Super Bowl Fatties

Fact number 1: the Super Bowl is the second largest day for eating in the USA.

Fact number 2: Chicken wings are the most popular food item, with nearly 1.25 billion wings eaten and nearly 14,500 tons of potato chips.

One wing averages about 81 calories, 5.4 grams of fat and 23mg of cholesterol. Potato chips average about 155 calories, 10.6 grams of fat and 0 mg of cholesterol per 1 oz serving. With the information provided, I’m going to do a bit of math for you. Hold on to your lunch…

On Super Bowl Sunday, America consumes 101.25 BILLION calories, 6.75 BILLION grams of fat and 28.75 BILLION mg’s of cholesterol on chicken wings alone. On top of that, we’ll also consume 4.96 MILLION calories and 339.2 THOUSAND grams of fat of potato chips. Not to mention the amount of pizza, chip dips, sauces and beer that will be consumed and all served in an “all-you-can-eat” buffet style manner. It has been estimated that the average person will spend about $60 on food and merchandise in one day, coming in at about $18 BILLION total while the highly coveted advertising spots only ring in at about $1.25 billion over the past 20 years!!

Granted the $18 billion also includes the merchandise, with the above facts it is quite obvious why we are the most over weight country in the world. And yet right now my mouth is starting to water just thinking about it all. Pavlov didn’t realize when he trained his dog to salivate at the ring of a bell that American’s are the same way when it comes to the NFL theme song…

To combat the pending Super Bowl food onslaught, I've been trying to determine what I can fool my over-active saliva glands with while still sticking to my own game-plan. So far we have discussed turkey burgers, our own healthy versions of pizza with little to no cheese and Quorn chicken nuggets. However, the turkey burgers still have fat, the healthy pizzas are good but not as filling as the real thing and as awesome as the Quorn chicken nuggets are, (pronounced 'kworn' and is going to receive it's own blog posting since it is an extremely healthy and unique food called micro-protein) there just aren't very many options out there. At least I have a few tricks up my sleeve I can use to combat my typical Super Bowl cravings and get me through one of the fattest day in America, second only to Thanksgiving. At least Thanksgiving involves some vegetables. Damn you Pavlov!!!