat than there is the breast part of the chicken.  A fried chicken breast would be 350 calories or a skinless chicken breast would be 120 calories.  If someone really wanted to eat a fried chicken breast than they could always consume half of the chicken at that time and save the rest at a later time.  The cup of rice could be altered for a healthier consumption and that would be to substitute the white rice with brown rice because brown rice has fewer calories than white rice.