Hey Fatty, Put Down The Cookie And Go To CalorieKing.com


It’s the holiday season and you’re bound to pack on a few extra pounds between office parties, family gatherings and parties with friends, mixed with an overloaded, hectic schedule that keeps you from hitting the gym. Or at least that’s what every major media outlet has been telling us year after year. So I figured CG should join the fray and tell you the same thing.

But instead of making you feel bad about yourself, I decided to leave that up to you by tipping you off to a Web site: CalorieKing.com. It just launched an online nutritional database for 2007 with more than 50,000 entries featuring menu items from top chain restaurants, brand-specific foods and drinks and average, generic listings such as “cookie” and “pizza.” That’s more entries than the USDA provides.


First and foremost, the site tells you the calorie counts on the items you search for, but you also get other nutritional details like fat, saturated fat, protein, sodium, cholesterol, fiber, sugar and carbs. For example, it’s pretty common knowledge the large bucket of “butter”-covered popcorn you sat down with at the movie theater is crazy bad for you, with 1,500 calories and 116 grams of fat. But maybe you didn’t know that the Olive Garden’s Stuffed Chicken Marsala with Garlic Mashed Potatoes is 1,315 calories and 86.4 grams of fat. Pair that with a couple breadsticks and a salad with its Italian dressing and you’re in popcorn-bucket territory.

I know what you’re thinking: “But Josh, I drink my holiday meals from a bottle in a brown paper sack. How does CalorieKing.com help me there?” Fret not my drunken readers. The site can even help you and your alcohol-infused family and friends tally up the calories in a shot of rum or a bottle of bourbon.

The service is free; just head to the site and use it’s search engine to find info on all kinds of foods and beverages. But, should you feel the urge to support the site monetarily, there are products and services for sale, such as cookbooks, Web-based weight-management solutions and software, but it doesn’t come across as the driving force behind the site.

However, if you’re looking for a last-minute gift for those already body and/or calorie counting obsessed, check out the $139.99 Tanita InnerScan BC551, which features the company’s patented Transparent Electrode technology for accurately monitoring your body composition on a clear, glass surface without any visible electrodes, instead of the very visible steel electrodes found in other models.

By sending a low-level electrical signal through your body, it’s able to measure visceral fat, physique rating, metabolic age, weight, body fat, body water, muscle mass, daily caloric intake and bone mass.