Cooking spray is NOT zero calories...I can prove it...start counting it in your calorie count!

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  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.
  • DarthSamson
    DarthSamson Posts: 172 Member
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    Serving Size about 1/4 second spray (.2g)

    Servings Per Container about 476
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
    edited May 2016
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    The law in the USA allows up to 20% deviation from the numbers shown on nutritional labels.

    http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2012/08/21/when-nutrition-labels-lie
    http://www.livescience.com/26799-calorie-counts-inaccurate.html

    There are problems with the methods used for determining calorie content, as well:

    http://www.businessinsider.com/calorie-counts-arent-accurate-2013-7

    Here's the key thing to understand: the numbers on the nutritional labels are meant to be a guideline, not a scientifically accurate measurement.

    Also, bear in mind that your bathroom scale and your food scale will be inaccurate in their measurements, unless you spend a LOT of money on them. This means your portion sizes and your own weight will not be 100% accurate.

    I have better things to do than spend time worrying about minuscule calorie counts that qualify as "noise". I don't pay attention to the little things like calories in cooking spray -- and I've lost a total of around 80 pounds. Huh -- guess I'm doing something right.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    Yes, there are some calories in every food but if you truly spray a quick light spray it isn't going to make much of a difference.
    I sprayed and measured the amount of oil and it took a much longer spray than I usually do to fill up a teaspoon.
    If you spray things very heavily then you might want to add 10-40 calories.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
    edited May 2016
    Options
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    By the way, how did you know you got a quarter or third of a second of spray?
  • NewMEEE2016
    NewMEEE2016 Posts: 192 Member
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    Serving Size about 1/4 second spray (.2g)

    Servings Per Container about 476

    Where do you get this calculation? If this is correct, it means there are fewer than 5 tablespoons in a can- since all it contains is OIL and oil is about 100 cals per tablespoon. It's been decades since I bout this stuff- but even at $2 a can it would be outlandishly expensive- compared to just buying a good OIL. You could buy a very high quality OLIVE OIL or a wonderful organic BUTTER for a lot less than that- either of which would add flavor to your food and don't contain any mystery ingredients.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited May 2016
    Options
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    I'm skeptical about this, even if you didn't bother reading about the length of the expected spray on the bottle. It's OIL. Even the same oils people use in other forms, like olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil. It's the same thing I do when getting olive oil and putting it in a spritzer. The whole point to me (and everyone I've ever discussed it with) is that spraying makes it easier to use very little.

    I happen to log 10 calories when I use it (or the spritzer), but that's really meaningless, like logging black coffee (which I don't do). I would honestly be shocked to hear that anyone sprayed enough to be a whole teaspoon and didn't realize it should be logged. Again, it's oil. It's not "oil substitute."
  • NewMEEE2016
    NewMEEE2016 Posts: 192 Member
    Options
    vingogly wrote: »
    The law in the USA allows up to 20% deviation from the numbers shown on nutritional labels.

    http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2012/08/21/when-nutrition-labels-lie
    http://www.livescience.com/26799-calorie-counts-inaccurate.html

    There are problems with the methods used for determining calorie content, as well:

    http://www.businessinsider.com/calorie-counts-arent-accurate-2013-7

    Here's the key thing to understand: the numbers on the nutritional labels are meant to be a guideline, not a scientifically accurate measurement.

    Also, bear in mind that your bathroom scale and your food scale will be inaccurate in their measurements, unless you spend a LOT of money on them. This means your portion sizes and your own weight will not be 100% accurate.

    I have better things to do than spend time worrying about minuscule calorie counts that qualify as "noise". I don't pay attention to the little things like calories in cooking spray -- and I've lost a total of around 80 pounds. Huh -- guess I'm doing something right.

    The point, to me, is that we as consumers deserve accurate information so we can each determine what we do or do not wish to consume- or completely ignore the info. That is our *right*. I have not read the article you reference yet (thanks for posting)- but if correct, 20% is a ridiculous margin IMHO. Other countries have much stricter laws- especially as regarding additives & preservatives.
  • healthy_hermione
    healthy_hermione Posts: 64 Member
    Options
    Thank you for sharing. I already knew it wasn't /exactly/ 0 calories but it's cool seeing the math.

