Hot dogs and fries

Monday marked Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, and we have a little Opening Day tradition in the Bartz house. For the last few seasons, we’ve had a special dinner as we watch the first Chicago Cubs game of the season — Chicago style hot dogs and fries.

I debated whether to continue the tradition this year. Hot dogs and fries? A person could gain weight just thinking about this meal. But as I’ve preached before, it’s all about making changes as you change your habits. In this case, making changes comes down to a few minor substitutions.

When I hit Fred Meyer Monday evening to pick up a few things for our Chicago-themed meal, I knew it was going to be tough to find a brand of hot dog that would not absolutely kill our calorie allotment for the day. When I checked the nutritional information on a few brands we once purchased, I was absolutely floored. One Ball Park hot dog has 180 calories and 16 grams of fat. A Hebrew National hot dog has 150 calories and 14 grams of fat. For those of you counting Weight Watchers points, like we are, that’s more than six points for one Ball Park dog. And don’t forget, that’s just the dog. One generic brand had 270 calories and 20 grams of fat! That’s about nine points just for the hot dog. I bet I polished off about four Hebrew Nationals on Opening Day last year.

Luckily, I was able to find an alternative, the Oscar Mayer 96 percent fat free turkey franks. On dog has 40 calories and a half-gram of fat. They’re smaller, obviously, but it’s only one Weight Watcher point per dog. The most reasonable buns I could find at the store have 120 calories and two grams of fat. You could always substitute a piece of bread for the bun and cut the calories and fat grams in half. The crinkle cut French fries we buy and bake in the oven have 120 calories and 3.5 grams of fat per serving.

Of course we need special ingredients to make the hot dog Chicago style, but fortunately they’re fine for us to have. A Chicago dog is topped with mustard, tomato, onion and spicy peppers. And then there’s the most important ingredient, the neon green Chicago-style relish, which we actually buy in Chicago and bring back to Alaska. The relish has only 20 calories per serving.

So, two hot dogs and a serving of fries cost my a grand total of 460 calories and 8.5 grams of fat, or about 10.5 points for the entire meal. That entire meal — hot dogs and fries — still has fewer calories and grams of fat than many burgers at the fast food joints.

It’s nice to be able to eat sensibly without sacrificing everything you enjoy.

Continued luck to all,

JB