WCCO EYE4 LOGO WCCO Radio

Latest News

How Many Calories In Your Favorite State Fair Foods?

View Comments
(credit: CBS)

Reporting Holly Wagner

Featured Gallery
May Is Asthma Awareness Month: Celebrities With Asthma

For more trusted health

news and information,

visit CBS Minnesota's

State Fair

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A trip to the state fair has many people taking a time-out from their diet.

“Everything, corn dog, French fries, cinnamon rolls — whatever’s good,” said Mike Miller, a Finlayson, Minn. resident and fairgoer.

Like many people, Miller has a list of foods he likes to eat at the fair and he said he sure won’t be counting calories.

“We’ll walk it off,” he said.

If you indulge too much though, Kristi Pink a dietitian at the University of Minnesota, said you could be walking a long time.

Pink crunched the numbers and found out how many calories and how much fat we’re taking in by eating some of the most popular fair foods.

“When you think of the portions that are provided at the fair on top of how many calories and how many fat calories are in that, it’s kind of disgusting because of lot of us over indulge on a daily basis.”

Pink’s testing shows how some of our fair favorites stack up in calories and fat:

• Pronto Pup: 350 calories, 18g fat, 6g saturated fat

• Cheese Curds: 759 calories, 39g, 15g saturated fat

• Chocolate shake from the Dairy Building: 747 calories, 30g fat, 18g saturated fat

• Giant Turkey Leg: 1,136 calories, 54g fat, 19g saturated fat

• Deep fried cookie dough: 1,200 calories, 51g, fat, 30g saturated fat.

“What’s really disturbing is adding things up. It’s like thousands of calories and most people — an average woman — doesn’t even need 2,000 calories a day.”

Her advice is to check out the foods online first before you go to the fair, pick out a few items for your family and share them.

She also suggests ditching the soda or lemonade and opt for water instead.

Planning to walk off what you eat? Click here to see what it would take to burn off the calories by combining a few favorites.

All information on calories and fat grams was provided by the University of Minnesota. The nutritionists and food scientists designed the software that computes food calories and fat grams.

View Comments
  • Realist

    Do we really need to be reminded how unhealthy the food at the state fair is? You mean to tell me that deep-fried cheese curds are not equal to a light salad?! The whole point of the state fair to most people is to indulge and bulge.

    • just sayin

      And this is why people are so fat and nasty.

  • http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/09/01/fair-calorie-count/ Fair Calorie Count « CBS Minnesota

    [...] tags importance07, wirenews You could resist clicking here to see how many calories are in some of your favorite foods, but [...]

  • Callie’s Mom

    Eating healthy is easier said than done for most people anyway; but a little self control does go a long way.

    • Realist

      Exactly! Eat the bad foods in moderation, and all will be OK. Besides, the fair is 2 weeks a year. If it was 52 weeks a year, we’d have a problem.

  • Hmmm

    You go one day a year. Who cares if you overeat.

blog comments powered by Disqus
Listen Live!

Mobile Weather Watcher

Follow CBS Minnesota

Like us on foursquare
wccoradio podcastbanner3 WCCO Radio

Meet WCCO-TV’s Anchors

Amelia Santaniello Frank Vascellaro Chris Shaffer Mark Rosen

TV Schedule

Full Program Grid
7:00 PM NCIS: Los Angeles
8:00 PM NCIS
9:00 PM NCIS
10:00 PM WCCO 4 News at Ten
10:35 PM Late Show with David Letterman
11:37 PM The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson