Food Label Lies - you won't FREAKING Believe this!

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cutmd
cutmd Posts: 1,168 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Have you been wondering why your dutiful calorie counting hasn't resulted in the amount of weight loss you expected? The calories in your foods might be just plain WRONG.

For about a year now I have been using Galeo's salad dressing. It's delicious and supposedly 14 calories per tablespoon. It has been featured on biggest loser for the longest time, and I've mentioned it many times on this website. Well, today I go to whole foods for more and they tell me they pulled it from the shelves because they got caught LYING about their nutritional info. They have 4X the calories and 6X the fat amounts claimed:

http://www.usgovernment-news.com/?prID=58299. Considering I've had a salad about 5X a week with it, it's added up for me!!! :angry:

Here is a general article about false food labels: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=118235

It turns out the government allows for 20% error on food labels (I bet the majority err towards the higher side) - sadly I am working with a 20% deficit as I try to lose these last few pounds, so that's significant!

Stick with whole unpackaged foods as much as you can people - just like diet pill manufacturers and exercise machine makers, food companies make money off of us dieters and will do or say anything to get more. :mad:
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Replies

  • doll2002
    doll2002 Posts: 427
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    WOW!! Thanks for sharing that.
  • ObviousIndigo
    ObviousIndigo Posts: 382 Member
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    Good reason to stick to whole foods! Wow! how upsetting!!!
  • SunLove8
    SunLove8 Posts: 693 Member
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    It really makes me angry when company's feel the need to lie. It's sickening and they shouldn't be able to sell food products after being caught lieing. It's people's lives that they are playing with and it's sad. I agree about staying away from pre packaged foods as much as possiable. Thanks for sharing!
  • brancakes
    brancakes Posts: 263 Member
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    Oprah did a segment on this once! it was crazy 20% is way too much!
  • RMinVA
    RMinVA Posts: 1,085 Member
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    I have known that for sometime now.

    Here is another eye opener for you.about why you should use a scale when measuring calorie dense foods.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjWPclrWVY
  • JMM_623_
    JMM_623_ Posts: 68 Member
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    bump
  • jenn_18
    jenn_18 Posts: 32
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    def a reason to stick to whole foods! wow!
  • DeDrACaRrOlL
    DeDrACaRrOlL Posts: 1
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    thanks nice to know about it i have been eating it t oo
  • Painten
    Painten Posts: 499 Member
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    I used to work for a food manufacturer. We had more than one product that the label didn't match the nutritional info. The products did originally but with recipie changes the labels just didn't change to match. Pretty much every change was due to cost cutting and ingredients being replaced by cheaper ingredients.
  • pilotgirl2007
    pilotgirl2007 Posts: 368 Member
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    Maybe instead of cracking down on McDonalds and their advertising etc our government should focus on making sure we are getting the correct information on our food labels.
  • staciekins
    staciekins Posts: 453 Member
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    Oh wow! They shouldn't be able to lie 20%. I can understand 5% as sometimes things accidentally get messed up during production and can fluctuate slightly. But 20%!!!!!! Outrageous!!!
  • therobinator
    therobinator Posts: 832 Member
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    Don't have time right now, but I will have to read these links later. Ugh. :(
  • emilysebastian
    emilysebastian Posts: 245 Member
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    BUMP, and thanks for sharing--WTF?!?!
  • GettingThisDone100
    GettingThisDone100 Posts: 27 Member
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    Wow (really just commenting so I can find this later)
  • EbonyGemstoneHealth
    EbonyGemstoneHealth Posts: 249 Member
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    Yeah this is why I don't give in much to all these weight watchers meals/desserts everything and stuff,they are not worth the hassle,and because of these lies,grr.
    Wholefoods all the way! :D
  • cathcakey
    cathcakey Posts: 288 Member
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    It's ridiculous they can get away with that!!
  • freerange
    freerange Posts: 1,722 Member
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    If I remember right, my local news channel did a piece like this once, about fast food restaurants. The law says they can’t be UNDER the amount of calories they post, but there is nothing stopping them from being over the amount of calories posted on their nutritional information about each item.

    So if Burger King post that a whopper w/cheese has 1000 calories, it must have at least 1000 calories, but it can have twice that without breaking the advertising laws.
  • Sasha_Bear
    Sasha_Bear Posts: 625 Member
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    Oh no say it ain't so! That really shouldn't be allowed!:mad:
  • Kirstie_C26
    Kirstie_C26 Posts: 490 Member
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    bump
  • megteg
    megteg Posts: 97 Member
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    Kudos to Whole Foods! I think I'll keep shopping there when I can...

    My favorite is when they sneak in extra "servings" in nutrition labels. My fiance was about to get a muffin for me that was ~200 calories, until he realized that the nutrition facts said in tiny print there was supposedly FOUR SERVINGS.

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