Martha Stewart doesn't eat wraps

Today on her show, she had a guest whose specialty was sandwiches. Wraps were brought up and she said, "I never eat them because I don't want to. They are not a sandwich!"
So I was thinking about that today. I like wraps (and I make a great one) that we like to make a day ahead of a road trip. It holds up well, and we can eat it while driving. Sometimes we stop along a river or other pretty place and eat, but if we are in a hurry, eating something that is not messy is great. A wrap only needs one hand, it can be put down without all the stuff falling out, and can be made very light in calories/carbs.
I've also made them for company for lunch. They look very pretty with the layers and cut in half on an angle. Some folks have never had them, so it is fun for them.
I don't consider them a sandwich. So, what is your take?

I like a good wrap. Especially with chicken or tuna salad, or humus and veggies. I did just read though, that the "wrapper" itself is actually higher in calories than bread because it's more dense. Not sure if it's true or not...
Any nutritionists out there?

I like a good wrap. Especially with chicken or tuna salad, or humus and veggies. I did just read though, that the "wrapper" itself is actually higher in calories than bread because it's more dense. Not sure if it's true or not...
Any nutritionists out there?

I can certainly believe it's possible (wraps having more calories than bread). A thought experiment: take a rolling pin, and squash all the air out of two slices of bread by rolling them flat. Compare what you have with the flatbread you make your wrap out of. Probably 50-50 that the wrap is larger. An even easier experiment: weigh the two pieces of bread. Now weigh the wrap. Which weighs more?

-Paul W.

P.S.: Why should I care whether an ex-convict eats wraps?

I buy a flour tortilla that is 96% fat-free and has 80 calories. Also, a 7 g net carbohydrates, with 5 g protein and 11 g fiber, flour tortilla, with 110 calories. We like them, they soften and crisp up well.

P.S.: Why should I care whether an ex-convict eats wraps?

It should not be a worry to you, don't give it another thought.

Karen--trust me, I didn't even give it a FIRST thought.

What I want to know is, who gave the burrito a name change?

What I want to know is, who gave the burrito a name change?

Some food salesman, no doubt.

Karen,

I like wraps once awhile...I usually add grilled chicken, bacon, avocado, bib lettuce, and a little mayo...YUM!

The wraps I use are 100% whole wheat, and are 100 calories per wrap. The bread I eat is 100% whole wheat, and 90 calories per slice. To make a sandwich you need 2 slices, so it's 80 calories more for the sandwich than it would be to put all my fixin's in one wrap.

I would consider a wrap a sandwich.

It's flatbread, so why not roll your own? I mean I make pizza on nan barbari (Persian flatbread which comes in very large sheets). A rose by any udder's name ... What I find less than appetizing is the gooey, doughy, pliable, semi-unbaked, sticky medium many places use to fabricate wraps so that they actually stay rolled up. By the way, marketing has already taken it one step farther. Take a wrap, slice it into one inch wide portions, lay these on their sides, and you have ... drum roll, please ... pinwheels.

I like a good wrap. Especially with chicken or tuna salad, or humus and veggies. I did just read though, that the "wrapper" itself is actually higher in calories than bread because it's more dense. Not sure if it's true or not...
Any nutritionists out there?

I suppose it depends on whether you're comparing a tortilla to one slice of bread or two and how big each is but here's another reason why a "wrapper" might have more calories than bread: a tortilla's ingredients invariably includes fat of some sort. Bread runs only about 2% fat (or "98% fat-free" to use the marketing on Karen's package) and most of that is unsaturated, coming from mostly from the grain since fat needed be added to bread. The fat in tortillas used to be lard, now typically hyrdogenated vegetable oil of some sort.

By the way, IMHO "96% fat-free" labeling is in the same category as the "fat-free" cherry and "no cholesterol" fruit labels discussed in another thread - perhaps technically mostly true but misleading. The unaware might be excused in thinking that label means 96% of the usual fat has been removed when all it really means is that 96% of the product by weight isn't fat and remainder is. At 4% milkfat, whole milk could be (and probably is, somewhere) labeled "96% fat free" but most people wouldn't consider it to be the low fat alternative in milk.

Interesting Mark...never thought of that!

I looked at my wraps and sure enough, 4% fat (no trans or hydrogenated fat though) and my 1 slice of bread is 2%. So my sandwich and wrap would each contain the same about of fat, but my wrap would be a little less than half the calories. So still a win situation with the wrap, but definitely didn't think about the fat.