Why do they make calories so confusing? Help!

Yeah, companies use tricks like that to make their products seem more calorie friendly. The truth is most people will eat the whole bag. We generally don't pop a bag of popcorn and save 2/3's of the bag for later. Same with a 16 oz soda. Most people drink the whole thing yet you will see the servings per container listed as 2, the 20 oz soda sometimes lists servings as 2.5. Again, most people drink the whole thing. You just have to pay attention to the serving sizes of EVERYTHING you eat.

My brain just popped :explode:

+1. 500 bonus points to anyone who can explain the logic behind that label.

I seriously made a status about this two days ago. Math is not my strong point, so yeah, just putting the calories per bag would really help me out.

Yeah, companies use tricks like that to make their products seem more calorie friendly. The truth is most people will eat the whole bag. We generally don't pop a bag of popcorn and save 2/3's of the bag for later. Same with a 16 oz soda. Most people drink the whole thing yet you will see the servings per container listed as 2, the 20 oz soda sometimes lists servings as 2.5. Again, most people drink the whole thing. You just have to pay attention to the serving sizes of EVERYTHING you eat.

I saw a candied apple at the store the other day and peeked at the calories out of curiosity. They were listed for 1/4 of the apple. :grumble:

So the serving size is 2tbsp unpopped & there are 3 servings per bag (about). So go with the 2tbsp unpopped serving size & multiply by 3.

540 calories
36g fat
45g carbs
6g protein

Also, poptarts. I used to think 200 calories was both poptarts in the wrapper. Nope. Just one.

Ha! i've totally made that mistake before!

Go to home page, click on food, decide which meal to add it to, click on add food and then just type in as much info as possible. Brand name, size of packet, (in grams) then click add to food. Then when you have the whole packet size, divide by portion size and it should then tell you how many calories in a portion and in the whole bag.

The front of the box should say how many grams of kernels there are per bag.

From a quick google, it looks like one bag contains 99g of kernels. (Double-check your box!)

So one bag contains 3 "servings" (lol) of popcorn.

33g of unpopped kernels has 180 calories.

Therefore each bag has 180x3 = 540 calories.

(This assumes all kernels pop... but honestly, you're hardly going to be left with that many that don't pop. Really what you should do is start with 540, then weigh the unpopped kernels at the end. Say you have 11g unpopped kernels at the end... that means that 60cals worth of kernels did not pop, so the total amount in the bag was 540-60 = 480 calories.)

Sorry, didn't realise you bought it unpopped. Ours comes already popped, usually coated in sugar.

The label itself doesn't even make sense, it says 2 tbsp unpopped = 4 cups popped. It lists 1 cup popped at 35 calories, but 2tbsp unpopped at 180 calories... 180 / 4 = 45 ???

Is it saying that by popping it, 20% of the calories magically disappear?

ETA: personally I'd just go with the unpopped number. 540

I tried to do the math and i got 420 calories for a bag. Is that right? So far nobody has actually answered lol

I always figure based on the popped calories. So 1 bag contains about 3 cups popped popcorn and that equals 105 calories.

no, it doesn't.

1 bag contains 6 tablespoons of unpopped popcorn, and can make 12 cups of popped popcorn. so do the math based on the 3 servings per bag of 2 tablespoons unpopped popcorn. you'll get 540 calories total.

seriously, pop a bag and then measure out in cups how much popped corn you get. it'll be a lot more than 3.

This is a good idea. But... Wouldn't the weight of the cooked kernel be less than the weight of an uncooked kernel? I'm thinking some of the moisture in it would be cooked out. Dried fruit/etc. tends to be less in weight than the original.

Not like we need anything further to complicate things.

I do think the entire bag would be ~420. The little bag of the 'low fat' variety is 100 so the big bag of any variety must be more?

(This assumes all kernels pop... but honestly, you're hardly going to be left with that many that don't pop. Really what you should do is start with 540, then weigh the unpopped kernels at the end. Say you have 11g unpopped kernels at the end... that means that 60cals worth of kernels did not pop, so the total amount in the bag was 540-60 = 480 calories.)

The front of the box should say how many grams of kernels there are per bag.

From a quick google, it looks like one bag contains 99g of kernels. (Double-check your box!)

So one bag contains 3 "servings" (lol) of popcorn.

33g of unpopped kernels has 180 calories.

Therefore each bag has 180x3 = 540 calories.

(This assumes all kernels pop... but honestly, you're hardly going to be left with that many that don't pop. Really what you should do is start with 540, then weigh the unpopped kernels at the end. Say you have 11g unpopped kernels at the end... that means that 60cals worth of kernels did not pop, so the total amount in the bag was 540-60 = 480 calories.)

Seriously, go with this.

And next time, buy the 100 cal bags, they're easier to log!

Or, I think the ValuTime brand actually breaks the calories down by bag.