Lies, damn lies and the FDA
Options
Replies
-
amusedmonkey wrote: »I understand that they don't make that much of a difference, but why not list them properly anyway? Just looked at my diet 7up and it lists 1.502 calories per 100 ml. My sweetener lists 3.36 calories per 1 gram packet. I understand that within normal use they are unlikely to make a difference, but it makes me feel informed. Is it allowed to list anything under 5 as zero purely for marketing purposes?
The guidelines do not list marketing as a justification. Note that guidance is not regulation; the guidance for rounding rules does not prevent companies from actually providing the exact number, it just permits them to round the number, but if they do, these are the rules.
Some companies may not round down to zero Calories per serving, but I would guess that many companies set a serving size for the specific reason to round down to zero Calories per serving for marketing reasons.
Reference:
http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm064932.htm
Interesting. So it is sometimes used as a "loophole" in a way although not explicitly intended to be one.
We have a lot of imported stuff, and I often avoid no calorie American products for this purpose when I have the choice. When preparing a huge salad where 2 spoonfuls of dressing won't cut it, I would rather know the calories per 100 grams for easy calculation instead of guessing or the extra step involved in dividing by 23 grams or whatever other convoluted serving size number it has if it's not a zero calorie product when the app scanner only does spoons. Worse if it doesn't even list grams on the label. I remember buying this ranch dressing bottle (not a zero calorie one) and having to use my ml measuring cup to weigh 30 ml then convert for calories. Ranch has a lot of calories so I did not want to be off by much.1 -
stevencloser wrote: »You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???
Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.
Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.
Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.8 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »I understand that they don't make that much of a difference, but why not list them properly anyway? Just looked at my diet 7up and it lists 1.502 calories per 100 ml. My sweetener lists 3.36 calories per 1 gram packet. I understand that within normal use they are unlikely to make a difference, but it makes me feel informed. Is it allowed to list anything under 5 as zero purely for marketing purposes?
While calorie information is useful for us people who count calories, we're a small minority of people and they're not made for us specifically. For the average person who glances at the calorie information, 1.502 is no more useful than 0. Unless of course they turn their brain off and think that something that lists oil as the first ingredient can somehow be exactly 0 calories at all amounts instead of "negligible at normal usage because you're supposed to be spraying a thin film of less than a gram onto your pan".
With artificial sweeteners I can still understand it because people don't have to know that they actually contain calories and are just "0 calories" because of the tiny amounts used. But there you'd have to drink over 6 liters of your 7 up to even get up to 100 calories. Nobody in their right mind does that, and someone who does drink enough to hurt their weight loss "because it doesn't have calories", really they deserve that. Or they already died because of the Hyponatremia caused by putting multiple gallons of dihydrogen monoxide into their body over a day.1 -
stevencloser wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???
Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.
Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.
Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.
Yep. Telling you to use just a quick fraction-of-a-second spray IS telling someone to use healthy behaviors.
Now, I don't think using more oil is bad (although I wouldn't get a teaspoon or tablespoon of oil from a can rather than a bottle, seems weird--I even like a spritzer over a can personally). But anyone who thinks a product that is OIL can become no calorie in any amount just because sprayed from the bottle is willfully fooling themselves and more information can't prevent that kind of thing.
Bigger point, I don't believe for a second (or even the fraction of a second that is the serving size of a spray oil) that anyone who is obese is obese primarily (or significantly in any way) because of overuse of spray oil. I they are ALSO eating lots of other sources of calories in excess OR simply not paying much attention to overall calories at all. The current labeling may be imperfect (although there are legitimate debates over the best way to do it, as I don't think normalizing ridiculous serving sizes on the big end is a good idea and don't think the 100 g=X method would be all that useful to most who have no idea what 100 g is (in the US) but it is perfectly adequate for anyone who actually cares enough to make an effort. (Same with labeling at chain restaurants. I think it's a good idea and will help those who care and probably make restaurants have more low cal options, but the truth is even where this information has been available, like where I live, most users ignore it.)2 -
yeah...i switched concentrated liquid sucralose because I discovered the bulking agent in Splenda had a few calories, and I was using quite a bit.
1 -
The best form of Splenda I've found is a yellow box of small tablets. They would also contain some maltodextrin but they are not 1:1 volume equivalent to sugar. Plus it's quite concentrated and compact enough to carry with you. The liquid might be more compact, but carrying it in your pocket is a bad idea. (FWIW I mostly use it to sweeten lemonade or soft drinks at friends' places.)
