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High Calorie foods in Everyday Life Indonesia

We never realize that the first thing coming out of our mind about food is “what good food do I have to eat today?”. We rarely think about “what kind of food should I eat to fulfill the nutrition needs of my body?”. Because we just demand the food that tastes delicious in our tongue, we often abandon the nutrition values. Therefore, we often end up eating ‘delicious foods’ with high calories. And, you believe it or not, it happens almost every day in our life.

For you whom want to live healthier, let’s observe our favorite foods that we eat daily. Following are the ten examples of our daily menu.
1. Sate Kambing (Mutton Satay)
Sate Kambing is one of the most popular foods in Indonesia, specifically in in Java. This is made out of roasted mutton that is served with soy sauce. Generally, people eat Sate with Lontong (traditional rice box)/rice. With the blend of grilled mutton and soy sauce, we have already been able to see ‘the signs’ of high calories in Sate Kambing. Every piece of peanut that is grinded contains 5 cal. Mutton itself has saturated fat 3.6, and contains 9.2 fat total. This is not it yet, because it does have 70-cholesterol in it. When the whole “things’ are bounded together, every 3 pieces of sate kambing contain 353 kal. 3 pieces of Sate are not enough for most people, at least they pick 6 pieces. So, mostly people eat 706 cal through this food. This is not the end, because sate is served with rice, and a plate of rise, contains 242 cal. Can you imagine that one portion of complete Sate Kambing can make us eat 948 cal!
2. Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice)

For college students who live in kos (private boarding house), fried rice has been one of delightful foods that is consumed almost every night. Besides the spicy spices and the smell of Sate that stimulates appetite, fried rice street seller is easily found with a very inexpensive price. Fried rice is usually mixed with chicken/beef/egg/shrimp/fish and then fried in palm oil/butter (mostly palm oil). Having known the contents of fried rice, it contains 740 cal per portion. If we eat a 740 calorie food almost every night, we definitely need to do exercise more regularly in order to avoid a big belly ?
3. Nasi Rawon (Rawon Rice) 
Rawon is a black soup that has a very strong taste of East Java. Everybody, who likes strong-smell food plus the soft tasty beef in it, must like this food. This food is the combination of blacj peanut broth, named keluak and mincemeat. There are just few kinds of veggies in Rawon, like onion leaves and fried onion. So, the main content of the menu is just beef. Beef contains 95 cal per 50g. In order to make a Rawon menu in a family, they need approximately 2 till 3 kg beef. You can count it by yourself, how many calories in that much beef. Like Sate Kambing, rawon is served with rice which makes the menu contains 680 cal per portion. This is not the end, because to make the menu more complete, shrimp crackers have to be added to the menu serving. Usually shrimp crackers contain 17 cal, if you do eat the shrimp crackers; you can count the whole calories.
4. Nasi Rames/Campur (Mixed rice)
Nasi Rames is commonly found in Indonesia. Like fried rice, nasi rames is the breakfast or lunch meal of college students or young workers. Nasi rames has various kinds of things, such as veggies, peanuts, noodle, chicken, egg, shrimp crackers, and the like. With the entire things in Nasi Rames, the menu contains 680 cal per portion. But, you should know something about Nasi Rames, because it contains many kinds of contents, it also has a variety of nutrient that your body needs.
5. Instant noodle plus eggs and rice
Besides fried rice and Nasi Rames, another popular menu within young people is instant noodle. Instant noodle has a very strong taste, and it’s very quick to be served. The noodle is also very cheap, so it’s very kind of suitable young people (esp. students) to save time and money. However, behind the cheap price and quick serving, instant noodle has a pretty high calorie per package, namely 330 cal. Usually one package of instant noodle is not enough. But, let’s say one package is the standard consumption, but there are still few more things added on the noodle, they are eggs and even rice. One egg contains 70 cal, and the rice itself has 242 cal. We can count the entire calories per serving, it equals with 615 cal. But, if we don’t think one package is not enough, two packages of noodle can reach 945 cal per portion!
6. Nasi Soto ayam (chicken soto)
It’s one of the most favorite foods in Indonesia. It is served in many kinds of versions, depending on the province. But, the very standard version of soto is soto ayam. Besides for daily consumption, soto ayam is often used for traditional celebrations, so the consumption rate of soto ayam is pretty high in the society (not only young people). It contains yellow spicy chicken, noodles, hard boiled eggs, slices of fried potatoes, celery, and fried shallots. But, the main contain of it is chicken. Chicken itself has almost equal calories as beef, namely 95 cal per 50gr. In a normal portion, soto ayam contains 596 cal, but usually people add shrimp crackers, in which as it has been discussed in the earlier point, has 17 calorie.
7. Pempek Kapal Selam
This food originally comes from Palembang, Sumatra Island. It consists of fish and tapioca, then served with yellow noodles and dark sweet sour sauce, named kuah cuka. In 100g of tapioca, there are 335 cal, and in one egg, it contains 70 cal. In two pieces of pempek (which weights 100 gr per piece) has 190 cal. So, if we consume one portion of pempek, we intake 380 cal. But, a big portion of pempek can contain up to 570 cal.
8. Kare ayam (Chicken Curry)
Kare ayam is one of typical menus within Indonesian families. It contains chicken cooked with thick coconut milk. Thick coconut milk contains 120 cal per tablespoon. And, the parts of chickens that are cooked in this menu are like breast and thighs. One normal portion of kare ayam has 460 calorie. Because it comes with rice, the total calorie can be 702 cal, as per portion of rice contains 242 cal.

9. Gado-gado  

This menu comes from Betawi tribe, in Jakarta. It contains a lot of veggies, potatoes, tofu, then the contents of the food are mixed with soy sauce and accompanied by crackers. One normal portion of gado gado equals 488 cal. Like nasi rames, gado-gado contains many kinds of nutrient in it. So, it’s pretty good to fulfill the needs of your body.
10. Mi Kuah Bakso sapi
Bakso is not only for a main menu, but it’s more like ‘snack’ between meals. Bakso sellers are everywhere and the price is quite cheap, young people consume it very often. You can find beef meatball, noodle, celery, veggies, bihun, sprout, and the like. But, the beef meatball dominates the food. Bakso is accompanied by other stuff, such as fried tofu, steamed tofu, organ meats, and so on. One normal portion of bakso can contain 303 cal, and this is usually just considered “snack”. So, this is not the end of a meal time, there will be another menu after bakso.

Having known the ten kinds of food above, we can check how many calories that we consume every meal, every day. The afore-mentioned foods are not the only things we eat in a day. When we hang out with our friends, you sometimes want to drink chocolate milkshake, which contains 421 cal. Or, you want to have a piece of brownies that will add 141 more calories. And in the evening, you might want to watch a movie, and have a cup of popcorn with you. It will put 54 more cal. So, if you think you are about to have a diet program, you should know how much you eat the daily menu. Or you should reduce the amount of it.

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