When the nutrition labels don't add up...

julianadelbosque
julianadelbosque Posts: 84
in Food and Nutrition
I've noticed recently that some canned items I've used, mainly beans, do not have an accurate serving count. A 400g can of black beans came out to just under 300g. I drained the beans, but I'm pretty sure there's not 100g of water compared to the amount of beans. And a can of chili said that there were about 2 servings in a can of about 250 grams each. When I put it in a bowl on the scale, the entire container was 400g.

I've always seen to go by the weight of food, but it's confusing when the supposed weight and the actual weight are so off. When a container says 2 servings, but one serving contains significantly over half the amount of food, I get nervous that my calorie counts will be off because something is wrong. Anyone know what's up here?

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  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    I've noticed recently that some canned items I've used, mainly beans, do not have an accurate serving count. A 400g can of black beans came out to just under 300g. I drained the beans, but I'm pretty sure there's not 100g of water compared to the amount of beans. And a can of chili said that there were about 2 servings in a can of about 250 grams each. When I put it in a bowl on the scale, the entire container was 400g.

    I've always seen to go by the weight of food, but it's confusing when the supposed weight and the actual weight are so off. When a container says 2 servings, but one serving contains significantly over half the amount of food, I get nervous that my calorie counts will be off because something is wrong. Anyone know what's up here?

    You might try actually weighing the drained liquid from the can of beans; it's probably denser than the beans (i.e., the liquid weighs more than an equal volume of beans).

    As for the issue of servings in a can or other package, I run into this a lot. It seems to be a rounding issue. If they've decided to call a cup a serving, and a cup of the food weighs 247 grams, and the can holds 15 oz (425 g) of the food, then the label will say there are "about" 2 servings in the container, when it's actually only about 1.7 servings. You should weigh the amount you're going to eat, then divide that weight by what the label says one serving weighs (that's the amount the calories and nutritional information are calculated for, not half of whatever is in the can). So if you end up putting roughly half the can in your bowl (say, 210 g in my example), then you would say you had .85 serving (210/247). If you ate the whole can, you would say you had 1.7 servings

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