I don't think the FDA rules are too misleading. The Canadian rules are very similar, and there are places where very low calorie products do have a calorie count because they use a realistic size. Canned soda with the "7 calories per can" labels are purely honest about their small but non-zero calorie content. Similarly, the 0.5 g cutoff for fat (and sugar, IIRC) seems fair, as it allows people to decide between "low fat" and "fat free" products.
One "nutrient" does bother me: trans fat. I forget whether the cutoff for "trans fat free" is 0.1 or 0.5 g, but trans fats are very unhealthy and remain in the body much longer than saturated fats do. I think the cutoff should be zero, meaning completely non-hydrogenated and saturated fats would make a food "trans-fat free". If it's 0.5 g per serving, I think "very low in trans fat" is a better label.1 -
Agree with your premise -- it's on the margins, but often MFP-ers advise others to tighten up logging, so it's worth assessing the inaccuracy if someone is having a problem getting their math to work.
Long time maintainer, here, and there are lots of things I eat almost daily, in the same quantity, so I'm a decent judge of weights. I might eyeball some foods but still weigh calorie dense items. Most of the time, weighing is easier for me than eyeballing anyway. I weigh nuts every time (unless I don't have a scale, then I count them). Oil spray, not every time.
I have on many occasions weighed cooking spray, though. Pan on scale-tare-spray-pan back on scale. My scale does not register less than 2g, so it says 0g. I log it as 1g. Does it make a big difference? no. But it is built into the recipes I use most frequently. I also weigh butter. I don't count diet soft drinks, but I only have 1 or 2 a week. Nor do I count the coffee I have every day, but I do count the milk I put in my coffee. I guess we all have our quirks. I figure as long as I'm consistent, the TDEE I observe for myself is too low (due to undercounting coffee and who knows what else), but as long as I stick to that undercounted TDEE, it all comes out in the wash.
Just this morning I was pondering my inevitable logging inaccuracy due to eating out so much during the holidays. I do my best estimate, but you just don't know. I'm sure I'm off, and that has to be by a much bigger margin than undercounting cooking spray, sodas or coffee. Ho ho ho, everyone!2 -
Am I the only one here not shocked when i found out this information? I mean... absolutely nothing has "zero" calories except for water. I also knew that labels could be innacurate and also that product sizes varied from package to package (i.e. there were days when my snickers was larger or smaller but had the same weight).
These things are majoring in the minors i believe, unless you are really adding a significant amount of these items into your diet. Even then, and I can only speak for myself here.. I use far more higher-calorie foods than "zero" calorie items.6 -
yeah...i switched concentrated liquid sucralose because I discovered the bulking agent in Splenda had a few calories, and I was using quite a bit.
I'm another person who did this. I used a lot of splenda too, but I knew about the calories in it and used to log them. I like my coffee on the ridiculously sweet side and those calories were adding up. I also added it to plain yogurt. The liquid stuff from Amazon is truly calorie free.
1 -
Calories are your friend without them you die!! People need to work on Discipline more so than zero calorie substitutes MY2CENTS@gotpeanutbutter...lol..3
-
stevencloser wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???
Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.
Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.
Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.
The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.
PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.4 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »yeah...i switched concentrated liquid sucralose because I discovered the bulking agent in Splenda had a few calories, and I was using quite a bit.
I'm another person who did this. I used a lot of splenda too, but I knew about the calories in it and used to log them. I like my coffee on the ridiculously sweet side and those calories were adding up. I also added it to plain yogurt. The liquid stuff from Amazon is truly calorie free.
I used to add sweetener to yogurt with some vanilla and pecans. It was really good.
As for the spray oils. I use them, I log them, but I made my own entry that included the calories because I couldn't find one. For what it's worth, I usually use a 3 second spray for my breakfast, which works out to 24 calories. Insignificant overall, however, I am also monitoring my fat intake, because it seems to rest naturally on the lower side. I guess if I switched to a pour oil, I would do better reaching that.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???
Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.
Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.
Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.
The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.
PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.
I've seen containers of PAM that state that coating a 10 inch pan with a 1-second spray is 9 calories.
They do give you the information.2 -
stevencloser wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???
Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.
Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.
Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.
The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.
PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.
while i certainly agree they need to get rid of the ridiculous serving sizes, i disagree wholeheartedly about the obesity epidemic.