    I still prefer sprays over using actual oil though. 100 calories for a tablespoon just isn't worth it to me. I need to actually go buy a butter spray soon.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
    Options
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    I'm skeptical about this, even if you didn't bother reading about the length of the expected spray on the bottle. It's OIL. Even the same oils people use in other forms, like olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil. It's the same thing I do when getting olive oil and putting it in a spritzer. The whole point to me (and everyone I've ever discussed it with) is that spraying makes it easier to use very little.

    I happen to log 10 calories when I use it (or the spritzer), but that's really meaningless, like logging black coffee (which I don't do). I would honestly be shocked to hear that anyone sprayed enough to be a whole teaspoon and didn't realize it should be logged. Again, it's oil. It's not "oil substitute."

    Oil, propelled by an aerosol can. The spray could have been mostly air, some additive liquid and god knows what else, for all I knew. The ingredients certainly do not list just oil

    I guess I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say you're skeptical: That I thought this, or that my recounting of what I thought is indeed accurate? Or that a lot of people thought this way?
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Options
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    By the way, how did you know you got a quarter or third of a second of spray?

    Counter question: Does it matter more if I don't care about 3 calories or 2?
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
    Options
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    By the way, how did you know you got a quarter or third of a second of spray?

    Counter question: Does it matter more if I don't care about 3 calories or 2?

    No

    But I was thinking more 2 vs 10 or 30/50, and then repeated usage. A quarter of a second just doesn't seem like a realistic time frame to coat a pan, for example, so I was wondering how you came to know that you were doing 1/3 second and not maybe 2 seconds. How are you delivering the serving size on the can that I'm assuming you're okay with? Is this a realisticly measurable quantity?

    Now will you answer my question?
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Options
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    By the way, how did you know you got a quarter or third of a second of spray?

    Counter question: Does it matter more if I don't care about 3 calories or 2?

    No

    But I was thinking more 2 vs 10 or 30/50, and then repeated usage. A quarter of a second just doesn't seem like a realistic time frame to coat a pan, for example, so I was wondering how you came to know that you were doing 1/3 second and not maybe 2 seconds. How are you delivering the serving size on the can that I'm assuming you're okay with? Is this a realisticly measurable quantity?

    Now will you answer my question?

    The answer is simple. Tap it. Like a perfume atomizer. One tap is a fraction of a second long, the serving size. The minutiae if it's a quarter of a second (below 5 calories) or a third (still below 5) don't matter.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Options
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    I'm skeptical about this, even if you didn't bother reading about the length of the expected spray on the bottle. It's OIL. Even the same oils people use in other forms, like olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil. It's the same thing I do when getting olive oil and putting it in a spritzer. The whole point to me (and everyone I've ever discussed it with) is that spraying makes it easier to use very little.

    I happen to log 10 calories when I use it (or the spritzer), but that's really meaningless, like logging black coffee (which I don't do). I would honestly be shocked to hear that anyone sprayed enough to be a whole teaspoon and didn't realize it should be logged. Again, it's oil. It's not "oil substitute."

    Oil, propelled by an aerosol can. The spray could have been mostly air, some additive liquid and god knows what else, for all I knew. The ingredients certainly do not list just oil

    I guess I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say you're skeptical: That I thought this, or that my recounting of what I thought is indeed accurate? Or that a lot of people thought this way?

    That "a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels." I didn't read that as about what you thought, but suggesting that that's how many people or people in general think of spray oils.

    My sister uses it and is staying with me right now, so I grabbed a can she just bought. The front says "organic extra virgin olive oil no stick cooking spray." Nothing about it being a substitute or magically less caloric than olive oil -- it markets itself AS olive oil.

    The bottom says 0 calories per .37 g serving. Surely we all know .37 g is tiny, no?

    If you look at the ingredients, the # 1 one is EVOO. Afterwards there is only "organic grain alcohol (for clarity)" and "soy lecithin (prevents sticking."

    It also says "serving size 1/5 second spray (.37 g)" (which I agree is absurd) and about 360 servings per container.

    So I have a really hard time thinking that anyone who buys it casually (based on the front) thinks it is other than olive oil, and also that anyone who reads the back more carefully would assume it was expected to use a tsp or more or, if you did, it would be calorie free or even lower cal than other olive oils.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
    Options
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    By the way, how did you know you got a quarter or third of a second of spray?

    Counter question: Does it matter more if I don't care about 3 calories or 2?

