I really need help in understanding this please.

Okay, so I frequent my Asian Supermarket. I eat a boatload of seasoned nori and while on one of my latest excursions, I came across cookies. Delicious, amazing cookies. My mouth nearly dropped from my connective tissue when I read the calorie content. I can NOT for the life of me find any information online by searching the brand name or the name of the cookies in English or Vietnamese. So please, tell me if you can if the following information some how makes sense or someone somewhere made an unfortunate (for me) mistake in how many calories these cookies have.

The first cookie tastes like a light butter or shortbread cookie. So good, and what makes it amazing is the calorie content.

Distributor: K-FAT INC.
English Name: Delicious Leaf Cookies
Vietnamese Name (I don't know how to do characters, so here is the plain word spelling): Banh Bo La
Ingredients: Wheat flour, water, sugar, soyabean oil, butter, vanilla.
Nutritional information:

Now mind you, the ENTIRE container is 250g, and this nutrition label is per 100g. So that would mean there is only 50 calories in the ENTIRE container. Doesn't sound likely with those ingredients (butter, flour, sugar etc.).

So, per 100g:

Calories: 20
Fat: 0
Saturated fat: 0
Cholesterol: 0
Sodium: 100mg
Carbohydrates: 3g
Fiber: 0
Sugar: 1g
Protein: 0

Now with the calorie exchange numbers it works out correct, fat=9 calories, protein= 4 calories, carbs=4 calories. BUT HOW IS IT POSSIBLE that the entire container of buttery, sugary goodness only has 50 calories in it? It doesn't make sense. Is this for real? Now, believe me, I am not sitting here eating containers of these things as my only food, but for the occasional treat, eating the whole container is a bit more than amazing. I have another container of cookies as well with low cals, however, we'll keep it to this first, because the ingredients in here don't match up to the cals to me.

Replies

  • If the ingredients really are the only ingredients, and wheat flour is #1, then there's no way they are only 20 calories per 100g. 100g of wheat flour is 300+ calories. Even saying that they are 50% water would mean they are still 150+ calories per 100g. That's just counting the wheat flour (carbs and proteins) and not the calorie heavy oil and butter, which may be trace for flavoring, or as much as a quarter of the weight, depending on the recipe.

    Long story short, its an error or a lie.
  • msacurrie
    msacurrie Posts: 144 Member
    Interesting...can you see if anyone brand makes this treat and compare the labels?
  • axialmeow
    axialmeow Posts: 382 Member
    The label is not accurate at all. If you need to track your cals carefully I would avoid it. If not, a cookie now and then is probably totally fine!
  • If the ingredients really are the only ingredients, and wheat flour is #1, then there's no way they are only 20 calories per 100g. 100g of wheat flour is 300+ calories. Even saying that they are 50% water would mean they are still 150+ calories per 100g. That's just counting the wheat flour (carbs and proteins) and not the calorie heavy oil and butter, which may be trace for flavoring, or as much as a quarter of the weight, depending on the recipe.

    Long story short, its an error or a lie.

    Eh, yeah, that is what I was afraid of. I mean, I basically felt as though that was the case. It is odd though, all of the cookies (even by different distributors) show relatively low calories. Possibly a faulty transfer of info from the native language of the distributor(s) to English? I wouldn't think all of that would be intentional (not saying that you were saying it is, I'm just typing out loud haha)