I'm sorry, but the people who are currently obese aren't obese from consuming too many very low calorie products, they are obese from consuming significantly more calories than they need over long periods of time. The extra 20 or even 30 calories they're getting pales in comparison to the rest of their diets.
And on the other hand, those of us who are losing weight or eating in a calorie deficit rarely fail because of these small miscalculations. As stated earlier, products can have an acceptable error rate of + or - 20% on the listed calories per gram AND products can be mislabeled + or - 20% on the weight of the package.
I could go on, but essentially my point is that the US should just do away with the "serving size" s$%t altogether and list the calories per 100g as every other country on the planet does. Edit: This seems to be where most of the misinformation, misleading, etc. comes from IMO8 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »yeah...i switched concentrated liquid sucralose because I discovered the bulking agent in Splenda had a few calories, and I was using quite a bit.
I'm another person who did this. I used a lot of splenda too, but I knew about the calories in it and used to log them. I like my coffee on the ridiculously sweet side and those calories were adding up. I also added it to plain yogurt. The liquid stuff from Amazon is truly calorie free.
I used to add sweetener to yogurt with some vanilla and pecans. It was really good.
As for the spray oils. I use them, I log them, but I made my own entry that included the calories because I couldn't find one. For what it's worth, I usually use a 3 second spray for my breakfast, which works out to 24 calories. Insignificant overall, however, I am also monitoring my fat intake, because it seems to rest naturally on the lower side. I guess if I switched to a pour oil, I would do better reaching that.
I created my own entry too. I use spray for air-popped popcorn.
I tend to use poured oil for all cooking, though. I just swish it around the pain with my silicone spatula. It does a fine job.0 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???
Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.
Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.
Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.
The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.
PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.
I've seen containers of PAM that state that coating a 10 inch pan with a 1-second spray is 9 calories.
They do give you the information.
How do you coat a 10" pan in 1 second?
That spray for .33333 of a second is why I stick with canola oil and/or margarine. 10 mL/10 g and done.1 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???
Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.
Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.
Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.
Yep. Telling you to use just a quick fraction-of-a-second spray IS telling someone to use healthy behaviors.
Now, I don't think using more oil is bad (although I wouldn't get a teaspoon or tablespoon of oil from a can rather than a bottle, seems weird--I even like a spritzer over a can personally). But anyone who thinks a product that is OIL can become no calorie in any amount just because sprayed from the bottle is willfully fooling themselves and more information can't prevent that kind of thing.
Bigger point, I don't believe for a second (or even the fraction of a second that is the serving size of a spray oil) that anyone who is obese is obese primarily (or significantly in any way) because of overuse of spray oil. I they are ALSO eating lots of other sources of calories in excess OR simply not paying much attention to overall calories at all. The current labeling may be imperfect (although there are legitimate debates over the best way to do it, as I don't think normalizing ridiculous serving sizes on the big end is a good idea and don't think the 100 g=X method would be all that useful to most who have no idea what 100 g is (in the US) but it is perfectly adequate for anyone who actually cares enough to make an effort. (Same with labeling at chain restaurants. I think it's a good idea and will help those who care and probably make restaurants have more low cal options, but the truth is even where this information has been available, like where I live, most users ignore it.)
It may not have been "why they got fat" - funny again how we're willing to split hairs, here. I mean, which one food "makes" people fat, anyway? But this labeling behavior could certainly negatively impact people's efforts to correct the problem, such as the examples detailed in the OP.
Reminds me of when I was working on paying off all my debt a year or so after college and was calling around to gather up information on all my interest rates. This one lady was like, "it's just a lot of debt!!, what does it matter what the interest rate is!" I just had to insist. This is my plan, my process, get me all the information I need so that I can execute it properly without having to worry about inaccurate inputs. Garbage in, garbage out and all that. No, the 9% interest rate or whatever wasn't "why" I was in debt to begin with, but knowledge of that number for me was critical to my being able to get out of debt successfully using the methods I'd planned.
If we're serious about fixing this problem, it just seems it's important to steer away from practices that could frustrate people's efforts, or make them think that calorie counting, or even diet aids such as the ones discussed in this topic do not work. They're working on being more aware. This is the location for nutritional information. Why couldn't it just be accurate?3 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »nutmegoreo wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »yeah...i switched concentrated liquid sucralose because I discovered the bulking agent in Splenda had a few calories, and I was using quite a bit.
