Cooking spray is NOT zero calories...I can prove it...start counting it in your calorie count!
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I love the way you think
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NewMEEE2016 wrote: »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*.
You need to narrowly define what you mean by "accurate information". If you actually read the links I've posted, you'll find that there are a number of problems with the way caloric information is gathered/calculated, and the relationship of that information to the way things eaten are actually metabolized (it's not the same for all of us). If the process itself is flawed claiming a "right" to accurate information doesn't do anyone any good and isn't going to change anything.
As one of the articles points out, even the way people chew their food can affect how many calories are actually absorbed from it, and not all foods are equal in this regard. *My* point is: in the long run it doesn't make a lick of difference whether you get an extra 5-10 calories per day from cooking spray, breath mints, or whatever. I think too many people in this forum are straining at gnats as the saying goes.The ability to measure calories in food is fairly accurate. The problem is the way we break them down, which varies from individual to individual. On a personal level, it’s not accurate.
-- Paul Burghart, Prof of nutrition at Wayne State University (source: https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/do-food-labels-miscount-calories-yes-say-some-117610565552.html)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.
That's a political discussion, and if you're in the US and wish to push politically for change, go for it. in ten years, maybe you can change things. But that's not going to do the people here who have to make daily choices about their food right now a lot of good, is it?2 -
Of course it's oil. I don't understand people who don't get that oil has the same calories no matter what (or that companies use silly serving sizes sometimes, so if you care, read the label). The benefit of the spray bottle to my sister (and me on occasion) and the spritzer to me is that you can use a lot less oil. (I estimate about 10 calories worth is what I use, so that's what I log, but not logging a small number like 10 is basically meaningless so long as your habits are consistent -- as with coffee, I am not going to cut out oil entirely, that seems way too restrictive and pointless to me).
The label isn't deceptive because it says 0 vs. 3.5 calories as permitted in the law. I suspect that no one gets fat from not realizing that oil has 3.5 calories a squirt. I even would argue that unless you really, really misuse the product, you aren't going to be way off calories because you use a reasonable squirt and actually use more like 10 or even 20 calories per squirt (assuming all is absorbed by the oil).
Thus, all this sounds like excuse making to me. As I said re coffee, stuff is going to be off a little. Adjust if you aren't losing, but thinking you are eating 1800 vs. 1820 doesn't matter if you adjust based on results.
Anyway, must make dinner now.2 -
NewMEEE2016 wrote: »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*.
You need to narrowly define what you mean by "accurate information". If you actually read the links I've posted, you'll find that there are a number of problems with the way caloric information is gathered/calculated, and the relationship of that information to the way things eaten are actually metabolized (it's not the same for all of us). If the process itself is flawed claiming a "right" to accurate information doesn't do anyone any good and isn't going to change anything.
As one of the articles points out, even the way people chew their food can affect how many calories are actually absorbed from it, and not all foods are equal in this regard. *My* point is: in the long run it doesn't make a lick of difference whether you get an extra 5-10 calories per day from cooking spray, breath mints, or whatever. I think too many people in this forum are straining at gnats as the saying goes.The ability to measure calories in food is fairly accurate. The problem is the way we break them down, which varies from individual to individual. On a personal level, it’s not accurate.
-- Paul Burghart, Prof of nutrition at Wayne State University (source: https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/do-food-labels-miscount-calories-yes-say-some-117610565552.html)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.
That's a political discussion, and if you're in the US and wish to push politically for change, go for it. in ten years, maybe you can change things. But that's not going to do the people here who have to make daily choices about their food right now a lot of good, is it?
Nothing wrong with being in it for the long haul. I like to think my life is better today because some people thought of me decades or even centuries ago3 -
I use spray oil because it's less oil than using spoon oil. I don't get enough spoon oil anyway. Ten? Oh dear. I've got a 10,000 calorie deficit every week and this is going to give me another 140. Oh dear, oh dear.0
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What the world really needs is a spray can that provides a digital display of the number of microseconds the spray was activated, and updates mfp automatically. Because I sure ain't gonna get a stop watch to measure that.7
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What you've noticed here is an example of good marketing.
