Self-Serve Frozen Yogurt: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Self-serve frozen yogurt stores – popping up in a neighborhood near you. They offer seemingly healthy food, with no waiting.
It’s the self-serve element, though, that can catch up with snackers as Cooking Light magazine notes in its current issue. The calorie count for fat-free basic flavors (plain and vanilla) is generally 80 to 120 calories for a 3.0 to 3.5 ounce (about a half cup) swirl. But some, especially flavors with some fat content, can clock in higher. The peanut butter flavor at one chain has 160 calories for a 3.1 ounce serving – before toppings.
That also assumes customers keep their portions to that size. Cooking Light suggests weighing a portion with the scales self-serve stores usually provide so you’ll know what a three-ounce serving size looks like.
More sugar, fat and calories are added with many of the toppings the stores provide. Cooking Light’s online slideshow highlights low-calorie add-ins, like a quarter cup of strawberries at 15 calories. But ladle a half tablespoon of crushed toffee and 2 tablespoons of hot fudge, and the topping jumps to 160 calories. Added to a peanut butter base, that could net a snack with over 300 calories, and much more if consumers are heavy-handed on the serving sizes for both the yogurt and the toppings.
Servings sizes continue to be an issue, as a recent survey from the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that many food label serving sizes are unrealistic.
