calorie claims for packaged foods
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LOL what?neanderthin wrote: »Yeah, they took a burrito from a fast food chain that claimed it contained just over 400 calories and when put through a calorimeter, it turned out to be just over 1300 calories.
Though, to anyone who tracks calories at all, who would believe a fast food burrito is only 400 calories?1 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »
LOL what?neanderthin wrote: »Yeah, they took a burrito from a fast food chain that claimed it contained just over 400 calories and when put through a calorimeter, it turned out to be just over 1300 calories.
Though, to anyone who tracks calories at all, who would believe a fast food burrito is only 400 calories?
No kidding.
Here's the problem. A franchise over a certain size is mandated to disclose the calories in a particular offering. These are formulated recipes that are meant to never change, and if they did, a new nutritional label would be required by law.
The test kitchens of these franchises know this of course, so it's in their best interest to show what they're selling is
low/lower in calories for comparison purposes so people buy more, sell more, more money, simple math.
What they do is they consult the gov't data based on nutritional information and compose, in the case, a burrito with as few calories (healthy) as possible or seem acceptable, then make one that brings people back, which is as big as possible, who knows maybe people can get 2 meals out of it. Regardless, if a person is relying on nutritional labels, then it's a failure before they ever start.
EDIT: if 400 calories is known to be false, how many calories would the average person add to compensate just to be on the safe side. 50% more to be on the safe side which would be 600 calories. Crazy really to even think about it.2 -
My take on it is that if the label is demonstrably wrong, I don't buy the product. I am unwilling to spend money on a company that treats me like a prey instead of like a customer. Am I naive enough to think it will make a difference to that company? Of course not, but it is as much as I can do, so I do it.neanderthin wrote: »Here's the problem. A franchise over a certain size is mandated to disclose the calories in a particular offering. These are formulated recipes that are meant to never change, and if they did, a new nutritional label would be required by law.
The test kitchens of these franchises know this of course, so it's in their best interest to show what they're selling is
low/lower in calories for comparison purposes so people buy more, sell more, more money, simple math.
What they do is they consult the gov't data based on nutritional information and compose, in the case, a burrito with as few calories (healthy) as possible or seem acceptable, then make one that brings people back, which is as big as possible, who knows maybe people can get 2 meals out of it. Regardless, if a person is relying on nutritional labels, then it's a failure before they ever start.
EDIT: if 400 calories is known to be false, how many calories would the average person add to compensate just to be on the safe side. 50% more to be on the safe side which would be 600 calories. Crazy really to even think about it.
My comment would be that many people are astonishingly ignorant about the plausibility of calorie counts. One of the causes of that is that science and scientific/skeptical thinking is not or hardly taught in schools. I blame a misinterpretation of the freedom of religion for that. The freedom to have any religion one chooses to, should not be limited in any way, but that should not be a reason to limit critical thinking. If a religion does not meet the criteria of critical thought, that is a problem for the religion, not one of society and religions (and all other superstition and quackery) should not be shielded from critical thought.
I just started rewatching The Nature of Food, and my blood is already boiling. For example: David Suzuki states that a frozen pizza can last for years. There is nothing wrong with that statement, were it not that it is used to suggest that frozen pizza is bad. This is a lie by omission: I have several blocks of frozen spinach in my freezer. They can and do last for several years as well. That's the whole point about freezing. And that is not even mentioning that pizza can be a very good food (though it arguably usually isn't ^_^).0 -
I just saw that scene. For me, the most interesting part is where she says "if I rely on the database". That is one of the problems with calorie counts. Many, if not most, companies get their nutrition facts from a commercial database and don't test anything at all. As a result, errors, even honestly accidental ones, are repeated over and over everywhere. One good example of that is the data on lupini beans (together with soybeans, my favourite beans) in the USDA database. The USDA even admits it: they state that the data is based on a similar food, i.o.w. not on actual testing.neanderthin wrote: »Yeah, they took a burrito from a fast food chain that claimed it contained just over 400 calories and when put through a calorimeter, it turned out to be just over 1300 calories.
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BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
My take on it is that if the label is demonstrably wrong, I don't buy the product. I am unwilling to spend money on a company that treats me like a prey instead of like a customer. Am I naive enough to think it will make a difference to that company? Of course not, but it is as much as I can do, so I do it.neanderthin wrote: »Here's the problem. A franchise over a certain size is mandated to disclose the calories in a particular offering. These are formulated recipes that are meant to never change, and if they did, a new nutritional label would be required by law.
The test kitchens of these franchises know this of course, so it's in their best interest to show what they're selling is
low/lower in calories for comparison purposes so people buy more, sell more, more money, simple math.
