calorie claims for packaged foods
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zebasschick
Posts: 909 Member
do you ever wonder about calorie claims for some foods. i started to wonder years ago, after one of my regular items (a salad dressing) was reported by several people found by the FDA to be listing much lower calories per serving than it actually had.
i mention this now because for the past few weeks, i've been eating a newly re-added snack to my diet with a new formula, the only change in foods i eat. each is supposed to be 15 calories with no sugar, but i'm diabetic and i'm seeing blood sugar changes i can't explain plus i'm not losing weight where i normally would be. i'm well under calories each day but for one (and i was less than 100 calories over), and i weigh/measure and log meticulously.
i'm going to keep doing what i usually do without the popsicles in question and see how it goes. i feel pretty confident i'll be back to normal in days.
have you ever run into a food that made you question whether it had mis-reported calories?
i mention this now because for the past few weeks, i've been eating a newly re-added snack to my diet with a new formula, the only change in foods i eat. each is supposed to be 15 calories with no sugar, but i'm diabetic and i'm seeing blood sugar changes i can't explain plus i'm not losing weight where i normally would be. i'm well under calories each day but for one (and i was less than 100 calories over), and i weigh/measure and log meticulously.
i'm going to keep doing what i usually do without the popsicles in question and see how it goes. i feel pretty confident i'll be back to normal in days.
have you ever run into a food that made you question whether it had mis-reported calories?
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Calorie counts on packing are allowed to be off by 20%. Yes, many packaged foods under-report calories, because they can.1
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i know. i'm talking about more than double the calories per item.0
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There have been reported cases of this, yes.0
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Such errors are commonplace. That (and other things) lead some people to claim that calories don't count, which is nonsense, but it is true one should be very careful when reading nutrition labels. Here is an obvious case:zebasschick wrote: »do you ever wonder about calorie claims for some foods. i started to wonder years ago, after one of my regular items (a salad dressing) was reported by several people found by the FDA to be listing much lower calories per serving than it actually had.
i mention this now because for the past few weeks, i've been eating a newly re-added snack to my diet with a new formula, the only change in foods i eat. each is supposed to be 15 calories with no sugar, but i'm diabetic and i'm seeing blood sugar changes i can't explain plus i'm not losing weight where i normally would be. i'm well under calories each day but for one (and i was less than 100 calories over), and i weigh/measure and log meticulously.
i'm going to keep doing what i usually do without the popsicles in question and see how it goes. i feel pretty confident i'll be back to normal in days.
have you ever run into a food that made you question whether it had mis-reported calories?
Beans without fibre don't exist, and lupini have actually among the highest fibre content there is.
One of the problems is that companies usually don't invest in nutritional analyses. They just acquire their data from companies that have large databases with foods or even just copy it from the USDA's database. In addition, these labels are usually created by people in marketing departments and not by people who know what they are doing.
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Whilst I cannot deny the Fibre element of that is clearly wrong the calories seem to be what I’d expect them to be (although I have no concept of what Lupini beans are - possibly they have another name in the UK).
Point being, the OP asked about calories not other possibly erroneous values, so missing fibre count does not really apply.2 -
Lupini beans are called lupin beans and as well as lupini beans in the UK. That you don't know them is too bad fo you. I'd highly recommend that you look into them for -together with soybeans- they are the royalty among dried beans.BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »Whilst I cannot deny the Fibre element of that is clearly wrong the calories seem to be what I’d expect them to be (although I have no concept of what Lupini beans are - possibly they have another name in the UK).
Point being, the OP asked about calories not other possibly erroneous values, so missing fibre count does not really apply.
As for the caories, you do not seem to be getting the point: nutrition facts labels are untrustworthy. That is all there is to it. It is just an obvious example I happened to have, without flooding the page with pictures, but if that is not enough here are calories. Also for lupini beans:
Maçarico (1 cup is 160 kcal):
Unico (1/2 a cup is 190 kcal):
In other words, one label gives less than half the calories of the other for the same product, and this is not even a sophisticated product.
