Calorie Creep 

Are you piling on pounds? 
The culprit could be calorie creep.
This is the sneaky extra calories that food manufacturers pack into their products.

High-calorie ingredients like palm oil and refined sugar are one instance. But, portion size is another. For example, a single cookie bought from a store is four inches across (much larger than the ones our grannies baked.) 

Granted,  some manufacturers are reducing portion sizes and high-calorie ingredients to attract health conscious customers.

But, the fact remains that many packaged foods today are higher-calorie than a few decades ago. 

So, how do you keep those extra calories from creeping in? 

One way is to limit your snacks to one hundred calories.

Here are some calorie rescue tactics:

• A piece of fruit (approx 50 calories)  Tablespoon of Greek yoghurt (30 calories) 1 tsp maple syrup (20 calories)  topped with toasted shredded coconut & sunflower seeds.  Total: 100 calories.  
• 2 cups home-made popcorn (cooked in oil) is 100 calories.  Top with Tamari & bragg’s yeast.  Be sure to measure 2 cups, it’s easy to go overboard!  
• Rice cake with miso and avocado topping.  Rice cakes are not nutrient dense but at only 35 calories a pop it makes a great base for toppings that are.  Miso is fermented and The biggest benefit of miso is that it’s brimming with probiotics. Because miso is fermented, it’s filled with beneficial, live probiotic cultures that have many upsides. You can think of probiotics as the “good bacteria” that inhabit our gut environment and balance “bad bacteria” that we obtain from poor-quality foods, toxins in the environment, contaminated water, pollution and so on. Make sure it’s organic!  1 tbsp of miso yields 34 calories.  Topped with thinly sliced avocado would total 100 calories.