One cookie is 500 calories?
July 10, 2008
Yesterday’s New York Times published a gorgeous recipe for chocolate chip cookies but I was stunned by the size. The recipe calls for pounds of ingredients but only makes 18 cookies (5 inches in diameter). I couldn’t resist looking up the calories on the USDA’s food composition data base. If I added them up right, they came to about 500 calories each. If you want to understand the vast change in the food environment that has taken place in the last 30 years, take a look at an old (1964 or 1975) edition of the Joy of Cooking. Its recipe for chocolate chip cookies calls for almost exactly half the ingredients of the one in the Times but makes 45 cookies. Two batches would be the same as the Times’ recipe and would make 90 cookies! These would be just under 100 calories each.
Portion sizes are outrageous these days. I sometimes enjoy VitaMuffins, which are 1/7 the calories but about 1/3 the size of a muffin you would buy at Starbucks/Panera/etc. A coworker commented on the “tiny” size of my muffin, but I realized it was about exactly the same size as the ones my mom used to bake.
Comment by Laura — July 10, 2008 @ 10:57 am
The big trouble these days is that more food is almost always a better value for the consumer. At the make-your-own Salad place across the street from where I work, you can buy a ‘half’ salad for $4.50 or a ‘whole’ salad for $7.00, plus the ‘whole’ salad comes with twice as many toppings (which range from healthy things like tomatoes to unhealthy things like blue cheese crumbles). If you want to get the most for your money, you always buy the bigger size.
Comment by Morgan — July 10, 2008 @ 11:37 am
But, without recipes like this, how can we possibly use all the “supersized” bags chips and sugar we get at the Costco’s of the world? ;)/
Comment by Mark — July 10, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
i’m afraid on this one i have to disagree. the nytimes gives several paragraphs explaining why the cookie needs to be so big. perhaps the newspaper should just note that each cookie should probably be shared among 5 people
Comment by darya — July 10, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
Interesting article, delicious-looking recipe.
But I don’t know about eating a 500-calorie cookie on a regular basis.
Comment by Sheila — July 10, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
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Pingback by chocolate cookie recipe — July 10, 2008 @ 11:22 pm
[…] while we talking about calories, today’s New York Times printed my letter about last week’s post on the 500-calorie cookie recipe. « CSPI guy video: […]
Pingback by What to Eat » My new column in the San Francisco Chronicle — July 16, 2008 @ 9:31 am
Anything delicious to eat has great calories. But if there would not be any calorie aspects in the ingredients then the food would not be tasty.
Comment by Julia — July 19, 2008 @ 1:35 pm