This evening, I watched Rachael Ray’s 30 minutes meal again. I am a Rachael fan. Her cooking style is casual and her presentation is always entertaining. I like her show.

During the show, Rachael was cooking a French sandwich– croque Madame for a late night supper. Basically it is a toasted bread with ham, cheese and one big fried egg. She also made some salad using some exotic dressing. The foods are very easy to make and look delicious.

However, since I am dieting now, I can’t help counting calories for every food I see. It seems to me that Rachael’s croque Madame has a very high energy density.

My calculation is based on the recipe from the Foodnetwork and nutrition values from the USDA database.

One slice of white bread has 70 kcal calories with 1gram fat; one big fried egg has 100 kcal but with 7 grams of fat and 210 mg of cholesterol; two slices of turkey ham have 66 kcal with 2 grams of fat and 36 mg of cholesterol; and two thin slices of Swiss cheese have 100 kcal with 7.8 grams of fat and 26 mg of cholesterol. She also used one cup of whole milk which accounts for 150 kcal with 8 grams of fat and 24 mg of cholesterol; and 2 tablespoons of butter which have 200 kcal with 23 grams of fat and 61 mg of cholesterol (she actually used double size of milk and butter for two sandwiches).

Now let’s forget about all sorts of oils, salad, alcohol and others first, the French sandwich alone already has 686 kcal with 48 grams of fat and 357 mg of cholesterol. The whole late night supper, I figured, could be more than 800 kcal. This is a lot.

This supper is unhealthy. It has a lot of energy and too much fat and cholesterol. The fat accounts for almost 50% of the total energy, and the cholesterol surpasses the daily allowance suggested by AHA (no more than 300 mg cholesterol per day).

During the show, there was a little Rachael flashing in the left corner suggesting that we can substitute the whole milk with fat free milk and the cheese with low fat cheese. Even with these replacements, the energy from this sandwich is still about 500 kcal.

If all meals are like this, the daily energy intake is very likely to exceed 2500 kcal. To me, this amount of energy intake is too much. Before dieting, my daily energy intake was about 2000 kcal. If I adopt Rachael’s recipes, I may gain a lot of weight every day.

In fact, Rachael Ray also seems to have gained some weight. Although I am not sure whether her regular diet is like what she makes on TV, I am concerned about the regular folks who watch the show. If they follow Rachael’s 30 minutes meal, they will gain weight for sure.

Two or three years ago, Rachael was making foods using canned or precooked foods. She doesn’t do that very often now. However, she is still cooking traditional American meals—high energy, high fat, and high cholesterol. Maybe she needs to think about her foods again.