What they do is they consult the gov't data based on nutritional information and compose, in the case, a burrito with as few calories (healthy) as possible or seem acceptable, then make one that brings people back, which is as big as possible, who knows maybe people can get 2 meals out of it. Regardless, if a person is relying on nutritional labels, then it's a failure before they ever start.
EDIT: if 400 calories is known to be false, how many calories would the average person add to compensate just to be on the safe side. 50% more to be on the safe side which would be 600 calories. Crazy really to even think about it.
My comment would be that many people are astonishingly ignorant about the plausibility of calorie counts. One of the causes of that is that science and scientific/skeptical thinking is not or hardly taught in schools. I blame a misinterpretation of the freedom of religion for that. The freedom to have any religion one chooses to, should not be limited in any way, but that should not be a reason to limit critical thinking. If a religion does not meet the criteria of critical thought, that is a problem for the religion, not one of society and religions (and all other superstition and quackery) should not be shielded from critical thought.
I just started rewatching The Nature of Food, and my blood is already boiling. For example: David Suzuki states that a frozen pizza can last for years. There is nothing wrong with that statement, were it not that it is used to suggest that frozen pizza is bad. This is a lie by omission: I have several blocks of frozen spinach in my freezer. They can and do last for several years as well. That's the whole point about freezing. And that is not even mentioning that pizza can be a very good food (though it arguably usually isn't ^_^).
Don't throw out the baby out with the bath water.0 -
That is generally a good idea. I don't. I just don't buy the baby from a company that lies to me. I buy it from a company that doesn't.neanderthin wrote: »Don't throw out the baby out with the bath water.
As for Tim Spector: here is the link on Youtube I referred to:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=66hWntvp0_4&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE&t=1103
Statement: "[...]weight loss or being healthy is just about a calorie deficit."
Tim Spector:
"it's complete nonsense".
"There's never been any long-term study showing that calorie counting is an effective way to lose weight and to maintain weight loss [after the first few weeks]".
My first reaction was: sure, calorie counting is not an effective way to lose weight. In fact, I still have to meet the first idiot who thinks otherwise, calorie counting may waste a few calories in brain power, but nothing more.
In other words, a word game. But then he mentioned "after the first few weeks", so he was not talking about counting per se, he was really talking about the use of that knowledge. And now we know he is talking rubbish.
I am not targeting him really. There are other people making the same claims, such as Giles Yeo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQJ0Z0DRumg
The remarkable thing about Giles Yeo's lecture is that except for the title and a little bit at the end, his lecture is filled with very good and reliable information. His title is pure clickbait, a typical case of bait-and-switch.
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Here is the calorimeter scene I was referring to. I thought it was in the documentary, but it isn't. It was in the associated documentation on the CBC's website:neanderthin wrote: »Yeah, they took a burrito from a fast food chain that claimed it contained just over 400 calories and when put through a calorimeter, it turned out to be just over 1300 calories.
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/enter-the-calorimeter-a-chamber-that-measures-how-many-calories-your-body-n
It nicely shows how difficult it is to measure a person's energy use. That said, it is scientifically very interesting, but not all that important for personal use. We can just as easily measure it by careful calorie-tracking and that will usually turn out to be more useful anyway, at least, it is for me.0 -
Yeah, I'm fully on board with the gist of what Tim Spector says and my basic working hypothesis is the same, it doesn't mean I'll agree with absolutely every statement he makes, but I don't see the a problem. Cheers0
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The problem is simply that what he says is wrong. Calories are not nonsense, they are simply what they are, a unit to measure energy. Jason Fung claims similar things. And that is precisely the reason why nobody in the professional community pays any attention to them. Jason Fung is even more ridiculous: he claims that calorie restriction is nonsense, and then goes on to promote fasting, which is nothing more than calorie restriction taking to its extreme.neanderthin wrote: »Yeah, I'm fully on board with the gist of what Tim Spector says and my basic working hypothesis is the same, it doesn't mean I'll agree with absolutely every statement he makes, but I don't see the a problem. Cheers0 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
The problem is simply that what he says is wrong. Calories are not nonsense, they are simply what they are, a unit to measure energy. Jason Fung claims similar things. And that is precisely the reason why nobody in the professional community pays any attention to them. Jason Fung is even more ridiculous: he claims that calorie restriction is nonsense, and then goes on to promote fasting, which is nothing more than calorie restriction taking to its extreme.neanderthin wrote: »Yeah, I'm fully on board with the gist of what Tim Spector says and my basic working hypothesis is the same, it doesn't mean I'll agree with absolutely every statement he makes, but I don't see the a problem. Cheers
Yes calories are important because if eat too many we get fat and if we want to lose weight we need to eat less. This becomes a circular argument, which is a logical fallacy and I see it all the time in nutrition. Which then begs the question, why do we get fat?0 -
What is so circular about the calorie situation? Nothing. Calories are simply a unit to measure energy content. That's all they are.neanderthin wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
The problem is simply that what he says is wrong. Calories are not nonsense, they are simply what they are, a unit to measure energy. Jason Fung claims similar things. And that is precisely the reason why nobody in the professional community pays any attention to them. Jason Fung is even more ridiculous: he claims that calorie restriction is nonsense, and then goes on to promote fasting, which is nothing more than calorie restriction taking to its extreme.neanderthin wrote: »Yeah, I'm fully on board with the gist of what Tim Spector says and my basic working hypothesis is the same, it doesn't mean I'll agree with absolutely every statement he makes, but I don't see the a problem. Cheers
Yes calories are important because if eat too many we get fat and if we want to lose weight we need to eat less. This becomes a circular argument, which is a logical fallacy and I see it all the time in nutrition. Which then begs the question, why do we get fat?
