Fair wraps up weeklong calorie splurge

Among the spiral-cut deep-fried potatoes stacked precariously on a paper plate, the fried Oreo cookies, the jumbo corn dogs and the blue cotton candy, funnel cake is king at the Southeast Missouri District Fair.

The fair, which completed its one-week run Saturday, was home to 14 concession stands selling funnel cakes. No funnel-cake lover had to wait in line.

Funnel cake is a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition upheld by pouring batter from a funnel-spouted pitcher into 400-degree oil. Once the cake turns gold it's topped with powdered sugar, cinnamon, peanut butter glaze or chocolate syrup, then pulled to pieces by ravenous people.

Funnel cake is close to being the caloric king as well. One cake liberally sprinkled with powdered sugar, the way traditionalists like them, tips the scales at 760 calories. Most of those calories are fat. A 35-year-old woman would have to take a 3-1/2-hour walk to burn that many calories.

People who love funnel cakes don't care.

Silverio Gonzales doesn't. "I buy one every time we come here," he said Saturday while sharing a funnel cake with son David and daughter Adileny. His 10-year-old nephew, Manuel, watched them eat. He isn't a funnel man.

Sharing a treat is one way to keep from overloading on calories eating at the fair, dietitians say.

Jill Daniel and her friend Judee Gaeta didn't want to know how many calories were in the funnel cake they were consuming at their picnic table. Daniel, a Boonville, Mo., woman in Cape Girardeau visiting Gaeta, said funnel cakes are one of the attractions of a fair for her. She sometimes makes them at home for her family.

Gaeta understands the allure: "The grease and the sugar."

The concessionaires like their own product. "I'm munching on one now," said Charli McGuire from Herrin, Ill.

There is no secret to making one, she said. "Basically it's pancake batter."

The funnel cake is high in calories and low in nutrition, but the calorie crown at the fair goes to those plates piled high with spiral-sliced potatoes. An extra-large order of Burger King fries contains approximately one 6.8-ounce potato and has 600 calories. Each order of spiral-sliced potatoes at the fair contains two potatoes. That isn't counting the ketchup.

Dietitians say not to beat yourself up if you indulged in a once-a-year calorie splurge at the fair. "Most people go one time one week out of the year. It's OK to let your guard down a little bit," said Debbie Schumer, a registered dietitian at Saint Francis Medical Center.

There are ways to raise your guard a bit. She pointed out that one fried Oreo cookie has only 98 calories and 6 grams of fat. If one cookie will satisfy your sweet tooth, eat that instead of a funnel cake, she said.

She also suggested caramel apples and kettle corn because of the fiber they contain. Seven cups of kettle corn, a sizable portion, contains only 500 calories.

Now that the fair is over you can return to more normal food choices, Schumer said. "Eating healthy is a journey to good health. Get back on the correct path. Don't smother yourself with guilt."

Raina Childers, a registered dietitian at Southeast Missouri Hospital's HealthPoint Plaza, took her sons Adam and Eli to the fair Friday. The boys were more interested in riding the spinning tea cups than in the food.

Grownups are the ones most drawn to the fried foods. For them, it's like going on vacation. "Anything goes when the fair is in town," Childers said.

But she reiterated the importance of giving yourself a break if indeed anything did go last week. The food choices people make the other 51 weeks of the year are more important than a splurge at the fair, Childers said.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137