by Laurie Israel, Esq.
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Like many Americans, I struggle with my weight. Being overweight is dangerous, because it makes one more likely to have health-related issues as we age, such as diabetes, heart disease and orthopedic problems. I have noticed that there are very few old people around who are overweight. That’s because most of them are dead.
You can give yourself a rough idea of whether you are overweight by determining your “Body Mass Index”, which uses your weight and height to calculate how overweight you are. My reading is 29, which is fairly overweight. I would need to lose 25 pounds to fall into the (high) normal range. I try to hide my weight with artful use of clothing.
I look around me, in the subway, on the street, and in the stores – wherever I go – and I see many people more obese than I am all around me. Obesity is a documented epidemic in this country. It is causing an increase in our health care costs and early deaths.
In the building where I work, there is a Dunkin’ Donuts. I am a frequent customer. Recently I noticed that they had biscuits, which I always have loved. I tried one. It tasted very good. Then I started wondering what was in it, and how many calories it had. A food analysis chart was not available in the store, but can be found at the Dunkin’ Donuts website.
This is what I found out:
Dunkin’ Donuts biscuit has only 280 calories. That’s very good. I could eat 5 of them in a day, but I’d use up my entire calorie allotment of 1500 calories. If I only eat one, I could also have lunch and dinner. If I ate the Dunkin’ Donuts blueberry muffin, I would have eaten a good part of my daily calories, because the blueberry muffin has 510 calories. I stopped eating them once I learned about their high calorie count.
The Dunkin’ Donuts biscuit contains no trans fat. That’s good. But there is also some bad news.
Of the 280 calories in the biscuit, 130 of those (46%) are from fat. This is higher than the 20-30% of calories daily from fat that a person should be eating. In addition, the biscuit has 8 grams of saturated fat. Many studies have shown trans fat to be a bad food choice for you. Saturated fat may increase blood cholesterol, and low fat diets can help you lose weight. The sodium is relatively high – 620 mgs or 26% of the daily requirement. If you’re going to eat one of these biscuits, you’ll need to watch your salt intake carefully for the rest of the day.
I wondered about the really nice buttery taste. I didn’t find any actual butter listed in the ingredients on the Dunkin’ Donuts website, but I did see a listing for “artificial butter flavor”. The chemical in this flavoring (diacetyl) has caused permanent lung damage to factory workers who are engaged in manufacturing products such as popcorn. I found no indication that ingesting small doses (as in the Dunkin’ Donut biscuit) would shorten my life span.
Bon appetite!
Copyright ©2009 Laurie Israel.
on both prenuptial and postnuptial agreements. She works as a consultant and mediator
nationwide. She previously practiced for 35 years in the areas of tax law, divorce, collaborative
law, estate planning, probate of estates and trust administration, as well as mediation and, in
Massachusetts, providing counsel for couples entering into prenuptial agreements. Laurie is
one of the initial practitioners and developers of the field of marital mediation, the practice of
using mediation to help couples solve marital problems and improve their marriages. Laurie is a former board member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation and the
Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council. Her writings include articles on divorce, mediation,
marital mediation, and prenuptial agreements. You can find her articles on www.ivkdlaw.com,
Huffington Post, and Mediate.com. She is the author of the book “The Generous Prenup: How
to Support Your Marriage and Avoid the Pitfalls,” available on Amazon. Laurie is frequently
called upon by attorneys and mediators to share her expertise, through giving both formal and
informal presentations, on the subject of prenuptial agreements all across the country. You can
contact Laurie at laurie@laurieisrael.com. Her website is www.laurieisrael.com.