Whoopsie

Frequently, I feel smug reading the little blog posts that pop up in my home page's features about substituting high-fat,-sodium, -calorie, or chemically creepy foods with better-for-you choices. That smugness presages an obvious conclusion. Pride comes before a fall. Always. Into that same browser that so often says lovely things about dietary choices, the words calories+sunflower+seed+kernels was typed with the expectation that there would be happiness galore in the nutritional news. Selecting a known and trusted nutritional info entity to answer the query regarding the latest favorite snack was quick enough. The window opened, and after a moment of shocked silence the howling began.
Those tiny, yummy kernels have been mindlessly popped down my gullet for several days a half cup or a cup at a time thinking that they are chock full o' wholesome things like fiber and protein. They're good-for-you. It's not like inhaling cheesecake. Because cheesecake would've saved some calories. Sunflower seed kernels have 745 calories per cup. And I've definitely consumed a minimum of 5 cups over the past couple of days. One pound = 3,500 calories. I thought the scale was off this morning, but, no. It was the sunflower seeds. For the record: it was so not worth it.
But. If you're ever in the market to put on a few pounds quickly: Sunflower Seeds. Now you know.