Clearly a product that is almost all oil is not going to contain no calories. Most people who stop to think about this would recognise that, and just about everyone on MFP is probably going to recognise that too, because in general, we are going to have more awareness of calorie content in food that the general population who aren't focussed on this topic.
But, the olive oil company doesn't exist to meet your health or fitness or calorie goals - they exist to sell food and make money. So, they cleverly exploit a loophole in US labelling laws that allow them to state "zero calories" when the serving size is very small. If that's the law in your part of the world, then they aren't doing anything illegal, even though I could argue that it is trying to deliberately mislead people and is not really a fair thing to do, but that's beside the point.
Just as companies will say things like "75% less fat" or "no added sugar" - this is clever marketing to make people say "hey, sugar is bad, so this one with no sugar must be good for me". If you have the time and the knowhow and the energy to stop in the shop and read the labels and compare products and make an educated decision as to what you want to be eating, then these claims are meaningless. But for many people who are rushed or tired or distracted by their kids or their life - the claims can make them feel a little bit better about buying stuff that is
"good for them" or their family.
I don't think it's any secret by now that marketing is everywhere, it's hard to avoid it, and each of us have a responsibility to pay attention to this kind of stuff and read between the lines (or read the back of the label, like the OP) and make smart decisions.1 -
@pebble4321 you are absolutely correct. Even Loopholes aside, a lot of companies do just blatantly lie in their marketing about products that absolutely do not do what they're marketed to. Just garbage that doesn't work at all. I generally don't make purchases these days (not food, just in general) unless I've read reviews, and even those can be bought nowadays.1
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Regarding the multiple comments about it being oil. Yeah probably. Likely mostly. I mean is it 100% oil? According to the ingredients, definitely not. These things are usually in a metal, opaque container. Have we seen the levels of liquid in the container at purchase? Were we present when the product was made to know what goes in it? What percentage of it is oil, and what is the other ingredient make up? Is this consist by weight, or by volume? How much, if any, is air? Is this some sort of common sense assumption, or is this known for sure?1
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Pretty sure that even in the US, a packaged food needs to have some kind of information on it - the can will tell you how many grams or mls (or whatever they would use to measure oil over there - oz maybe?). And if you read the ingredients on the back it will tell you if there are other things added besides oil. Here in Australia they would need to put a percentage (eg 97% oil) but I don't know if that happens in other places.
And you need to worry about the air - that's not going to add any weight or any calories.
I think you are overthinking this a little! This product is another way to package and sell oil, most likely at an inflated price compared to buying oil in a bottle. Use a little or a lot - if it's a lot then it would be smarter to log it, if it's a little then I would not even bother about it.1 -
pebble4321 wrote: »Pretty sure that even in the US, a packaged food needs to have some kind of information on it - the can will tell you how many grams or mls (or whatever they would use to measure oil over there - oz maybe?). And if you read the ingredients on the back it will tell you if there are other things added besides oil. Here in Australia they would need to put a percentage (eg 97% oil) but I don't know if that happens in other places.
And you need to worry about the air - that's not going to add any weight or any calories.
I think you are overthinking this a little! This product is another way to package and sell oil, most likely at an inflated price compared to buying oil in a bottle. Use a little or a lot - if it's a lot then it would be smarter to log it, if it's a little then I would not even bother about it.
I don't think we have percentages on our labels in the US, if they did, I missed it.
As to overthinking, read the OP and some subsequent analyses of the contents of the container. This is the kind of stuff some of us find interesting
There were some comments about "if you think about it". These are the sorts of things that come up when I think about it.
@JeromeBarry1 , I would totally buy a spray can with said digital display. Just for grins and giggles if nothing! I don't use my spray container that often and wasn't necessarily going to be in the market for a new one when it ran out. Heheh1 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »NewMEEE2016 wrote: »Tweaking_Time 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
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
This poll would be hilarious. The deciding line would be between incompetence and competence. The people that think the oil is calorie free will be the same ones that think Dr. Oz is a good dude.3 -
pebble4321 you are absolutely correct. Even Loopholes aside, a lot of companies do just blatantly lie in their marketing about products that absolutely do not do what they're marketed to. Just garbage that doesn't work at all. I generally don't make purchases these days (not food, just in general) unless I've read reviews, and even those can be bought nowadays.