    No

    But I was thinking more 2 vs 10 or 30/50, and then repeated usage. A quarter of a second just doesn't seem like a realistic time frame to coat a pan, for example, so I was wondering how you came to know that you were doing 1/3 second and not maybe 2 seconds. How are you delivering the serving size on the can that I'm assuming you're okay with? Is this a realisticly measurable quantity?

    Now will you answer my question?

    The answer is simple. Tap it. Like a perfume atomizer. One tap is a fraction of a second long, the serving size. The minutiae if it's a quarter of a second (below 5 calories) or a third (still below 5) don't matter.

    Wow. I just did that and it barely covered a corner of the pan! Oh well, it's good to know a lot of people get full use of the product at two calories per meal, even though I may not

    And earlier I wasn't trying to differentiate between the 1/4 and 1/3. I just meant that some cans possibly state 1/3 and others 1/4. And yet others 1/5 as lemurcat just said. Geez. Ridiculous
  • NewMEEE2016
    NewMEEE2016 Posts: 192 Member
    Options
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    I'm skeptical about this, even if you didn't bother reading about the length of the expected spray on the bottle. It's OIL. Even the same oils people use in other forms, like olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil. It's the same thing I do when getting olive oil and putting it in a spritzer. The whole point to me (and everyone I've ever discussed it with) is that spraying makes it easier to use very little.

    I happen to log 10 calories when I use it (or the spritzer), but that's really meaningless, like logging black coffee (which I don't do). I would honestly be shocked to hear that anyone sprayed enough to be a whole teaspoon and didn't realize it should be logged. Again, it's oil. It's not "oil substitute."

    Oil, propelled by an aerosol can. The spray could have been mostly air, some additive liquid and god knows what else, for all I knew. The ingredients certainly do not list just oil

    I guess I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say you're skeptical: That I thought this, or that my recounting of what I thought is indeed accurate? Or that a lot of people thought this way?

    That "a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels." I didn't read that as about what you thought, but suggesting that that's how many people or people in general think of spray oils.

    My sister uses it and is staying with me right now, so I grabbed a can she just bought. The front says "organic extra virgin olive oil no stick cooking spray." Nothing about it being a substitute or magically less caloric than olive oil -- it markets itself AS olive oil.

    The bottom says 0 calories per .37 g serving. Surely we all know .37 g is tiny, no?

    If you look at the ingredients, the # 1 one is EVOO. Afterwards there is only "organic grain alcohol (for clarity)" and "soy lecithin (prevents sticking."

    It also says "serving size 1/5 second spray (.37 g)" (which I agree is absurd) and about 360 servings per container.

    So I have a really hard time thinking that anyone who buys it casually (based on the front) thinks it is other than olive oil, and also that anyone who reads the back more carefully would assume it was expected to use a tsp or more or, if you did, it would be calorie free or even lower cal than other olive oils.

    The average person, I think, does not think. The average person is likely using this product b/c - based on the claim of "ZERO" calories per serving- he/she thinks it's somehow magically less calories than oil. If one takes zero multiplied by 360 servings per container, one still gets ZERO.

    If the company did NOT think that their target customer was a person who looks at calories on the label, they would have made their "serving size" several seconds long- as we know that is what it takes to coat the bottom of the pan. Thus, they are purposely decptive.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
    edited May 2016
    Options
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    JaneiR36 wrote: »
    For this example I am using Pam Olive Oil cooking spray and reading right off the (misleading) nutrition label.

    Pam states that there are 5 oz. per can

    Olive oil is 238 calories/ounce - so there is a total of 1,190 calories in a can of Pam

    Serving size is 1/4 second spray

    So...1,190 cal. /473 servings = 2.5158562367864693446088794926004 B) calories per serving

    so...a one second spray is

    4 x 2.516 = 10.06 calories/one second spray - lets just round that down to 10 calories/1-second spray

    Don't believe it??? - the main ingredient is the list of ingredients is extra virgin olive oil.

    OK - so this is not a huge number - but every little bit counts. I figure the cooking sprays use a 1/4 second spray serving (2.51 cal) and then figure that is split among 6 servings of food (0.42 cal.) - getting it down to their (misleading) zero calories.

    This is just one example of LYING LABELS- and yes, of course it is deliberately misleading.

