Warning: Use "canned, drained usda" entries for your canned bean recipes

svel713

I was splitting canned garbanzo beans into 2 meal prep containers by the gram and found that there were only 2 servings by weight and calories instead of 3.5. I know packaged foods have to be within 20% of their nutrition facts label, so this was too much of a variance.

I had a hunch and searched "usda canned drained garbanzo beans" and put in the weight, and the calories were 367 instead of the 385 on the can, within the 20% variance. Had I not caught this in my new recipe, I would have been significantly undercounting for future weeks and not have known it.

I'm posting this as a heads up for those who were using partial cans of beans for recipes. Its weird how they include the canned liquid in the serving weight when they know most people are going to drain it anyway.

L1zardQueen

Because the liquid is part of the calories.

lightenup2016

I only realized this recently, too! I've been entering my calories from beans incorrectly this whole time I guess. I will now have to drain, rinse, and weigh all the beans from a can to get the "new" weight of the beans alone. Or trust the "drained" entry. I'll check that with my own numbers