The Unhealthy Foods I Eat Every Day (and Still Stay Thin)

Unhealthy foods: do you love them? I used to waste time eating very healthy foods. Quinoa, brown rice, chia seeds, dehydrated yeast flakes, you name it, I wasted my time with it. Don’t bother! The foods listed below are all delicious and have been enjoyed by people for decades. All these foods (except the last one) have less than 200 calories too. Enjoy them – in moderation!

Peanut Butter

Yum I love this stuff. We have big jars of it where I work and it’s free for all employees. Often when I want a little snack, I take a teaspoon and dip it in the jar. Then I take the spoon of PB back to my desk and suck on it sneakily. Don’t worry – I would not put the spoon back in the jar. I am not gross. A teaspoon of peanut butter has 30 calories and 2.5 grams of fat. This is one of many unhealthy foods you can enjoy.

Potatoes with cream

Every night I eat potatoes and cream. How do I keep my figure? I eat them in moderation. Potatoes are low GI and I find them more satisfying in the evenings than rice or pasta. I get 5 medium potatoes, a tub of low fat cream, a bunch of spices and half a block of cheese and I make a big bake. This takes me a week to eat, heating up small portions every night. ½ a cup of potato au gratin would be about 160 calories. Want to make it? Here’s a recipe.

White bread

My dad invented an acronym that I still use. It’s important to have lots of LFB – that’s “Lovely Fresh Bread”. Everyone goes on and on about wholemeal, multigrain, stonecut and sourdough. Aint nuthin wrong with good ol’ white bread if you ask me. There’s not a bread that I do not like, but wraps bore me to tears. Give me a fluffy, white, puffy loaf and you will make me smile. 1 slice of white bread loaf has about 80 calories and less than 1 gram of fat. Nice!

Hash browns

From McDonald’s. Yup. People who read this blog know that I love McDonald’s, despite them releasing the world’s most useless and pointless app. McDonald’s hash browns are made with potatoes and vegetable oil, meaning that they are technically vegan, despite perhaps being fried in the same oil that fries the nuggets and other things. I eat one every day. Cover it with ketchup (or tomato sauce as we Aussies call it) and change your life for the better. Really- try it. A McDonald’s hash brown has 150 calories and 9 grams of fat.

White rice with soy sauce

Ever since I was a little girl, rice has been my favourite food. I like all kinds of rice: black rice, brown rice, red rice, wild rice and arborio rice. But by far my favourite rice is well-cooked, fluffy white rice, cooked in a rice cooker, liberally splashed with salty soy sauce. If I had to pick one food to eat for the rest of my life,
white rice would be it. ½ a cup of boiled white rice has 129 calories and virtually no fat at all.

Naan bread

When I was a kid we lived in New Delhi in India. I remember making naan bread myself. The dough is kneaded and spun, a bit like pizza dough, and then traditionally it’s cooked on the side of a very big steel drum, which has a fire burning under it. The dough sticks to the side of the drum and gets bubbles and puffs as it cooks. Now I just buy naan from one of the million Indian take away shops we have in Sydney. 1 100g serving of naan gives you 288 calories of goodness. You probably only need to eat half anyway.

White cheeses

Brie, camembert, boconccini, mozzarella, quark… if it’s white and cheesy, I will eat it. Luckily white cheeses are lower in calories than yellow cheeses, but that’s not why I am eating them. I just love them. On a side note, a creative way to enjoy white cheese is the cheese curds found in Canadian poutine. Have not heard of poutine? Then you have not really lived. A 30g serving of white cheese is only about 70 -100 calories depending on the variety. If you love unhealthy foods, try to incorporate more white cheese into your diet for a “healthy-ish” treat.

Lollies or candy

Yes, in Australia we call candy ‘lollies’ and I’m pretty sure in the UK they are more frequently called sweets. Whatever you call them, I love them and you will notice that they are the only sweet thing here on my list. I crave sweet things every month (you know when) and if I don’t get them I get very upset. In fact, no matter what happens to me, there is about a week every month where I get upset over nothing. Lollies help. My favourite lollies are sour gummy worms. According to this website, you can eat 11 neon sour gummi worms for only 130 calories.

Noodles

Ramen in the US, pot noodle in the UK, here in Australia they are generally known as ‘two minute noodles’. There have been a spate of warmings about them injuring children, but I don’t care. You can get low fat varieties and all that but I like the salty, preservative-filled, fried-then-dehydrated types. Then I put loads of extra soy sauce on them, cos that’s how I roll. Be aware, one tiny 77g serving of these contains 347 calories and you can eat some really interesting things at subway for that, so spend wisely. Here is a link to the Aussie noodle site for my overseas readers, it will make you want noodles. If you love unhealthy foods then do not despair – you can still stay thin by moderating your portion sizes.