Lies, damn lies and the FDA

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  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
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    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???

    Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.

    Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.

    Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
    And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.

    The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.

    PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.

    I've seen containers of PAM that state that coating a 10 inch pan with a 1-second spray is 9 calories.

    They do give you the information.

    Ah! The fine print gotcha, placed in a location other than the primary nutrition info block. :). I'd say the actual nutrition block would tend to scream volumes over this location that many might not look. Thank you for sharing this, though.
  • seska422
    seska422 Posts: 3,217 Member
    edited December 2016
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    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???

    Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.

    Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.

    Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
    And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.

    The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.

    PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.

    I've seen containers of PAM that state that coating a 10 inch pan with a 1-second spray is 9 calories.

    They do give you the information.

    Ah! The fine print gotcha, placed in a location other than the primary nutrition info block. :). I'd say the actual nutrition block would tend to scream volumes over this location that many might not look. Thank you for sharing this, though.

    In addition to that, the front of the can saying "Fat Free" in enlarged letters and the back of the can saying that the pure fat main ingredient that is listed first because it makes up most of what's in the can "adds a trivial amount of fat" leads people who aren't nutrition-savvy to conclude that using as much Pam as they want won't add enough calories or fat to even bother about. Stealth calories like that can really add up when multiple manufacturers do it.

    d4wm0ejt7jyq.gif
  • seska422
    seska422 Posts: 3,217 Member
    edited December 2016
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    Hands up everyone who uses enough pam spray so that it could add up to anything significant enough that it isn't negated by the extra burn you are getting from freaking out over it.
    I use about 2-3 seconds for a frying pan. When I used to bake cakes, I'd use maybe 8-10 seconds for the baking pan.

    I've seen people use 4-5 second sprays for pans. I've seen people liberally baste turkeys with Pam.

    Do that multiple times a day and it will add up over time.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
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    I didn't know these things had calories prior to MFP. I just assumed "fat free" sprays were a chemical concoction frankenfood -- not fat in a can with propellants. Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? No, but it's deliberately deceptive. 1/3 second spray and 702 serving per can? Give me a break.

    How anyone can fault a consumer for believing nutrition information - that's required by law to be there - is truthful and accurate is beyond me.
  • seska422
    seska422 Posts: 3,217 Member
    edited December 2016
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    zyxst wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???

    Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.

    Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.

    Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
    And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.

    The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.

    PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.

    I've seen containers of PAM that state that coating a 10 inch pan with a 1-second spray is 9 calories.

    They do give you the information.

    How do you coat a 10" pan in 1 second?

    That spray for .33333 of a second is why I stick with canola oil and/or margarine. 10 mL/10 g and done.

    1c25048d7cb50d01a17c5549d7893de3.png

    Like that from a sufficient distance.

    That's the way you are supposed to do it. Do you think that everyone actually does that in real-world cooking?

    I sometimes have to mop the floor after certain people cook because the kitchen floor is so slippery with Pam overspray.
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,134 Member
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    zyxst wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???

    Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.

    Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.

    Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
    And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.

    The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.

    PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.

    I've seen containers of PAM that state that coating a 10 inch pan with a 1-second spray is 9 calories.

    They do give you the information.

    How do you coat a 10" pan in 1 second?

    That spray for .33333 of a second is why I stick with canola oil and/or margarine. 10 mL/10 g and done.

    1c25048d7cb50d01a17c5549d7893de3.png

    Like that from a sufficient distance.

    Interesting, but I like to not have my food stick to the pan. For me, that line would be exactly where the PAM goes and no where else.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    zyxst wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???

    Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.

    Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.

    Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
    And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.

    The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.

    PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.

    I've seen containers of PAM that state that coating a 10 inch pan with a 1-second spray is 9 calories.

    They do give you the information.

    How do you coat a 10" pan in 1 second?

    That spray for .33333 of a second is why I stick with canola oil and/or margarine. 10 mL/10 g and done.

    1c25048d7cb50d01a17c5549d7893de3.png

    Like that from a sufficient distance.

    I think I know the owner of this pan!
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    zyxst wrote: »
    zyxst wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???

    Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.

    Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.

    Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
    And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.

    The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.

    PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.

    I've seen containers of PAM that state that coating a 10 inch pan with a 1-second spray is 9 calories.

    They do give you the information.

    How do you coat a 10" pan in 1 second?

    That spray for .33333 of a second is why I stick with canola oil and/or margarine. 10 mL/10 g and done.

    1c25048d7cb50d01a17c5549d7893de3.png

    Like that from a sufficient distance.

    Interesting, but I like to not have my food stick to the pan. For me, that line would be exactly where the PAM goes and no where else.

    A spray comes out conical, if the coverage isn't broad enough for your liking you need to increase the distance, thus widening the spray cone.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    I didn't know these things had calories prior to MFP. I just assumed "fat free" sprays were a chemical concoction frankenfood -- not fat in a can with propellants. Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? No, but it's deliberately deceptive. 1/3 second spray and 702 serving per can? Give me a break.

    How anyone can fault a consumer for believing nutrition information - that's required by law to be there - is truthful and accurate is beyond me.

    The ingredient list is also required by law to be there, and it says it's oil.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    rainbowbow wrote: »
    Am I the only one here not shocked when i found out this information?

    I had just assumed everyone knew it. I mean, it's oil, so it has calories.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited December 2016
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    In this day and age not knowing certain things (or claiming not to know them) seems like willful ignorance to me, so that they'd manage to claim ignorance no matter what.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    In this day and age not knowing certain things (or claiming not to know them) seems like willful ignorance to me, so that they'd manage to claim ignorance no matter what.

    It's less of a willful ignorance and more of a case of diluted information. The influx of misinformation often drowns out what's real. We could argue ideal situations and what should happen all we want, but reality is what it is. I have often heard "it's okay to use a lot of olive oil, it won't make you fat because it's healthy", "granola won't make you fat because it's healthy", "potatoes make you fat because carbs", "coconut oil will make you lose weight" or what we experience here almost every day where people question something as basic as calories. People genuinely don't associate oil=high calories=need to be careful and genuinely think they are informed.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    In this day and age not knowing certain things (or claiming not to know them) seems like willful ignorance to me, so that they'd manage to claim ignorance no matter what.

    If I'm being perfectly honest, I'm astounded at this constant claim of yours that everyone just knows certain things. IMO You're participating on a forum that defies that line of reasoning every single day. Billions of people on the planet and everyone just knows what you think they should? We all experience and process information the exact same way? How does that work, exactly?

    For example, here's some detail on my interaction with a product like this. I don't have any food allergies or any ingredients I try to avoid, so my idea of product evaluation usually involves cost and the product's capabilities. The idea of reading ingredients to recalculate or reconstitute nutrition information might as well be howling at the moon each time I pick up a product. It's that foreign. What's the point? The only conclusion I'm interested in is printed conveniently in a nationally standardized box. Everything else is likely noise or marketing, and if I'm running low on reading material, that is generally not my choice. I do review ingredients sometimes, but that mostly has to do with cost and verifying if a generic or other brand offers the same product type as the higher cost version I'm used to. Now even if I read it say oil, this is an aerosolized product. Could the manufacturers have managed that process to significantly reduce the ratio of oil in that mix to the extent that calories are indeed negligible? Who cares about the geeky details, they said they got it down to zero. And that's just one perspective on one issue.

    We're presented with identical information but likely observe, interact with, and use it all differently.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    I in no way intended to make any "excuse" that the evil food companies made me fat, nor did I advocate such a position. My only point in making the post is that we really do live in toxic food environment. It is much easier to eat unhealthy than it is to eat healthy. Let me be clear here, it is not by any means impossible to eat healthy, it just takes more effort and attention. It is easy to make mistakes when you are trying to count calories - not to use that as an excuse, but to educate and better arm people with knowledge. It was the reason, I put Caveat emptor in my original post. Buyer Beware. I make no excuses for my weight and lack of fitness. I am responsible for my life and how I live it.

    Cool, and I couldn't agree more.

    Great and amazing job with the weight-loss. You are inspirational.