Trader Joe's Butter Chicken - conflicting nutritional info

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Gaia85
Gaia85 Posts: 190 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I take a different frozen meal to work each day for lunch.

Today, I ate Trader Joe's Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice. On the back it says that it is 270 cal/serving (250g) and there's 1 serving per container.

So, I happily log my meal at 270 calories and as I'm eating it, I'm thinking, how did they get all of this food in this container for under 270 calories?

Now curious, I look at the front of the box and it says Net Wt. 354g.

1 serving = 250g
1 container = 1 serving
Therefore, 1 container = 250g
But...
Net Wt = 354g
The math does not add up...

Long story short, I logged it as 1.4 servings to be on the safe side.

So is this a mistake? Or does 354g include the weight of the container? I didn't have a scale at work to check. Has anyone had this frozen meal and noticed this?

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Replies

  • ssbbg
    ssbbg Posts: 153 Member
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    According to this thread, someone called TJ's and the answer is the box has 1.4 servings and they rounded down to 1.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/1200isplenty/comments/501ru1/trader_joes_butter_chicken_with_basmati_rice_a/#bottom-comments
  • Gaia85
    Gaia85 Posts: 190 Member
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    Wow! Talk about false advertising. I'm glad I put it in for 1.4 servings.

    Thank you!
  • ssbbg
    ssbbg Posts: 153 Member
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    Gaia85 wrote: »
    Wow! Talk about false advertising. I'm glad I put it in for 1.4 servings.

    Thank you!

    Yeah, I'm going to be a lot more careful about frozen "single serving" meals from now on. Thank you for noticing the discrepancy!
  • neldabg
    neldabg Posts: 1,452 Member
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    Good on you for paying attention! This BS is part of the reason why people who mainly eat packaged foods may suddenly plateau. When stuff like this adds up over a day, AND your target deficit is not that big, you won't lose weight as expected.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    does the net weight also include the box and the container or just the food?

    I always double check if possible the weight of microwave meals - since legally they can have up to a 20% variation
  • ys6108
    ys6108 Posts: 425 Member
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    crazyravr wrote: »
    What bugs me about this is that its made in Canada, yet we in Canada dont have TJs nor do we have these ready boxes lol :)

    TJ doesn't usually make their own Indian foods - I know I've found the same ready meals with different branding in the frozen section of various Indian grocers.
  • thegeans
    thegeans Posts: 42 Member
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    Thank you for this post! TJ's butter chicken is my favorite frozen meal, and I recently went to log it and was like "wow, too good to be true!" but didn't investigate further.
  • Gaia85
    Gaia85 Posts: 190 Member
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    @thegeans That's exactly what I was thinking...too good to be true!

    @crazyravr I thought the exact same thing. I'm a Canadian living in America and thought, it's a bit ironic that it's made in Canada and I never knew Trader Joe's existed until I moved here.

    Now, I'm constantly checking Net Weight with nutritional info.

    Today, I had Evol's Bulgogi Beef bowl and it was delicious and accurate! 310 calories for 255g, as listed on the back.
    5734e188c1e9311100399d17_evol_bulgogibeef.1.jpg
  • EllaLeahB
    EllaLeahB Posts: 310 Member
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    Oh boy! That's good to know. Very observant of you. That would really suck if somebody had to watch their intake of sodium and other things. Geez Louise
  • Hearts_2015
    Hearts_2015 Posts: 12,031 Member
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    Gaia85 wrote: »
    @thegeans That's exactly what I was thinking...too good to be true!

    @crazyravr I thought the exact same thing. I'm a Canadian living in America and thought, it's a bit ironic that it's made in Canada and I never knew Trader Joe's existed until I moved here.

    Now, I'm constantly checking Net Weight with nutritional info.

    Today, I had Evol's Bulgogi Beef bowl and it was delicious and accurate! 310 calories for 255g, as listed on the back.
    5734e188c1e9311100399d17_evol_bulgogibeef.1.jpg

    I'm not familiar with that brand, where did you find this one? Sorry about the pkg issues, but shark catching it. Guess it's a case of anything under .5 it isn't counted. :laugh: In this situation it matters!
  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,641 Member
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    I had that issue with another brand of frozen meal that was made in Canada, which I bought at a Walmart in Connecticut. Same manufacturer, maybe?

    I'm used to the "grams/serving x number of servings" not quite matching the package weight, but it was over the top of what could be considered acceptable, in my opinion.
  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,641 Member
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    crazyravr wrote: »
    PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »
    I had that issue with another brand of frozen meal that was made in Canada, which I bought at a Walmart in Connecticut. Same manufacturer, maybe?

    I'm used to the "grams/serving x number of servings" not quite matching the package weight, but it was over the top of what could be considered acceptable, in my opinion.

    Its just us Canucks trying to secretly fatten you guys up across the border lol ;)

    knew-it.gif
  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,641 Member
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    PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »
    I had that issue with another brand of frozen meal that was made in Canada, which I bought at a Walmart in Connecticut. Same manufacturer, maybe?

    I'm used to the "grams/serving x number of servings" not quite matching the package weight, but it was over the top of what could be considered acceptable, in my opinion.

    Too late to edit, but it was Chef Bombay.
  • jdlobb
    jdlobb Posts: 1,232 Member
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    this thread made me start looking at serving and packaging size.

    Already found a few items where the serving size doesn't match the packaged size. Example, Libby's chocolate bars. The nutrition label says it has 2 servings of 40g, but the packaged weight is 85g. So 1 bar is actually about 2.1 servings total. Not much, only a difference of 16 calories, not nearly as problematic as this one.

    But it's certainly something I'm paying attention to now.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    my question stands - does the packaged weight include the physical package itself - 5g could easily be accounted for in the packaging...
  • jdlobb
    jdlobb Posts: 1,232 Member
    edited September 2017
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    deannalfisher wrote: »
    my question stands - does the packaged weight include the physical package itself - 5g could easily be accounted for in the packaging...

    no. the bar itself was 85g on the nose. Wrapper only weighed 1 or 2 g anyways.
  • SuzySunshine99
    SuzySunshine99 Posts: 2,984 Member
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    crazyravr wrote: »
    PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »
    I had that issue with another brand of frozen meal that was made in Canada, which I bought at a Walmart in Connecticut. Same manufacturer, maybe?

    I'm used to the "grams/serving x number of servings" not quite matching the package weight, but it was over the top of what could be considered acceptable, in my opinion.

    Its just us Canucks trying to secretly fatten you guys up across the border lol ;)

    Maybe Canadian grams are just worth a lot less...you know...like your dollar.
  • Gaia85
    Gaia85 Posts: 190 Member
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    Hearts_2015 wrote: »
    I'm not familiar with that brand, where did you find this one? Sorry about the pkg issues, but shark catching it. Guess it's a case of anything under .5 it isn't counted. :laugh: In this situation it matters!

    Evol has some amazing frozen meals. I find them at Whole Foods.

  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
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    Yikes. I guess I need to start weighing packaged food again (and check the box for TJ stuff). That's why I have trust issues.

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