Extra calories can sneak in over the holidays and they don’t always come in large portions. They can tiptoe in through tiny tastes throughout the day. Alice Henneman, a retired Extension Educator from Nebraska share the following information a few years ago and it is still relevant today. Let’s look at how the calories in tiny tastes can add up in one day.

• Taste 1 – Eating a cookie that broke while removing it from the baking sheet. I deserve it for getting up early to bake these cookies before heading to work. (Approximate calories = 30)

• Taste 2 - Someone brought holiday candy to work today! “I’ll just have one small piece of the peanut brittle. (Approximate calories = 80)

• Taste 3 – Need to stop at the grocery store over the noon hour. Great – they are offering cheese and cracker samples. That will tide me over until I can swing through a fast-food place. (Approximate calories = 40)

• Taste 4 – The fast-food place is giving out ¼ cup samples of its special flavored holiday coffee. (Approximate calories = 20)

• Taste 5 – Chocolate covered cherries in the break room! It’s still a few hours before the dinner party tonight. Chocolate’s good for you – right? And I’m just eating one! (Approximate calories = 60)

• Taste 6 – The party is great – but maybe I shouldn’t stand near the snack table. I’m dipping my third chip. (Approximate calories = 75)

• Taste 7 – Who can pass up old-fashioned style eggnog? I’ll have just a half cup. (Approximate calories = 200)

• Taste 8 – There are just a couple of tablespoons of candied sweet potatoes left. Someone should enjoy them so they don’t go to waste – it might as well be me! (Approximate calories = 60)

• Taste 9 – Helping dish up dessert lets me take a little “preview” taste. One heaping tablespoon of candy cane ice cream coming right up! (Approximate calories = 70)

If you add the nine taste bites you will have consumed an extra 635 calories for the day. If such “tiny tastes” are continued through the holidays, you might gain a pound a week. Consuming an additional 3,500 calories above your body’s needs and expenditures can lead to gaining that pound a week.

Maybe those “tiny tastes” aren’t so tiny after all! What “tiny tastes” are totaling big calories for you?

Donna Krug is the Family & Consumer Science Agent with K-State Research and Extension – Cottonwood District. Contact her at 620-793-1910 or dkrug@ksu.edu.