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We hear a lot about what overweight Americans eat, but a group of physicians has uncovered alarming evidence as to a related question:

What have we been drinking?

After a look in this space last Wednesday at the War Between the Doughnuts — Krispy Kreme vs. Dunkin’ Donuts, that is — dietitians note that the chains made the list of the “5 Most Fattening Frozen Drinks” for calories and lack of nutritional value. Despite healthy-sounding names, drinks such as DD’s Strawberry Banana Smoothie and KK’s Berries and Kreme Chiller contained up to 1,000 calories.

“Right there, you’ve had half your day’s calories,” said Susan Levin, a dietitian at the Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a research nonprofit. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to suck that many calories through a straw without realizing it.”

In the company of Starbucks, Steak ’n Shake and Robeks, which also sell high-calorie drinks under unassuming names such as “frappuccino,” “smoothie” and “power shake,” the two doughnut store drinks tested in second and third place. The breakdown:

• Krispy Kreme’s Berries and Kreme Chiller (20 ounces) weighed in at 960 calories, including 40 grams of fat and 116 grams of sugar, the equivalent of four Snickers bars.
• Dunkin’ Donuts Strawberry Banana Smoothie (32 ounces) was a mere 700 calories, but the study termed the drink “profoundly unhealthy,” with two-thirds of a cup of sugar, along with artificial coloring, high-fructose corn syrup and gelatin.

Why 32 ounces? Levin called it the “movie popcorn effect.” If a large is only $1 more, heck, why not?

Dietitians concede that adults don’t go to doughnut shops for their health, but there are kids to consider. And this: A 2004 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that 16 percent of U.S. children are obese.

In the same vein, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects that one in three American children born in this decade will develop type 2 diabetes and that 60 percent of children between ages 5 and 10 have high cholesterol, high blood pressure or some other warning sign for heart disease.

If that “smoothie” still sounds good, I left out one secret ingredient: propylene glycol, a petroleum product.

Keep your hands off Big Oil!

Speaking of petroleum, a bit of Outer Banks travelogue in this space Sunday questioning the wisdom of drilling for energy off the state coast got some oysters in a stew.

Wrote Lee Gordon: “It would be great if we could just get the facts and not ... scare tactics to mold the reader to the writer’s left leaning opinions.”

Bill Welborn: “So, we just do nothing? Or do we put windmills on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty? Sure the oil companies will benefit, but that’s what they are in business to do! In the end, we will all benefit by going after those resources that belong to us!”

Lastly, Marcus Kindley: “What a total piece of tripe ... filled with Democrat talking points, urban legends and just total distortion. You are a junk reporter, who does little original unbiased research and is just a parrot for liberal, biased viewpoints.”

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com