Nutritional Information on Food is Wrong!?

chivalryder

Over time, I've been noticing that my macros and my calorie intake on MFP hasn't been matching. I have frequently been under my calorie goal, but over on my macros. Today, I decided to look into it.

My macro for today currently reads 121g of carbs, 49g of fat, and 163g of protein. MFP claims that is a total of 1404 calories. My calculator says otherwise. If I punch the numbers into my calculator (4 for protein and carbs, 9 for fat), it comes out to 1577 calories.

I don't know about you, but 173 calories, a 12% difference, is a hell of a lot.

I immediately thought MFP was at fault, calculating the numbers wrong, but I remembered most of the food I eat comes out of a bag. The nutritional information I'm using comes off of that, so I looked at their numbers. I'll use two examples:

So Delicious Vanilla Coconut Milk: 10g carbs, 5g fat, 0g protein. They claim it has 80 calories per serving. Assuming their macro is correct, my calculator says it's 85 calories.

Irresistibles Mango Chunks (frozen) - 24g of carbs, 1g of protein. They say it's 90 calories. My calculator says 100.

It's essentially the same story for everything else on my list: All of the nutritional information's calories is lower than what their macro says it should be! I think, for now on, I will be making corrections for everything I eat.

Ugh... More work to log everything. -.-'

DonaA123

bump for later

dinosnopro

Could they be rounding their numbers?












inb4 Big corporations trying to keep us fat.

BSchoberg

OCD much? :huh:

I totally believe your calculations - and yes, it's frustrating that the information isn't more accurate. BUT - you might have it backwards --- maybe all the macros are overstated on your packages?

Here are the critical questions: Are you losing weight? Are you going to spend this much time re-calculating the calorie/macro totals for the rest of your life? For me - yes and no way in hell... But you do you.

wellbert

Sugar alcohols
actual alcohols
And sometimes carbohydrate calories can be excluded from the label if certain types of fiber are present in food. (Does that mean these net carb people are double dipping? Probably.)

This is due to labeling rules.

For example: I have a protein powder that has 7g/protein per scoop and 0 calories, because of labeling rules.

exacerbe

If you really think about it, everything is a guesstimation.

Not every apple is the same exact size. Not every hamburger is exactly the same weight. So you're off by 10 or so calories per serving... so what.

A lot of it is based on label guidelines, rounding, whether or not they claim sugar alcohol, fillers, certain binding agents, etc as actual calories.

If you're concerned about it, eat whole foods and do not rely on packaged foods...

awilmeri

I'm pretty sure they are allowed to be off the calorie count by a certain percentage. Im also sure most places round macros so it might really be .8 fat and 1.4 protein and so on and so on... It's really probably not worth changing everything due to the rounding.

catmcknight

The other thing you may want to watch, and I've noticed this quite by accident: if you eat soups, such as progresso soups, where the serving size is 1 cup and there are "about 2" in the entire can.... be careful!!!! Those cans are 18.5 to 19 oz! Which means that there are more than two cups in there, 2.5 to 3 oz are not being accounted for. I've been adding "whole can" servings to the database as I go along, but it's easy to get fooled by this so you may want to be careful.

Judyndisguise

Bumping this. Finding it very interesting.

opalescence

When I first started almost 4 yrs ago, I did this. I noticed the calorie counter I was using was off slightly on the foods I entered. It drove me nuts so I started writing down the nutrition info straight from the label and started doing my own entries. (yes very time consuming) it was worth it to me in the beginning because I learned that it is truly only an estimate and you can get real close but you can never be perfect. Plus I learned how to tell exactly how many calories are in the things I eat, including stuff I rarely eat but because if I ate it I had to know. :indifferent:

Most of the entries are user created and some dont think its important to track certain macros so they leave them blank or add the wrong amounts, plus some dont know how to read nutrition labels at all. so just look at the confirmations, if several users have confirmed accuracy use that listing, but I do certainly look at the info that’s listed to see if it generally falls in line with what I know to be accurate. Note: Do watch the portion sizes they have calculated, some are not accurate in that way either… I’m using a cereal that has the portion size figured, well I’m not really sure how they have 250mcl figured lol…

edited to add: smileys:flowerforyou:

needamulligan

I've noticed some discrepancies as well (even scanning the bar codes). That seems to be why there are now multiple entries for the same food - highly frustrating. I wish there was a way to edit food that is in error. I'm chalking it up to margin of error. If it takes 3500 calories to gain/lose 1 pound that's 20-21 days before the discrepancies will make a difference. My bigger frustration has been that the exercise calories are high. I finally got a HRM to get a good idea of my calories burned.

bokodasu

And sometimes carbohydrate calories can be excluded from the label if certain types of fiber are present in food. (Does that mean these net carb people are double dipping? Probably.)

This. In the US, manufacturers are allowed to list fiber as 0 calories/g. They're also allowed to count it as 4. (In Canada, they always have to count it as 4.) When I found this out I went through my pantry and freezer with a calculator and found that generally, if something had a health claim on it, it followed the 0 rule, and if it didn't, it counted 4.

On the sort-of plus side, your body really isn't going to get 4 calories per gram out of that fiber, so probably you're not as far off as you think you are. But yeah, it's a good thing to be aware of.

yo_andi

Remember that calorie goals are estimates, calorie expenditures are estimates, and oh hey, calorie counts in foods are estimates as well...

It's science, sure. But it's definitely not an exact science. Don't break your head over it.

waldo56

Remember that calorie goals are estimates, calorie expenditures are estimates, and oh hey, calorie counts in foods are estimates as well...

It's science, sure. But it's definitely not an exact science. Don't break your head over it.

Not to mention that the estimates for calories goals are based off the estimates for calorie counts in foods.

Assuming a random distribution of effor in the food calorie counts, the error will effectively cancel out.

Inaccurate calorie counts on food does not introduce error into the system as it relates to losing weight via calorie control.

twilight_princess

Nice post. Like someone else said fibre is sometimes counted as a carbohydrate but of course is indigestible so doesn't have a calorific value. Another thing is that the 4/4/9 calories of carb/protein/fat is just an average. Sometimes carbs can only have 3calories per gram and protein 5 etc. If the nutrition on the label is worked out by bomb calorimetry then the values may not 'add up' but the analysis will be more correct than just using the 4/4/9 average.

Becca_Bravo

I agree with the comments that mention not becoming too focused on your calorie goal and instead focusing on your progress...ten calories here, twenty calories there, even 112 calories over one day, it doesn't make a difference as long as you've developed a lifestyle of healthy eating and exercise. Don't forget, your calorie goal isn't as important as your weight-loss goal (within reason, no cutting out meals to lower cal. counts, etc). Knowing what is in your food is important, but don't overdo it and become obsessed because that can lead to eating disorders and unhealthy attitudes. Good luck everyone!