I'm another person who did this. I used a lot of splenda too, but I knew about the calories in it and used to log them. I like my coffee on the ridiculously sweet side and those calories were adding up. I also added it to plain yogurt. The liquid stuff from Amazon is truly calorie free.
I used to add sweetener to yogurt with some vanilla and pecans. It was really good.
As for the spray oils. I use them, I log them, but I made my own entry that included the calories because I couldn't find one. For what it's worth, I usually use a 3 second spray for my breakfast, which works out to 24 calories. Insignificant overall, however, I am also monitoring my fat intake, because it seems to rest naturally on the lower side. I guess if I switched to a pour oil, I would do better reaching that.
I created my own entry too. I use spray for air-popped popcorn.
I tend to use poured oil for all cooking, though. I just swish it around the pain with my silicone spatula. It does a fine job.
I used to do that, but then switched to sprays for even coating and fewer calories. I should reevaluate where I'm getting my fats and see what I can do to bump them up a bit. If nothing else this thread has me contemplating my fat consumption.0 -
rainbowbow wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »You'd think it's all about the math, but nope. There's marketing and product sales in there, too. 0 Calories!! Fat free!!! Sure the hell look sexier than the real deal. So who cares if some poor shmo decides to consume "way too much" of those items and stall their own efforts to lose weight or whatever? We've got an obesity crisis in the USA, but screw them. If they'd only consume quantities that are "normal" for me, they wouldn't have any issues, right? RIGHT???
Don't blame the cooking spray that clearly says as ingredients "Hey, I'm oil. I only am 0 calories because you're supposed to use a fraction of a gram coming from a single spray". If you choose to use half the bottle, that's your fault for not thinking.
Or why not tell me the right calorie information in case I do choose to use half a bottle, or even a couple seconds of spray and not that ridiculous "light perfume spray" serving size? Do you really believe there aren't lobbyists aggressively putting their bottom line over providing information that promotes healthy behaviors? I admire your naïveté.
Using half the bottle is frankly dumb because the spray is more expensive than just straight up oil in a bottle.
And it's a bit funny you see this as not promoting healthy behavior when the whole point of the spray is using way less oil but you still choose to use more than that and blame the bottle.
The point to YOU may be to use less (even ridiculous quantities like a fraction of a second - wait, I think I just counted a third of a second there), but a) it's a spray or mist product that helps coat a surface more evenly than liquid, thick oil might. b ), what business is it of yours how much someone else uses? I thought it was all about CICO, why not provide accurate information if we're so interested in reducing obesity rates? To me, this kind of behavior just stinks of a willingness to make a buck, even on the backs of the people being put in early graves. Or at the very best, an unforeseen consequence of a practice that may have been thought to have other legitimate uses.
PS: "half the bottle" is your dumb exaggeration. If you hate it so much, maybe you shouldn't have come up with it. Another dumb quantity is 1/3 of a second spray. WTF. That's not a real duration and certainly not useful at all, IMO.
while i certainly agree they need to get rid of the ridiculous serving sizes, i disagree wholeheartedly about the obesity epidemic.
I'm sorry, but the people who are currently obese aren't obese from consuming too many very low calorie products, they are obese from consuming significantly more calories than they need over long periods of time. The extra 20 or even 30 calories they're getting pales in comparison to the rest of their diets.
And on the other hand, those of us who are losing weight or eating in a calorie deficit rarely fail because of these small miscalculations. As stated earlier, products can have an acceptable error rate of + or - 20% on the listed calories per gram AND products can be mislabeled + or - 20% on the weight of the package.
I could go on, but essentially my point is that the US should just do away with the "serving size" s$%t altogether and list the calories per 100g as every other country on the planet does. Edit: This seems to be where most of the misinformation, misleading, etc. comes from IMO
I gave my take on some of these comments in a later post.
Also, The 20 to 30 calories or more calories could be that, in one instance. Maybe they make eggs in the morning. Then use oil spray to prepare veggies or a salad for lunch or dinner. Maybe there's some other "no calorie" item or items they're using as they work hard to lose weight. I think it all adds up and could explain why some people might otherwise get prematurely discouraged. The effect on a smaller person would be greater - could this be someone who became obese because their efforts to lose weight when "just" a bit overweight didn't pan out? And therefore they concluded that "nothing works"?
1
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.3K Introduce Yourself
- 43.4K Getting Started
- 259.6K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 387 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.2K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 913 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions