Badly Labeled/Misleading Nutrition Info

knollmma

I purchased some Orville Redenbacher Cheddar Cheese popcorn pretty much solely for the fact that it looked delicious and the nutrition information made it appear that 1 serving was only 30 calories. They list 1 cup of popped popcorn= 30 calories and there are 2.5 servings in a bag. They also list that there are 180 calories in 2 tbsp of unpopped popcorn = 4.5 cups of popped popcorn.

Anyways, following my interpretation of their nutrition info, it looked a whole lot like you could eat one big bag for only 75 calories. I thought this seemed insane, so I contacted Orville Redenbacher to figure out if I was interpreting the info correctly.

Apparently one serving is actually 4.5 cups = 180 calories and there are 11 cups in one bag. Their listing is so misleading and I was quite upset to learn that after eating an entire big bag, I had consumed closer to 330 calories instead of 75!

Moral of the story...use common sense when reading nutrition info. If it seems to good to be true...it probably is!

Has anybody else come across badly labeled foods we should watch out for?

Twelve7s

I thought the same thing just now when I bought a box of Act II Kettle corn. I believed that a whole bag would be only 75 calories and I was excited because I liked how it tasted when I tried a few pieces at my mothers house. Boy I sure am glad the MFP iPhone app has a barcode scanner and showed me different numbers or I might have went ahead and ate a whole bag and never knew it was actually 440 calories and not 75.

That's terribly misleading, I wonder if we can sue them for that? Wasn't the whole point of the new labels to make it easier to understand what we are putting in our bodies? It seems popcorn companies don't think they need to follow the rules like everyone else, who do they think they are? Grrr

ncwall

i have not had the same problem but I know there is so much to learn and just doing the best i can each day. The bar code scanner is a life saver and try to use it on eveyrthing I can

http://skinnypop.com/

135 calroies per 3.5 cups per mfp

This is a good alternative that I have found for popcorn. Hope it helps

bikinibeliever

I find pancake mix a little rough to really understand. It says 140 calories for 1/3 cup. But the recipe calls for 2 cups to make the mix. So, does that mean 1/3 cup after mixed or 1/3 cup before you add milk, eggs and oil? I think it's just the mix. So you have to do all the math following the 2 cup recipe before you can even decide if it's something you want. Yeah, I hate pancakes now!

Wenchilada

I was eyeing a box of gluten-free English muffins tonight in the grocer's freezer case, that happened to have an in-store coupon included. I haven't had an English muffin in for-freaking-ever. So, being a good inquisitive consumer, I checked the nutrition information on the label. Only 110 calories per serving! Wow. Not bad for GF (seems like most "replica" bread products are higher in calories & fat than the wheat counterparts). Then, my skeptical side kicked in, and I checked to see what constituted a serving. 1/2 of a muffin. Pfft. Who the hell eats 1/2 of an English muffin? (I'm sure there are plenty of you out there, actually, but not I.) Anyway, I passed, because they didn't quite meet my idea of a good thing to add to my diet. And actually, having just gone to browse the nutritional information of "regular" English muffins versus the gluten-free ones I was looking at, they have TWICE the calories. Which, I guess, is why the serving size is only half a muffin - to make the stats look prettier on the package - but they're the same size as regular ones, too! :mad:

Anyway, personal rant aside and long story short, I feel your pain.

sun33082

I've noticed that about bagged popcorn before. Very confusing. I just make my own popcorn and measure it before I pop it.

andreamkelly

Some restaurants give the nutrition info for 1/2 plate of food (small print), then serve you the full plate. My husband and son went to Pei Wei and he was so proud that he'd had all that food for ??? calories... I told him to check their website, because they list the info for half plate. He was so disappointed and won't be going back there too soon.

sun33082

Some restaurants give the nutrition info for 1/2 plate of food (small print), then serve you the full plate. My husband and son went to Pei Wei and he was so proud that he'd had all that food for ??? calories... I told him to check their website, because they list the info for half plate. He was so disappointed and won't be going back there too soon.

Wow that's awful. Never would have thought of that one. But I did get annoyed when I looked up the nutrition info for a frozen yogurt restaurant (is that what you would call it?). anyway they listed their nutrition info in 1 oz servings when you get a 16oz container. But then I found out they actually price the yogurt by the ounce so it made a little more sense, but still. Misleading if you don't look at the serving size (which you always should).

TourThePast

The problem is not misleading labels, but a society in which people have developed some pretty crazy ideas about what constitutes a sensible portion size.

Having said that, I do have one big annoyance with serving sizes. Here in England I often see a "typical serving" that does not divide equally into the packet. For instance a 100g packet that quotes a "Typical 65g serving" - if a typical serving is 65g, what am I supposed to do with the other 35g?

Just tell me how much is in a packet. Or half a packet.

I'm a geeky maths fiend, it's not a problem for me, but for a lot of people it is.

It's not just well educated people who deserve to be healthy!