    Years ago I was (quite stupidly, I'll admit) on a no fat diet. I found a salad dressing that was YUMMY and had "zero" fat! However, when I looked at the label, it contained OIL. I called the company- and after a lot of persistence, they finally let me speak with a "food chemist" (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Guess what? *That bottle was 40% oil* FORTY PERCENT- and they are allowed to say "zero fat" because they purposely make their portion size SO small (something like 1 tsp if I remember correctly). Show me a person on the planet who uses 1 tsp of salad dressing.

    In my opinion, lying labels, processed foods that do not divulge all of their ingredients (and which contain substances produced in a lab that the body doesn't know what to do with) are major contributors to the obesity epidemic in the USA that we have experienced in the last 50 years.

    Yes- you can still lose weight if you eat garbage-and congratulations to all those who have reached their goals. But it's certainly not going to speed your progress or make you healthier. Personally I prefer to eat FOOD.

    It's not lying in the slightest. You can go blame a spray where you would have to try and paint your kitchen with it to get a significant amount of calories for failing to lose weight or you could own up and realize you've got to do some work yourself that includes using normal serving sizes.
    Can one get to too many calories for example drinking diet coke? Sure. Is it likely that anyone is drinking the 25 liters necessary to get to even 100 calories? Not bloody likely.

    Serving size = a quarter of a second of spray? Really? Who does that, and why not just list the 2 or 3 seconds most people would? Exactly because they couldn't then call it zero calorie spray. Calorie reduction definitely works but some of the information out there is not helping matters for a huge part of the population that's not interested in dissecting every single thing they put into their mouths.

    I would, because the whole point of the spray is to have a light coating and not a puddle of oil in the pan.

    Cool

    I think a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels

    I'm skeptical about this, even if you didn't bother reading about the length of the expected spray on the bottle. It's OIL. Even the same oils people use in other forms, like olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil. It's the same thing I do when getting olive oil and putting it in a spritzer. The whole point to me (and everyone I've ever discussed it with) is that spraying makes it easier to use very little.

    I happen to log 10 calories when I use it (or the spritzer), but that's really meaningless, like logging black coffee (which I don't do). I would honestly be shocked to hear that anyone sprayed enough to be a whole teaspoon and didn't realize it should be logged. Again, it's oil. It's not "oil substitute."

    Oil, propelled by an aerosol can. The spray could have been mostly air, some additive liquid and god knows what else, for all I knew. The ingredients certainly do not list just oil

    I guess I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say you're skeptical: That I thought this, or that my recounting of what I thought is indeed accurate? Or that a lot of people thought this way?

    That "a lot of us might've thought of the cooking spray as an oil replacement ingredient and tried to get similar quantities or coating levels." I didn't read that as about what you thought, but suggesting that that's how many people or people in general think of spray oils.

    My sister uses it and is staying with me right now, so I grabbed a can she just bought. The front says "organic extra virgin olive oil no stick cooking spray." Nothing about it being a substitute or magically less caloric than olive oil -- it markets itself AS olive oil.

    The bottom says 0 calories per .37 g serving. Surely we all know .37 g is tiny, no?

    If you look at the ingredients, the # 1 one is EVOO. Afterwards there is only "organic grain alcohol (for clarity)" and "soy lecithin (prevents sticking."

    It also says "serving size 1/5 second spray (.37 g)" (which I agree is absurd) and about 360 servings per container.

    So I have a really hard time thinking that anyone who buys it casually (based on the front) thinks it is other than olive oil, and also that anyone who reads the back more carefully would assume it was expected to use a tsp or more or, if you did, it would be calorie free or even lower cal than other olive oils.

    Maybe a poll?

    Basically I'm thinking from the perspective of someone starting to lower their food intake seeing zero calories, zero everything on the nutrition label, and buying that because it's zero calories, certainly not expecting the same caloric density you may get from oil in a bottle during normal usage
  • NewMEEE2016
    NewMEEE2016 Posts: 192 Member
    Options
    Thank you for sharing. I already knew it wasn't /exactly/ 0 calories but it's cool seeing the math.

    I still prefer sprays over using actual oil though. 100 calories for a tablespoon just isn't worth it to me. I need to actually go buy a butter spray soon.

    Not only is it "not exactly zero"- it IS EXACTLY the SAME number of calories as oil. It **IS*** oil.