There's no way some foods are zero calories right?

JayZ1488
JayZ1488 Posts: 258 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I bought a bag of oh snap pickles
1oz serving size
3oz in bag
Zero calories.

I'm confused. You can't just say "hey there's no calories, I can eat as much as I want or can you. Are you burning off the calories quicker then you eat?
«13

Replies

  • JayZ1488
    JayZ1488 Posts: 258 Member
    Thank you both! But Why? That's technically false advertisement. I like the count every calorie I consume so even if it's just 12 cal per bag that's more than zero
  • JayZ1488
    JayZ1488 Posts: 258 Member
    Zedeff wrote: »
    JayZ1488 wrote: »
    Thank you both! But Why? That's technically false advertisement. I like the count every calorie I consume so even if it's just 12 cal per bag that's more than zero

    Write to your congressman?

    Why would I need to do that?
  • JayZ1488
    JayZ1488 Posts: 258 Member
    YepItsKriss wrote: »
    Because everything we do for weight loss is a guess. Nothing you log is exact. Even the number of calories per day MFP gives you is a guess, because there is a lot of factors individually that change our over all calorie burn.

    Also for the most part for the general public, its unlikely that people would consume enough bags of these within a week to either ruin their weight loss goal or gain weight.. since it would take 291 packages of them to gain a pound after they reached maintenance.

    Thank you again for the help!
  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
    My general sense of the legality around advertising is that a lot of it is focused on preventing harm to the consumer, not trying to ensure that everything in the advertisement is 100% true. A lot of advertising can’t even be proven true or false - what does “best” mean, anyhow? Since calorie labeling always involves some guesswork, allowing nominal calories to be advertised at zero isn’t going to cause harm even if it isn’t completely true. I suppose we could call everything under five 1 calorie, or 3, but I don’t think it would make a real difference to anyone.
  • WhereIsPJSoles
    WhereIsPJSoles Posts: 622 Member
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    Is this the case for all American foods? I have packets of truvia here, and on the label it states 0.4 calories per pack. If this was American would it say 0 calories?

    Yes, our truvia is labeled zero calorie
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
    JayZ1488 wrote: »
    I bought a bag of oh snap pickles
    1oz serving size
    3oz in bag
    Zero calories.

    I'm confused. You can't just say "hey there's no calories, I can eat as much as I want or can you. Are you burning off the calories quicker then you eat?

    You can look up a pickle and find out that there are calories.
    A 1 oz dill pickle is about 3 calories. A 3 oz packet would be less than 10 calories. You can burn 10 calories fairly quickly with normal activity in less than 5 minutes. Most people probably are not going to eat very many pickles a day. This is probably not the food label inaccuracy to stress about.

    There are a lot of foods that do not have calories listed. Most herbs and spices are used in quantities that the calories are extremely small and are not listed on the containers at all.
    I have dried basil. No nutritional information on the container. The internet tell me that 1 T or 2 g would be 5 calories. That is a lot of dried basil even for a dish that would serve 6 people. I haven't ever seen a recipe wanting me to use that much per serving.

    Should labels for all consumables to exact? Maybe. It is legal right now for them to say zero if a serving is less than 5 calories.
    Is it going to keep you from managing your weight if you miss logging <10 calories of food sometimes? Not likely.



  • baconbutt1996
    baconbutt1996 Posts: 21 Member
    Heck, even a long black has energy in it! Even if it's 4kj / 1 cal
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    Is this the case for all American foods? I have packets of truvia here, and on the label it states 0.4 calories per pack. If this was American would it say 0 calories?

    On the truvia web site they refer to their product as a zero calorie sweetener.
    https://www.truvia.com/health/product-information/weight-management
  • DonM46
    DonM46 Posts: 771 Member
    YepItsKriss wrote: »
    Because everything we do for weight loss is a guess. Nothing you log is exact. Even the number of calories per day MFP gives you is a guess, because there is a lot of factors individually that change our over all calorie burn.

    ^^THIS.
    The weight of the package contents is also a source of inaccuracy. Is it really 1 ounce or is it 0.96 or 1.02. If 10000 samples were taken and the average turned out to be 2 or 2000 calories, THAT is what appears on the serving size. Yet perhaps only 1000 had that number; some with a bit more & some with a bit less.
    It's just one of the things that comes out OK at the end of the week.
    Lighten up a little.


  • JayZ1488
    JayZ1488 Posts: 258 Member
    Thanks everyone! I appreciate the help.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Konjac noodles are another near zero food.

    So is a glass of water.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited November 2017
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    Is this the case for all American foods? I have packets of truvia here, and on the label it states 0.4 calories per pack. If this was American would it say 0 calories?

    Yeah, not sure if it is just the United States or other countries as well but basically the rule is if it is less than 5 calories it is zero calories.

    I mean if you really REALLY abused that rule I think you'd get called out on it.

    For example if a 8 oz bag of potato chips claimed to have zero calories because it had 200 servings and each of those 200 servings was less than 5 calories I don't think that would fly.

    But I mean diet soda's have some number of calories as well, probably like 2 or 3. They get away with "zero" calories because whatever it is its less than 5 in a serving.

    I am pretty anal when I am calorie counting but that policy of rounding down to zero never really bothered me. I mean seriously if there are less than 5 calories in serving you are going to be very hard pressed to derail your diet on the basis of consuming those items.
  • RunsWithBees
    RunsWithBees Posts: 1,508 Member
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    Is this the case for all American foods? I have packets of truvia here, and on the label it states 0.4 calories per pack. If this was American would it say 0 calories?

    Yeah, not sure if it is just the United States or other countries as well but basically the rule is if it is less than 5 calories it is zero calories.

    I mean if you really REALLY abused that rule I think you'd get called out on it.

    For example if a 8 oz bag of potato chips claimed to have zero calories because it had 200 servings and each of those 200 servings was less than 5 calories I don't think that would fly.

    But I mean diet soda's have some number of calories as well, probably like 2 or 3. They get away with "zero" calories because whatever it is its less than 5 in a serving.

    I am pretty anal when I am calorie counting but that policy of rounding down to zero never really bothered me. I mean seriously if there are less than 5 calories in serving you are going to be very hard pressed to derail your diet on the basis of consuming those items.

    I’m imagining 200 people sharing an 8oz bag of potato chips :D

Categories