It's oil in a spray can with a couple of ingredients added to make the spray can idea work. If you don't like it, don't use it.4 -
diannethegeek wrote: »pebble4321 you are absolutely correct. Even Loopholes aside, a lot of companies do just blatantly lie in their marketing about products that absolutely do not do what they're marketed to. Just garbage that doesn't work at all. I generally don't make purchases these days (not food, just in general) unless I've read reviews, and even those can be bought nowadays.
It's oil in a spray can with a couple of ingredients added to make the spray can idea work. If you don't like it, don't use it.
I knew someone would have the answer to my questions!2 -
Interesting thread - although I still think use it lightly and don't bother logging it works fine.
However here in Australia we do not have zero calorie ( or kilojoules, since we are in metric) products - except water
everything must be labelled per 100 ml or 100 g.
Even things like Diet sodas are not nil calories - just checked Coke Zero I had in fridge and it says 1.4 kj per 100 ml ( less than 1/2 calorie)
So, if you want to drink 200 ml and log it as a calorie, you can.
Products can also list the kilojoule content per serving if they want to - but they legally must also have the 100ml/100g labels.
Makes comparisons of products much easier3 -
diannethegeek wrote: »pebble4321 you are absolutely correct. Even Loopholes aside, a lot of companies do just blatantly lie in their marketing about products that absolutely do not do what they're marketed to. Just garbage that doesn't work at all. I generally don't make purchases these days (not food, just in general) unless I've read reviews, and even those can be bought nowadays.
It's oil in a spray can with a couple of ingredients added to make the spray can idea work. If you don't like it, don't use it.
I knew someone would have the answer to my questions!
You didn't ask any questions in the post I quoted. Just made vague implications about the product and how it's garbage. I find it to be a useful product. It sounds like you don't. Why the weird attacks instead of just avoiding it?0 -
diannethegeek wrote: »diannethegeek wrote: »pebble4321 you are absolutely correct. Even Loopholes aside, a lot of companies do just blatantly lie in their marketing about products that absolutely do not do what they're marketed to. Just garbage that doesn't work at all. I generally don't make purchases these days (not food, just in general) unless I've read reviews, and even those can be bought nowadays.
It's oil in a spray can with a couple of ingredients added to make the spray can idea work. If you don't like it, don't use it.
I knew someone would have the answer to my questions!
You didn't ask any questions in the post I quoted. Just made vague implications about the product and how it's garbage. I find it to be a useful product. It sounds like you don't. Why the weird attacks instead of just avoiding it?
Ah, I see the confusion. My comments you quoted weren't specifically about the oil in a can product. Though I do wish they would be more honest with the nutritional labeling of the spray oil products. Hopefully my earlier attacks with regards to that issue weren't as vague.
I don't think the product is garbage, no, as I have and use it occasionally.0 -
paperpudding wrote: »Interesting thread - although I still think use it lightly and don't bother logging it works fine.
However here in Australia we do not have zero calorie ( or kilojoules, since we are in metric) products - except water
everything must be labelled per 100 ml or 100 g.
Even things like Diet sodas are not nil calories - just checked Coke Zero I had in fridge and it says 1.4 kj per 100 ml ( less than 1/2 calorie)
So, if you want to drink 200 ml and log it as a calorie, you can.
Products can also list the kilojoule content per serving if they want to - but they legally must also have the 100ml/100g labels.
Makes comparisons of products much easier
This is what I mean when I say that labeling laws outside the US are much more consumer-oriented and much less susceptible to marketers trying to exploit loopholes to mislead the public. This is *exactly* what we need here.
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This is not only about this one product. It's an epidemic. People are very concerned about their weight here in the US- yet I'm willing to bet that we have a higher obesity rate than anywhere in the world. Why is that? Everyone's buying "low fat", "low carb", "gluten free"- etc, etc, etc- yet we as a nation are suddenly FATTER in the past 50 years than we have ever been before- which "just happens" to correlate with the advent of processed foods. Coincidence? You be the judge.
When we eat processed foods, we have absolutely no idea what we are ingesting because our government doesn't see fit to require manufacturers to provide correct information.
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