Calories in Ham

"Nothing helps scenery like ham and eggs." ~ Mark Twain.

Remember how Enid Blyton's gang of the famous five was always loaded with ginger beer, scones with clotted cream, jam and butter, fruitcake, egg sandwiches, and most definitely, ham rolls? Their picnic baskets without a miss always had ham in some form or other. As a child, I could have traded anything just to taste a morsel of this wondrous ham, something totally alien to where I lived as a child. When finally I did taste ham, it wasn't as heavenly as Blyton made it out to be. But, nevertheless I liked it. With growing up comes health issues that you need to pay attention to and of course the nagging need to maintain that waistline so that your denims don't stop fitting you. It is then that your dreams about ham also starts to get plagued by the calories in ham. So, in short, growing up is a curse in many a way. But going back to the pressing issue of ham calories (which is literally quite pressing), let us now discuss a little for, than just how many calories are there per slice, per ounce, and in baked ham. Let's also consider some nutritional facts of ham as well as health hazards related to it.

The Calorie Content in Ham

The following table will give you an in-depth idea of ham calories present in its myriad forms.

Ham Form	Serving Size	Number of Calories	Calories from Fat	Carbohydrates (in grams)	Proteins (in grams)
Whole fresh ham	1 medium slice	114	66	0	11.22
Whole raw ham (no fat, meat only)	28.35 g (1 ounce)	40	15	0	6
Sliced extra lean ham	3 slices	69	16	1.66	10.89
Regular sliced ham with 11% fat	2 slices	91	43	2.14	9.3
Roasted ham	85 g	130	40	0	21
Baked ham	52 g	60	15	1	9

So, as is obvious, ham in any form hardly has any carbohydrates in it, but it has a rich protein content with baked ham calories being the minimum in number. But a food item has a lot more to it than just calories. Let us see what other nutrients are present in ham.

Ham Nutrition Facts

• Even an unheated piece of no fat ham weighing an ounce has nothing less than 430 mg of sodium, which is 20% of the daily requirement of the mineral, by the human body.
• As for other minerals, it has phosphorus which caters to 8% of the DV and zinc (4%).
• The same ham piece also has 15 mg of cholesterol and absolutely no sugar content whatsoever.
• Ham is also rich in vitamin B varieties of thiamine (20%), niacin (8%), riboflavin (4%), vitamin B6 (8%), and B12 (4%).
• One medium slice of fresh ham is loaded with a total of 7.37 gms of fat out of which 2.706 gms harmful saturated fat. The rest is composed of 0.703 gms of polyunsaturated and 3.296 gms of monounsaturated essential fats.

So, as is evident, ham is a strict no-no for high blood pressure patients (check the alarming sodium content!) and should be kept away from cardiovascular patients as the cholesterol and saturated fats in ham is definitely be their nemesis. Even the studies conducted by the reputed American Institute of Cancer Research, declared that once you breach the weekly limit of 18 oz., the risk of cancer gets hiked by 21% with every extra 1.7 oz. of red meat you devour.

Did you know ham, like bacon is called red meat as it is rich in a protein variant called myoglobin, which forges red pigments. Also, if you do not know how exactly to cook ham, read the ham cooking instructions well.

So, you see, the joys of eating ham are much reduced now. The frequency has been hampered greatly after reading this data, given that I have a history of cholesterol and heart related problems in my family. Do not completely deprive yourself of ham, but red meat has its own way of hampering the body (I am not denying the benefits). So, eat it once in a while or in relatively small portions so as to let not only the calories in ham but also the other harmful factors affect you.