Top Ten Thanksgiving Foods Calorie Count

Thanksgiving is just around the bend and we all know what that means. Lots of delicious food and full stomachs! It probably also means putting your diet on hold while you indulge in pumpkin pie, stuffing and cranberry sauce. But don’t let your diet keep you from eating the foods you love! Here are the top ten Thanksgiving meal foods and their nutritional values. You can still have that pie just take smaller portions! Photo: Getty Images

Turkey

For one serving of turkey, which is four ounces or the size of a deck of cards, it is approximately, 215 calories, 9 grams of fat and contains 65 percent of your daily-recommended protein. Turkey is very good for you, just watch those mayo, turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches the day after Thanksgiving!

Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry sauce straight from the can may be delicious, but it has about 420 calories per serving. When you make your own sauce, depending on other ingredients added, the sauce can be about 200 calories, so half the amount of calories from the canned version.

Stuffing

For one cup of dry stuffing, it is approximately 500 calories. For one cup of moist stuffing it is about 420 calories. When you ‘dietize’ your stuffing, substituting butter for low fat butter spray and other things like that you can get your stuffing down to almost 200 calories per cup, again cutting into half the amount of calories eaten.

Mashed Potatoes

Do you remember mom’s homemade potatoes with butter and buttermilk or whole milk mixed in? Well for one cup of that creamy deliciousness it is about 250 calories. Using red potatoes instead of Idaho potatoes can help the calories go down, and you will still have delicious mashed potatoes.

Gravy

Canned brown gravy can be up to 150 calories per cup, but if you make your own it is only about 60 calories per cup. Photo: Getty Images

Green Bean Casserole

Green beans, a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup and French fried onions on top. It might be delicious but it is about 225 calories per half cup. Eating plain green beans, with a pinch of butter is only about 30 calories per half cup. It might not be as delicious, but it is definitely healthier!

Waldorf Salad

This is a relatively healthy salad with 110 calories per half cup. Waldorf salad is high in carbohydrates at 19 grams per serving, but it is low in fat and sodium and has no cholesterol.

Pumpkin Pie

In one piece of pumpkin pie, or about one-eighth of a slice, there is approximately 300 calories. It also contains about 42 grams of carbohydrates. Store bought pies have about 400 calories or more depending on the recipe. Photo: Getty Images

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes, brown sugar and marshmallows make this sweet treat contain almost 300 calories per one cup. Just keep an eye on how much you eat, because the less you consume the less calories you eat.

Apple Pie

Savory apples mixed with cinnamon and sugar, inside a delicious pastry. Apple pie is always the highlight of my Thanksgiving dinner, but for an eighth of a slice there are 411 calories, that is the homemade version too. You may not be too excited, but cut your pie into sixteenths so you can still enjoy the flavor without sacrificing your diet. Photo: Getty Images