Calories vs calories from fat??

Hi everyone! So when I typed in my Starbucks drink to MFP it said the total calories were 170. But on the Starbucks website it said total calories 270 with calories from fat 100. Are calories determined by calories-calories from fat??
Thank you so much!

Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,420 Member
    Fat has 9 calories per gram

    Carbohydrates and Protein have (each) 4 calories per gram. So, yes to your question BUT all the foods in the database are entered by users (members) and a lot of them are wrong, so find one that says what you want it to say or enter a new food to use yourself.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,420 Member
    To be fair to that food entry:

    Maybe the person had a half portion of the nonfat milk. Maybe they had no sugar in it. Maybe all kinds o' reasons. You really do have to select carefully.
  • zebasschick
    zebasschick Posts: 1,067 Member
    no, it's just that many food database entries here are wrong. you've got to find one that matches the manufacturer or FDA nutritional information for amount, calories and anything else that's important to you. some of the foods i eat not only have many wrong entries, but some of the wrong ones are the official my fitness pal entries.

    i recently added a new food - there were entries for the same amount ranging from 90 calories up to over 300 calories. sodium was all over the map from 0 to 600, and everything else varied greatly. i had the can in my hand and managed to find one with the correct calories, fat, sugar, carbs and sodium.

    once you find a correct entry, you can reuse it from your frequent foods list.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Laloo01 wrote: »
    Hi everyone! So when I typed in my Starbucks drink to MFP it said the total calories were 170. But on the Starbucks website it said total calories 270 with calories from fat 100. Are calories determined by calories-calories from fat??
    Thank you so much!

    You just selected a bad entry in MFP. Most things in the database are crowd sourced by users and there are any number of incorrect entries...a correct entry would be 270 total calories.

    Calories are a unit of energy...the nutritional information on the Starbucks site is just letting you know that of those 270 calories, 100 of those calories are coming from fat. Carbs, protein, and fat are what make up your calories. Carbs are 4 calories per gram, protein is 4 calories per gram, and dietary fat is 9 calories per gram.

    So, your Starbucks drink had about 11 grams of dietary fat...that's all it's telling you. Total calories are what matter.