Again, the point is that nutrition facts labels are often nonsensical, because companies don't care about providing accurate information. They do not necessarily intentionally provide wrong information, that is a bridge too far. They are simply interested in spending as little effort and money as they think they can get away with.
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BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »Such errors are commonplace. That (and other things) lead some people to claim that calories don't count, which is nonsense, but it is true one should be very careful when reading nutrition labels. Here is an obvious case:
Beans without fibre don't exist, and lupini have actually among the highest fibre content there is.
One of the problems is that companies usually don't invest in nutritional analyses. They just acquire their data from companies that have large databases with foods or even just copy it from the USDA's database. In addition, these labels are usually created by people in marketing departments and not by people who know what they are doing.
you may be right. there's no way to know how many carbs the maltodextrin and glycerin add. they say there are 8 grams of carbs for every 3 popsicles, but they also list sugar alcohols on the nutrition label, and there are none listed in the ingredients, they're not being careful. i would have expected a large company would want to avoid such errrors...1 -
You would think so. Unfortunately, as you see, they're not. And they're not being held to account, not because no one cares, but simply because these things are not seen as a "priority". That should not be the case, but inspectors of such things are rather rare, because there is only so many the public purse can afford, and so on.zebasschick wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »Such errors are commonplace. That (and other things) lead some people to claim that calories don't count, which is nonsense, but it is true one should be very careful when reading nutrition labels. Here is an obvious case:
Beans without fibre don't exist, and lupini have actually among the highest fibre content there is.
One of the problems is that companies usually don't invest in nutritional analyses. They just acquire their data from companies that have large databases with foods or even just copy it from the USDA's database. In addition, these labels are usually created by people in marketing departments and not by people who know what they are doing.
you may be right. there's no way to know how many carbs the maltodextrin and glycerin add. they say there are 8 grams of carbs for every 3 popsicles, but they also list sugar alcohols on the nutrition label, and there are none listed in the ingredients, they're not being careful. i would have expected a large company would want to avoid such errrors...
I used lupini in this example, because I love them, so I took pictures, but I also remember something similar with lentils. I have a similar example for another favourite of mine, water-packed sardines, but I don't like to use that because there are good reasons for expecting some difference there.
In the end, it is not really important for weight loss IF you know what you are doing because there are several ways to minimise the problem and if all else fails, there is always trial and error, even if that takes time and effort in tracking everything. In other words, it is a good reason for careful, complete and accurate food intake logging.
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BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
Such errors are commonplace. That (and other things) lead some people to claim that calories don't count, which is nonsense, but it is true one should be very careful when reading nutrition labels. Here is an obvious case:zebasschick wrote: »do you ever wonder about calorie claims for some foods. i started to wonder years ago, after one of my regular items (a salad dressing) was reported by several people found by the FDA to be listing much lower calories per serving than it actually had.
i mention this now because for the past few weeks, i've been eating a newly re-added snack to my diet with a new formula, the only change in foods i eat. each is supposed to be 15 calories with no sugar, but i'm diabetic and i'm seeing blood sugar changes i can't explain plus i'm not losing weight where i normally would be. i'm well under calories each day but for one (and i was less than 100 calories over), and i weigh/measure and log meticulously.
i'm going to keep doing what i usually do without the popsicles in question and see how it goes. i feel pretty confident i'll be back to normal in days.
have you ever run into a food that made you question whether it had mis-reported calories?
Beans without fibre don't exist, and lupini have actually among the highest fibre content there is.
One of the problems is that companies usually don't invest in nutritional analyses. They just acquire their data from companies that have large databases with foods or even just copy it from the USDA's database. In addition, these labels are usually created by people in marketing departments and not by people who know what they are doing.