The point is that it is extremely easy to *prove* that calories are nonsense: all that needs to be done, is to produce at least one verifiable case where someone gets fat without ingesting calories and/or someone gets lean by ingesting excessive amounts of calories. No one has ever been able to provide such case(s) and they never will, unless the totality of science is wrong.
As for why do we get fat: we get fat because we store molecules that provide usable energy, when processed by the body. Simple. In principle. The chemistry gets quite complicated but that does not change the principle.0 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
What is so circular about the calorie situation? Nothing. Calories are simply a unit to measure energy content. That's all they are.neanderthin wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
The problem is simply that what he says is wrong. Calories are not nonsense, they are simply what they are, a unit to measure energy. Jason Fung claims similar things. And that is precisely the reason why nobody in the professional community pays any attention to them. Jason Fung is even more ridiculous: he claims that calorie restriction is nonsense, and then goes on to promote fasting, which is nothing more than calorie restriction taking to its extreme.neanderthin wrote: »Yeah, I'm fully on board with the gist of what Tim Spector says and my basic working hypothesis is the same, it doesn't mean I'll agree with absolutely every statement he makes, but I don't see the a problem. Cheers
Yes calories are important because if eat too many we get fat and if we want to lose weight we need to eat less. This becomes a circular argument, which is a logical fallacy and I see it all the time in nutrition. Which then begs the question, why do we get fat?
The point is that it is extremely easy to *prove* that calories are nonsense: all that needs to be done, is to produce at least one verifiable case where someone gets fat without ingesting calories and/or someone gets lean by ingesting excessive amounts of calories. No one has ever been able to provide such case(s) and they never will, unless the totality of science is wrong.
And around and around we go. Cheers
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Once again: that does not mean that calories are nonsense. Those who claim it are either ignorant or malevolent. That is all.neanderthin wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
What is so circular about the calorie situation? Nothing. Calories are simply a unit to measure energy content. That's all they are.neanderthin wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
The problem is simply that what he says is wrong. Calories are not nonsense, they are simply what they are, a unit to measure energy. Jason Fung claims similar things. And that is precisely the reason why nobody in the professional community pays any attention to them. Jason Fung is even more ridiculous: he claims that calorie restriction is nonsense, and then goes on to promote fasting, which is nothing more than calorie restriction taking to its extreme.neanderthin wrote: »Yeah, I'm fully on board with the gist of what Tim Spector says and my basic working hypothesis is the same, it doesn't mean I'll agree with absolutely every statement he makes, but I don't see the a problem. Cheers
Yes calories are important because if eat too many we get fat and if we want to lose weight we need to eat less. This becomes a circular argument, which is a logical fallacy and I see it all the time in nutrition. Which then begs the question, why do we get fat?
The point is that it is extremely easy to *prove* that calories are nonsense: all that needs to be done, is to produce at least one verifiable case where someone gets fat without ingesting calories and/or someone gets lean by ingesting excessive amounts of calories. No one has ever been able to provide such case(s) and they never will, unless the totality of science is wrong.
And around and around we go. Cheers
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BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
As for why do we get fat: we get fat because we store molecules that provide usable energy, when processed by the body. Simple. In principle. The chemistry gets quite complicated but that does not change the principle.
So molecules as well as calories make us fat, interesting. Cheers0 -
No. The molecules make us fat because they provide the energy measured by calories. Calories do nothing by themselves, they are merely a unit to measure energy. Energy has no substance, no weight, no mass, no volume, nothing. It is provided by processing molecules.neanderthin wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
As for why do we get fat: we get fat because we store molecules that provide usable energy, when processed by the body. Simple. In principle. The chemistry gets quite complicated but that does not change the principle.
