SWIM
PARENTS
Published by The American Swimming Coaches Association
5101 NW 21 Ave.,
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Fast Food Breakfast Choices
Warm-ups for the morning session start at 7:00 am, your two
children need a breakfast, you're in a strange town, and the only place you can
find for breakfast is one of the fast food places. What to do?
The most important thing to do is avoid fats for two reasons:
1) Fats have an immediate and dramatic effect on the ability of the
circulatory system to carry nutrients, especially oxygen, to muscle cells.
For young people about to participate in a swimming meet this is a definite
handicap. And 2) As part of developing lifetime habits for long term
health, people of all ages should keep their daily fat intake to less than 30
percent of the total calories consumed.
The Mayo Clinic Nutrition Letter offers these tips:*
You don't always have to nix nutrition for speed and convenience.
Fast foods may not make ideal meals, but some do offer healthful carbohydrate
and only moderate amounts of fat. You also can downplay fat excesses by
sorting out subtle differences among items. Consider these points the next
time you're grabbing breakfast on the run:
Keep it simple -- The fewer ingredients you order in breakfast sandwiches, the
lower the fat, sodium and calories. Hold the sausage and bacon.
Order it "drier that a biscuit" -- The English muffin is the lowest-fat
breakfast food on most quick-service menus. Order it dry and substitute
jelly for the butter; this virtually eliminates fat. When other ingredients are
equal, a sandwich made on an English muffin is lower in fat than one on a
biscuit. Croissant sandwiches are highest in fat. "Croissant" may
sound light and airy, but it contains twice the fat of a biscuit and six times
the fat of an English muffin.
Choose "cakes" instead of eggs --Pancakes, even with a little
butter, offer more energizing carbohydrate and less fat and cholesterol than egg
dishes.
Below are three of the lowest-fat breakfast options found by the
Mayo Clinic Nutrition Letter: These meals supply 20 to 30 percent of daily
protein for the average adult, about 25 percent of daily calories for the
average women, complex carbohydrates, vitamin C, and, in one example, calcium.
1. McDonald's Hotcakes with butter and syrup, orange
juice,coffee: 493 calories,16% of calories from fat.
2. McDonald's English muffin with butter, orange juice,
low-fat milk: 384 calories, 23 % of calories from fat.
3. Jack in the Box Breakfast Jack (egg, ham and cheese on a
hamburger bun), orange juice, coffee: 387 calories, 30 percent of calories
from fat.
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*Reprinted from Mayo Clinic Nutrition Letter with permission of Mayo Foundation
for Medical Education and Research,