We eat lupini a lot in Italy. One thing I'm noticing is that it says "raw dry" on the package. This would give you the difference in calories if they are dry.3 -
It’s one of the many reasons the barcode scanner isn’t the panacea some people think it is. The user-sourced entries themselves are often wrong, but if the packaging is also wrong then it’s a double whammy.1
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That is exactly why our local Loblaws has three different brands, and why even the dry ones can be found here in Toronto: we have a large Italian-origin population here. There is also a fourth brand that I sometimes see at Loblaws, called Brami, but that is a brand that caters to "healthfood believers" and is therefore appropriately set at a relatively exorbitant price, and prepared with vinegar. It tastes positively disgusting.snowflake954 wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
Such errors are commonplace. That (and other things) lead some people to claim that calories don't count, which is nonsense, but it is true one should be very careful when reading nutrition labels. Here is an obvious case:zebasschick wrote: »do you ever wonder about calorie claims for some foods. i started to wonder years ago, after one of my regular items (a salad dressing) was reported by several people found by the FDA to be listing much lower calories per serving than it actually had.
i mention this now because for the past few weeks, i've been eating a newly re-added snack to my diet with a new formula, the only change in foods i eat. each is supposed to be 15 calories with no sugar, but i'm diabetic and i'm seeing blood sugar changes i can't explain plus i'm not losing weight where i normally would be. i'm well under calories each day but for one (and i was less than 100 calories over), and i weigh/measure and log meticulously.
i'm going to keep doing what i usually do without the popsicles in question and see how it goes. i feel pretty confident i'll be back to normal in days.
have you ever run into a food that made you question whether it had mis-reported calories?
Beans without fibre don't exist, and lupini have actually among the highest fibre content there is.
One of the problems is that companies usually don't invest in nutritional analyses. They just acquire their data from companies that have large databases with foods or even just copy it from the USDA's database. In addition, these labels are usually created by people in marketing departments and not by people who know what they are doing.
We eat lupini a lot in Italy. One thing I'm noticing is that it says "raw dry" on the package. This would give you the difference in calories if they are dry.
As for the calories, that is correct, but it is not what is going on here. The calorie count mentioned is within the realm of plausibility, so I was not referring to them. I was referring to the fibre, and the fibre will never be 0, also not in dry beans. If anything, it would be higher.
The point that I was trying to make, is that not only calorie counts are often demonstrably wrong, sometimes ridiculously so, but that not a single number on these nutrition "facts" labels is exempt from such errors. There are ways to defend (partly) against such labels, but this should not be necessary. What is the point of labels that are so untrustworthy that they are basically useless?
As an aside, it always amazes me that the local dietitians know nothing about lupini, not even that they exist. This is so strange, given their popularity. On top of that, numbers seem to indicate that they are almost a "miracle food" for diabetics and people who want to up their fibre intake. I know the European Union is studying them as very promising candidates for the protein transition because they are easier to cultivate in European climates than soybeans.
I love them as snacks, because they have just the right size for that, not like soybans, those are really too small for me. However, the disadvantage is the high salt content of the canned versions. I far prefer lupini flakes, because they don't even need to be cooked and stay "fresh" more or less forever.1 -
I agree with that. I honestly have never really seen the point of this barcode scanner function anyway. How many hundreds of barcoded foods is a person going to use, and therefore: how much effort and time does the function really save?claireychn074 wrote: »It’s one of the many reasons the barcode scanner isn’t the panacea some people think it is. The user-sourced entries themselves are often wrong, but if the packaging is also wrong then it’s a double whammy.0 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
That is exactly why our local Loblaws has three different brands, and why even the dry ones can be found here in Toronto: we have a large Italian-origin population here. There is also a fourth brand that I sometimes see at Loblaws, called Brami, but that is a brand that caters to "healthfood believers" and is therefore appropriately set at a relatively exorbitant price, and prepared with vinegar. It tastes positively disgusting.snowflake954 wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
Such errors are commonplace. That (and other things) lead some people to claim that calories don't count, which is nonsense, but it is true one should be very careful when reading nutrition labels. Here is an obvious case:zebasschick wrote: »do you ever wonder about calorie claims for some foods. i started to wonder years ago, after one of my regular items (a salad dressing) was reported by several people found by the FDA to be listing much lower calories per serving than it actually had.
i mention this now because for the past few weeks, i've been eating a newly re-added snack to my diet with a new formula, the only change in foods i eat. each is supposed to be 15 calories with no sugar, but i'm diabetic and i'm seeing blood sugar changes i can't explain plus i'm not losing weight where i normally would be. i'm well under calories each day but for one (and i was less than 100 calories over), and i weigh/measure and log meticulously.
i'm going to keep doing what i usually do without the popsicles in question and see how it goes. i feel pretty confident i'll be back to normal in days.
have you ever run into a food that made you question whether it had mis-reported calories?
