Calorie Counters Beware!
warden1962
Posts: 10
I was just fooled again by another frozen meal package! I was lured in by the mouth-watering lasagna on the box top, with the quote: "280 delicious calories"....I failed to see the fine print "per serving".....I have a hard time with fine print now, despite my new glasses! Who buys one of these little things and shares it? And the box said 2.5 servings...who is .5 of a person, a little kid? Anyway, my mistake at not looking carefully at the package and caloric count, or not wanting to go round up another person and a half to share my lunch with me today! But I am walking home from work today, so the 45 minute walk will make up for the extra 1 1/2 servings I just downed! Good luck to all of you in your daily quest for fitness and healthy eating :happy:
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Replies
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This happened to me with Amy's brand enchiladas. It was x amount of calories for ONE enchilada, but there were 2 to a package, and they were not individually wrapped either. Oh well, they were delicious. You just automatically assume if its a frozen meal like that, its one serving!0
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If it tastes too good to be true...
I was snacking on some crackers the other day that were only 60 calories per serving. Apparently, these silver dollar sized crackers are only 2 to a serving. D'oh!0 -
UGH! This is like, the worst trick ever!!! I'm so absurdly dilligent about reading the full label these days. I also very often find myself adding new foods to the database when tracking my calories on MFP. Does anyone else do this? I feel better knowing that I've read and understood the labels and have all the information entered correctly.0
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Yes it is crazy when the boxes do that! I found this out a long time ago but occasionally I still get fooled! I found out that even the labels are allowed to be off by 20% in any direction per guidelines and I have caught them being off by more then 40-50% too. I weighed my bacon that said 2 pieces (15g) equal 80 calories. Well all of the "pieces" were well over 15g each! So one piece of bacon was about 60% off of the label and more then double the calories! IKK! I find that weighing things is best and going off of the grams on not "serving" pieces or cups is best.
Be aware and get a scale baby!0 -
I have to add in a small rant. I love pickles and just happened to look at the jar while I was enjoying a spear. One serving is half a spear! Who eats half a spear?!? Who comes up with the serving sizes on some things. Just put one pickle = 10 cals!0
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I have to add in a small rant. I love pickles and just happened to look at the jar while I was enjoying a spear. One serving is half a spear! Who eats half a spear?!? Who comes up with the serving sizes on some things. Just put one pickle = 10 cals!
Haha! On my jar of pickles it says a serving is 3/4 of a pickle, haha.0 -
Ive been saying for years that they need to adjust the calories on a pint of icecream according to a normal serving......the whole pint.0
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Urgh, did that with a pizza last week, thought it was per 1/2, it was actually per 1/3.
Worse still, I bought some fish, estimated 300g in the box (for 2) and had calories per average serving. I weighed both fish, it came out to 340g altogether and I calculated the calories, It was 70 calories more, per fish. What really got me that even if the weight of the fish came up to 300g, the estimated weight on the box, it would still be more than the 'average serving' of one fillet. That going by the per 100g calories, the fish would have to be 139g each to be the calories of the 'average serving'.
I should not need to do such calculations on a fillet of fish with 2 portions in the box.0 -
Just because it's in one package doesn't make it one serving...0
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Ive been saying for years that they need to adjust the calories on a pint of icecream according to a normal serving......the whole pint.
Agreed, but it's not hard to realize that there are 4 "servings" per pint.0 -
the info panels are a "must read" onall foods!0
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No offense (and I truly mean that), but processed food like that isn't going to help you health-wise in the long run. Take it from someone who learned the hard way.
Good luck to you though
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I did the SAME EXACT thing today. I grabbed my microwaveable chef boyardee and was like, awesome calorie count and protein! Not so much, that 215 calorie container is actually 2 servings. Who would eat half of a microwaveable lunch??0
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LOL we have all made those mistakes. it is not the end of the world, simply keep it in mind now. It's not the first or last time it will happen most likely. We just keep moving forward and moving along best we can and it still works. Good job catching that. 0
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I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Serving Size is calculated based on the recommended healthy intake of a particular nutrient (eg. carbs/sugar, fat, sodium) per serving rather than the amount the average person would put in a bowl.