So molecules as well as calories make us fat, interesting. Cheers
Think of wood. Wood contains no heat. It is the burning of that wood that provides heat. It is the wood that has the weight and the bulk. Heat has no volume, no weight.
That is also the reason that the claim that not all calories are created equal is pure nonsense. We extract energy from different molecules by processing them. Those extraction processes cost more or less energy depending on the molecules. The calories-not-created-equal claim is just a nonsensical oversimplification.0 -
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.
true, but i'm diabetic, and sugar can be a problem for me more than slower carbs. but my real concern was the calories they claim.
since my original post in this thread, i've started making popsicles with sugar-free and supposedly calorie free sodas and drinks listed too high - sometimes first - in the ingredient list. i've discovered that many sodas that claim to be calorie free can't be - they have carbs or juice - especially one that i love the taste of, but the juice is quite high in the list. so their claim of 0 calories is a fantasy.
i'm working my way through a bunch of water enhancers, sodas and drink mixes to find the best tasting, very low to no calorie options to make popsicles with. so far, caffeine free coke zero (or whatever it's called) is a winner.
the search continues.
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zebasschick wrote: »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.
true, but i'm diabetic, and sugar can be a problem for me more than slower carbs. but my real concern was the calories they claim.
since my original post in this thread, i've started making popsicles with sugar-free and supposedly calorie free sodas and drinks listed too high - sometimes first - in the ingredient list. i've discovered that many sodas that claim to be calorie free can't be - they have carbs or juice - especially one that i love the taste of, but the juice is quite high in the list. so their claim of 0 calories is a fantasy.
i'm working my way through a bunch of water enhancers, sodas and drink mixes to find the best tasting, very low to no calorie options to make popsicles with. so far, caffeine free coke zero (or whatever it's called) is a winner.
the search continues.
Do you wear a glucose monitor? Keep in mind that your liver will be producing glucose for function in the absence of carbs or food for that matter and delivering glucose to the blood for distribution. The pancreas releases insulin and sometimes overcompensates based on calories and ghrelin, so there is that. Insulin release otherwise is based on the insulinogenic load of the meal and where protein needs to be factored in considering protein is insulinogenic. Personally you may be overthinking it if the calories/load is very small and in the context of controlling your overall blood sugar from a 0 calorie drink, that may actually have a 1 or 2 calories. Accuracy in labeling is problematic for sure, but I wouldn't be too concerned, especially if your a diabetic that has already reduced pretty much as many starches and sugars from their diet. Kind of a forest and tree situation. good luck and cheers.0 -
Here is a nice example I came across a few days ago:zebasschick wrote: »i've discovered that many sodas that claim to be calorie free can't be - they have carbs or juice - especially one that i love the taste of, but the juice is quite high in the list. so their claim of 0 calories is a fantasy.
There is nothing obviously wrong with this label, until you actually look at the numbers. When you add up the calories provided by he Atwater factors, you get this:
7*9+66*4+17.3*4=396.2
This means the calorie total provided is off by 246-396.2=-150.2 kcal. That is not a minor error.
It is *always* a good idea to check by adding up the numbers. Three things may happen:
1. your sum is identical to the one on the label
2. your sum is lower than the one on the label
3. your sum is higher than the one on the label
1. Go to step 4
2. If your sum is lower or higher, take the higher number: the sum of the Atwater factors is almost guaranteed to be lower than the total calorie count, due to the way they were determined: they are estimates based on human experiments and the results were averaged and rounded. There is no good defense against this. While it is theoretically possible to be more precise, time and financial constraints would make this a ridiculously expensive and time-consuming exercise, for very little clinical benefit, if any. The slight overestimate that might come from taking the higher number will only make it less likely that you will overshoot your daily intake: it is an insurance policy of sorts.
4. It is always a good idea to compare with other products and against large databases such as the USDA database, keeping in mind that the USDA database contains errors as well, which is predictable if you read how they arrive at them. In some cases, the product you are looking at will have an "odd-one-out" label.
The best example I remember of that were the nutrition facts labels on canned lupini beans I found at my local Loblaws store in Toronto. Lupini beans are a particularly striking example, because lupini beans are just about the best beans there are for diabetics and because they are not unknown. They are very popular in several mediterranean countries where they are traditionally eaten as a snack, and also because they are being studied by the European Union as solid candidates for the "protein transition". And if you look at labels of many packaged foods, you will see that lupini flour is a very common ingredient.
Checking labels is not hard, it is not rocket science, but it does take some time and minor effort, but it is more than worth it, and can/could/may/might be a good strategy to defend against overeating.
As for the label I showed, it is the label for oat bran provided by Bulk Barn. Many people think that bran will give them a lot of fibre, but oats is a bit of an outlier here: the difference between whole-grain oats and oat bran is quite small, even negligible if you consume small amounts.1
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