Beans without fibre don't exist, and lupini have actually among the highest fibre content there is.
One of the problems is that companies usually don't invest in nutritional analyses. They just acquire their data from companies that have large databases with foods or even just copy it from the USDA's database. In addition, these labels are usually created by people in marketing departments and not by people who know what they are doing.
We eat lupini a lot in Italy. One thing I'm noticing is that it says "raw dry" on the package. This would give you the difference in calories if they are dry.
As for the calories, that is correct, but it is not what is going on here. I was referring to the fibre, and the fibre will never be 0, also not in dry beans. If anything, it would be higher.
The point that I was trying to make, is that not only calorie counts are often demonstrably wrong, sometimes ridiculously so, but that not a single number on these nutrition "facts" labels is exempt from such errors. There are ways to defend (partly) against such labels, but this should not be necessary. What is the point of labels that are so untrustworthy that they are basically useless?
Well Bart, if someone doesn't know there's fiber in beans--there's not much hope, correct label or not. With the internet one can find high fiber foods if that's what they need. I find labels interesting, but not the Bible and I double-check if it's important to me.
Irritation is everywhere. I wouldn't let food labels bug me, but then again, I have bigger fish to fry in this house. Have a GREAT day.
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That is a great point, but we should realise that not everyone knows all that much. The local dietitians keep telling people to increase their bean intake because people keep asking them in what foods they can find fibre. I had trouble believing that tale, but I found it is absolutely true after attending a few webinars organised by a local clinic.snowflake954 wrote: »Well Bart, if someone doesn't know there's fiber in beans--there's not much hope, correct label or not. With the internet one can find high fiber foods if that's what they need. I find labels interesting, but not the Bible and I double-check if it's important to me.
Irritation is everywhere. I wouldn't let food labels bug me, but then again, I have bigger fish to fry in this house. Have a GREAT day.
As another rather inexpensive example of that, I am totally astonished to learn that many people don't know there is sugar in ketchup. How is that even possible?0 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
I agree with that. I honestly have never really seen the point of this barcode scanner function anyway. How many hundreds of barcoded foods is a person going to use, and therefore: how much effort and time does the function really save?claireychn074 wrote: »It’s one of the many reasons the barcode scanner isn’t the panacea some people think it is. The user-sourced entries themselves are often wrong, but if the packaging is also wrong then it’s a double whammy.
I like the barcode scanner. I like it a lot. For some things I get that are in packages, it's so much easier than putting in the name and wading through multiple entries to find the one I want and then confirming it reflects what is on the label. That said, it's not failure proof. It often points to the wrong product. Trader Joe's items are notorious; I think they use the same code for different foods when the stop marketing some of them. I had something like pasta show up as chocolate. So there's still sometimes I have to go figure it out manually, but other times it's actually a very nice feature, and I sincerely wish it weren't limited to premium members. Alas - that's not my decision.1 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
That is a great point, but we should realise that not everyone knows all that much. The local dietitians keep telling people to increase their bean intake because people keep asking them in what foods they can find fibre. I had trouble believing that tale, but I found it is absolutely true after attending a few webinars organised by a local clinic.snowflake954 wrote: »Well Bart, if someone doesn't know there's fiber in beans--there's not much hope, correct label or not. With the internet one can find high fiber foods if that's what they need. I find labels interesting, but not the Bible and I double-check if it's important to me.
Irritation is everywhere. I wouldn't let food labels bug me, but then again, I have bigger fish to fry in this house. Have a GREAT day.
As another rather inexpensive example of that, I am totally astonished to learn that many people don't know there is sugar in ketchup. How is that even possible?
Tomatoes have sugar, so there' s going to be sugar in ketchup even if none is added. (There are brands of ketchup with no added sugar or other sweetener.) But a lot of people don't seem to know there is sugar in many whole raw veggies, sugar in normal fluid milk.
Perhaps in the big picture, companies don't prioritize accurate nutrition labels because people don't read them anyway? (It surprises me how true this seems to be, even here on MFP among people claiming they care.)
I agree that many people don't know there's sugar in ketchup, but there also seem to be many people with IMO disproportionate horror over the fact that there is.
People who have a serious need (or goal) to avoid added sugar maybe need to minimize ketchup, but a tablespoon of mainstream sugar-added ketchup has only about 4g added sugar - around 16 calories. Most people don't eat buckets of ketchup. (I know some do, because I love ketchup and eat big portions of it when I eat it.)3 -
Very good point, I think. Tomatoes and raw veggies and most all plant matter do indeed contain sugar and many people don't seem to know that. I can't help but wonder how that is even possible, but you are completely right.Tomatoes have sugar, so there' s going to be sugar in ketchup even if none is added. (There are brands of ketchup with no added sugar or other sweetener.) But a lot of people don't seem to know there is sugar in many whole raw veggies, sugar in normal fluid milk.
I agree that many people don't know there's sugar in ketchup, but there also seem to be many people with IMO disproportionate horror over the fact that there is.
People who have a serious need (or goal) to avoid added sugar maybe need to minimize ketchup, but a tablespoon of mainstream sugar-added ketchup has only about 4g added sugar - around 16 calories. Most people don't eat buckets of ketchup. (I know some do, because I love ketchup and eat big portions of it when I eat it.)
I also totally agree that sugar is by no means the villain many make it out to be and let's be honest, in a product like ketchup, the difference between added sugar and "natural" sugar is largely academic. Ketchup is essentially a blended soup and there is no way to know which molecule of sugar comes from the tomato and which one from sugar beet or sugar cane and it is the same sugar anyway. That sugar also does not "know" where it comes from and the added sugar is just as "natural" as the one that is naturally present. Only the quantitiy of sugar is unnaturally high due to the addition, but that is as far as its "unnaturalness" really goes. And in any case, sugar is by no means the "toxic poison" many claim it to be. While "too much" sugar may not be all that great for us, I challenge anyone to find a product of which "too much" is not bad for us. After all, that is what "too much" is all about.
On a personal note, I hate the taste of ketchup, precisely because it tastes disgustingly sweet to me. For the same reason, when I wanted to buy pasta sauce or smoked salmon or, oh horror, canned beans in tomato sauce, I was almost never able to buy them (I bought those beans all the time when I was in Belgium - they had no sugar added to them, at least not the ones I bought), the taste was just unpalatable to me. In the case of ketchup, the presence of vinegar (which I find more disgusting than a cleaning product) gives me a double whammy. There is no way I am voluntarily consuming it.
People even add sugar (and too much salt, as well as oil) to bread here. I just don't get it. It is why I started baking my own bread years and years ago.
That is almost certainly part of it. The same is true for user manuals. I ahd that phenomenon in my own family. My mother tried to prevent me from reading the labels because "we have better things to do" and threw out product manuals because "people like us, don't need manuals".Perhaps in the big picture, companies don't prioritize accurate nutrition labels because people don't read them anyway? (It surprises me how true this seems to be, even here on MFP among people claiming they care.)0 -
Carbs are basically sugars but people think only sugar is sugar, strange in my opinion.....it is however, how it's described by most, so I guess you can't blame people in general.1
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Well, as you say, not "in general" but "most".neanderthin wrote: »Carbs are basically sugars but people think only sugar is sugar, strange in my opinion.....it is however, how it's described by most, so I guess you can't blame people in general.
That said, the sugar in tomatoes is sugar, just as the added sugar is sugar.You could even argue that, in certain cases, the added sugar is healthier or less unhealthy than the naturally-present sugar, because in many circumstances, that added sugar will be sucrose and not pure fructose. While fructose is arguably better or less bad for diabetics, it is also something that is mostly processed by the liver and the liver does have some problems with it if it is confronted with large amounts, more so than with sucrose. However, these really are skirmishes in the margin, in view of the actual quantities involved.0 -
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