And don't get me started on how one single chocolate bar can be more than one serving!0 -
I think the part everyone should beware is eating frozen prepacked meals as part of a healthy diet.0
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I noticed the other day on a chocolate bar it said "3.2 servings per package". Really? Surely they could have just made it 3 and adjusted the details accordingly? Or just put the details for the whole bar (seeing as it was a "single person" size bar.
I ended up breaking it into three, eating the smallest "3rd" myself and giving the other 2 to my husband.0 -
I know how you feel. On one frozen meal that I bought once, it said 100-something calories for 1/6 of a pack. Who the heck eats 1/6 of anything. It looked enough for 2 people!0
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I think the part everyone should beware is eating frozen prepacked meals as part of a healthy diet.
Agree to this! Once in awhile is ok but the sodium amounts are shocking!0 -
And this is why they teach you to cook as a child. Those 45 minutes could have been better spent preparing a healthy meal.0
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UGH! This is like, the worst trick ever!!! I'm so absurdly dilligent about reading the full label these days. I also very often find myself adding new foods to the database when tracking my calories on MFP. Does anyone else do this? I feel better knowing that I've read and understood the labels and have all the information entered correctly.
you can verify the information if the product or food's already in the database. You can estimate how accurate something is by how many times its been verified. I often compare the label to what's already in the database and then verify it.0 -
A lot of this type of packaging (2.34 servings per container etc) is because eating 'healthy' has become such a concern. People want to catch your eye by marketing their product as low cal, low fat, low sugar etc so they cut the portions into smaller sizes so their package can boast any of the above. Its sad that portions arent really what is considered a full serving for most people. I would reccomend taking an off day and cook cook cook and freeze your own portions. I can have a giant piece of my home made lasagna that i KNOW is good for me for the same amount of calories as 1/4 of one of the store bought small ones.0
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I have to add in a small rant. I love pickles and just happened to look at the jar while I was enjoying a spear. One serving is half a spear! Who eats half a spear?!? Who comes up with the serving sizes on some things. Just put one pickle = 10 cals!
Haha! On my jar of pickles it says a serving is 3/4 of a pickle, haha.
That's ridiculous. What would you do with the other 1/4?0 -
I had an (arguably) worse one of these the other day: I was making a pasta dish from the newest issue of Cooking Light that claimed to be 332 calories per serving... but when I plugged the ingredients in to the MFP recipe builder, it was actually 538! That's a 60% difference! I was so mad, I wrote them an angry email, haha. Righteous indignation FTW!
For the record: I double checked my ingredients, and they were all pretty standard, calorie count wise. Things like linguine, chicken breast, raw spinach and whole milk. Not a whole lot of places where I could reasonably have been way off.0 -
You are better off eating a banana and an apple, more nutritious, more vitamins and more energy all round, yes they are filling as well :-)0
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Ive been saying for years that they need to adjust the calories on a pint of icecream according to a normal serving......the whole pint.
yes.0 -
It's always smart to determine just how much a serving is -- especially if you count calories and not portions.0
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I had an (arguably) worse one of these the other day: I was making a pasta dish from the newest issue of Cooking Light that claimed to be 332 calories per serving... but when I plugged the ingredients in to the MFP recipe builder, it was actually 538! That's a 60% difference! I was so mad, I wrote them an angry email, haha. Righteous indignation FTW!
For the record: I double checked my ingredients, and they were all pretty standard, calorie count wise. Things like linguine, chicken breast, raw spinach and whole milk. Not a whole lot of places where I could reasonably have been way off.
Unless you had the number of servings per recipe wrong, that seems really bad.0 -
It's always smart to determine just how much a serving is -- especially if you count calories and not portions.
And when you weigh things you'll find big differences from measuring, too.0 -
And this is why they teach you to cook as a child. Those 45 minutes could have been better spent preparing a healthy meal.
Really? I thought that people learn to cook so they could eat.
And who is "they"?0
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