Thursday, 15 July 2010

• Keeping Drunk Munchies Under 250 Cals

  
  
  I drink, you drink, we all drink alcohol!...and if you don't, I hope you like this post, anyway! (And yes - that is David Hasselhoff pictured above, drunk eating ).
  
  We hear so much about how bad alcohol is for us - how many calories it contains, how many cheeseburgers you drink, calorie-wise, on one night out, and on and on and on the list goes.  Yeah, I think some drinks are probably bad for our weight - we've all seen beer bellies develop throughout our college years on one person or another, and some Pina Coladas I've seen really could be served as an entire meal.
  
  But I don't think that drinking alone will damage a diet too badly.  It will add some calories, sure, but I think the damage is somewhat immediately reversible....I mean, hey! I've seen fewer fat than emaciated alcoholics.
  
  I think what oftentimes happens when drinking and weight gain collide is that drunk snacking - by definition, the late-night consumption of large amounts of particularly junkie foods - does becomes responsible for the diet wreckage.  When you're in a state of mind where walking is difficult, then it's highly unlikely that (and, in fairness, a little bit neurotic if) calories continue to uphold any kind of importance.
  
  So, I've come up with 10 very non-creative, basic, under-250-calorie snacks to satisfy your munchies with, the next time you come home hungry and impaired.
  
  1.  Smart-Food Popcorn: Go with the pre-packaged bags, trust me - 100 calories and a sufficient amount of food, and salt).  TOTAL: 100 CALORIES
  
  2.  Rold Gold Pretzel Twists: Go with the larger of the two snack-sized bags - 220 calories).  Dip in yellow mustard (0 calories)...if you can manage not to get it everywhere (that shit does NOT come out of light-colored fabrics).  TOTAL: 220 CALORIES
  
  3.  Orville Redenbacher's 100-calorie Popcorn Bags: Pop for 2 minutes on high in the microwave, to maximize the popcorn: unpopped kernel ratio without burning the contents.  Add whatever you consider to be a satisfactory amount of "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" Spray (it tastes JUST like movie-theater popcorn - except it's 0 calories), and salt, too.  Hopefully the salt makes you want to chug a bottle of water - which you'll be happy about having done when you wake up in the morning...or late-afternoon.  TOTAL: 100 CALORIES
  
  4.  Grilled Cheese Sandwich (with Ketchup): Buy wheat bread that has about 50 calories per slice, which you should find is fairly common (I'm cheap so I buy the "Fresh Baked," brand-less loafs sold at Walmart for 87 cents).  Buy slices of cheese with 30-50 calories - I recommend the SunnyAcres brand, sold at most Dollar Stores (especially the Jalapeno kind).  If you can't find that, I know Kraft makes something similar, for a slightly higher price. 
  
  This works best if you have some kind of hand-grill, panini, or sandwich-maker (I use a George Foreman - if you don't have one yet, seriously, just get one.  Just get it).  Put 3 slices of the cheese on one slice of bread and put the other on top.  Grill your sandwich for 2-4 minutes, then take it out and put it on a plate.  Squirt some ketchup on the plate (again, try to keep this neat or it's laundry-day tomorrow!) and dip the finished sandwich in the ketchup.  Try to avoid putting the sandwich in your mouth until it has cooled down.  This will be difficult, I know.  TOTAL: 200-250 CALORIES
  
  5.  Pastrami Tortilla:  Get the small tortillas, which tend to range from 110-130 calories.  Then get pre-sliced pastrami (I go with Hillshire Farms; despite hating their latest commercial with great intensity, I do believe they make the best sandwich meat at Walmart).  On an open tortilla, place 5-6 slices of pastrami.  Top with a squirt of yellow mustard and a squirt of ketchup.  TOTAL: 180-210 CALORIES
  
  6.  Quesadilla:  Using the tortillas mentioned in #5 and the cheese slices mentioned in #4, place 3-4 slices on one side of the open tortilla (you may have to tear the cheese up and organize the little pieces yourself, due to the awkward square-circle overlap.  You don't want cheese running outside the tortilla, because you'll lose it to the microwave, which you will eventually have to clean up). 
  
  Add 1-2 teaspoons of salsa on top if desired.  Put the tortilla and cheese, still open-faced, into the microwave for about 1 minute.  When you take it out, fold the non-cheese side of the tortilla over on top of the cheese side.  Slice if you can manage to, if not - eh!  TOTAL:  220-240 CALORIES
  
  7.  Ham & Swiss:  Use two of those "Laughing Cow" reduced-fat cheese wedges (30 calories each) to spread out over the same tortillas from #s 5 and 6.  Top with 4-5 slices of lunchmeat ham (again, I recommend Hilshire Farm, taste-wise).  Roll it up, and you're done!  You can choose to microwave it if you want, I say go with about 1 minute on high.  TOTAL: (app.) 230 CALORIES
  
  8.  Chips w/Cheese: Get pita chips (the Simply Naked kind).  I say this not only because they are absolutely and semi-suspiciously delicious, but also because they are more filling than other kinds of chips and take longer to eat, so drunk-selves are both satisfied and bored more quickly upon the consumption of these vs those others.
  
  Take two of the cheese wedges (from #7) out of the fridge and spread them out on the pita chips.  When the cheese wedges run out, chances are that you'll already be full and bored, and probably tired, and you'll only have consumed about 10 chips (140 calories).  If you're worried you'll end up eating more, then try pre-packaging your pitas before you go out. (I suppose you could also just buy regular pitas...but I'm telling you, there's SOMETHING about these chips!). TOTAL: (estimated) 200 CALORIES
  
  9.  Lean Pockets:  They range from about 230-260 calories, and they are truly delicious.  I highly recommend the white garlic chicken pizza or chicken & artichoke dip flavors. TOTAL: 230-260 CALORIES
  
  10.  EZ Mac:  A classic favorite.  Buy the pack of 6 snack packets, and not only do you get more bang for your buck (6 packets for only 3-something dollars at Walmart, my favorite store!) but you have a perfect drunk snack.  A sufficient amount of food with plenty of salt and easy instructions, these mac-and-cheese packs still manage to stay under 250 calories per pack.  TOTAL: 230 CALORIES.
  
  Hope you find this helpful.  And that you make up for every calorie lost in snacking with an increase in beer consumption.
  
  What are some other relatively low-cal drunk-munchie ideas?
  
  

  Image Source

  • 5:59 PM
  • 8093 Views
  • 78 eProps
  • 39 Comments