How to count calories in LOTS of hot sauce?

eatlessnachos
eatlessnachos Posts: 9 Member
edited November 11 in Food and Nutrition
Many hot sauces say there are 0 calories per teaspoon serving. Which I understand just means that the teaspoon has less than 5 calories, or whatever the regulation is.

So would you just call it 4 calories per tsp? Or do you think it's much less?

If I were eating only one teaspoon, it wouldn't matter. But I eat a LOT of hot sauce.

If it has 4 calories per tsp, then two ounces adds up to nearly 50 calories - more than a popsicle! I would definitely want to count that.

Anyone else have this dilemma?

Replies

  • Thatsdatdiva601
    Thatsdatdiva601 Posts: 209 Member
    Ok so I really thought it meant 0 cal?....hmmm am I missing something?
  • missiontofitness
    missiontofitness Posts: 4,059 Member
    I'd honestly still go with zero. No use guestimating if you don't know what the actual caloric count is! And when you think about it, less than five calories is such a negligible amount to fret over!
  • Curvy1taliana
    Curvy1taliana Posts: 371 Member
    sure zero calories, but the sodium in hot sauce is astronomical!!
  • rmwinters
    rmwinters Posts: 288 Member
    You might want to consider how much sodium is in the hot sauce you eat. I heard that hot sauce burns calories from the heat of the peppers, so I don't know if I would worry about the calories that much.
  • Inlet
    Inlet Posts: 135
    sriracha sauce has five calories/tsp. I count it, but its obviously not much....I use sriracha values for unmarked hotsauce.
  • anjydarling
    anjydarling Posts: 46
    I'd honestly still go with zero. No use guestimating if you don't know what the actual caloric count is! And when you think about it, less than five calories is such a negligible amount to fret over!

    Yes but if it is less than 5, say 4 per teaspoon, and you eat about 10-15 teaspoons like me. Haha it adds up.
  • sun33082
    sun33082 Posts: 416 Member
    You probably need to worry more about the sodium than the calories. I don't know the answer, but I too eat a lot of hot sauce and I know the sodium affects me way more than the calories do.
  • Kassieisproud
    Kassieisproud Posts: 149
    Hell a teaspoon would be less than 4 it would be 2 tops think of the ingredients they use to make it Peppers are virtually calorie free No point worrying
  • BarbWhite09
    BarbWhite09 Posts: 1,128 Member
    Ok so I really thought it meant 0 cal?....hmmm am I missing something?

    Apparently so. Most foods, drinks, or whatever that say 0 calories, actually have calories. Generally >5, so the companies are allowed to say it has 0 calories.
  • Beastette
    Beastette Posts: 1,497 Member
    I would go the the brand's website, locate the "contact us" area, and shoot them an email.
  • cutie2b
    cutie2b Posts: 194 Member
    Many hot sauces say there are 0 calories per teaspoon serving. Which I understand just means that the teaspoon has less than 5 calories, or whatever the regulation is.

    So would you just call it 4 calories per tsp? Or do you think it's much less?

    If I were eating only one teaspoon, it wouldn't matter. But I eat a LOT of hot sauce.

    If it has 4 calories per tsp, then two ounces adds up to nearly 50 calories - more than a popsicle! I would definitely want to count that.

    Anyone else have this dilemma?

    Since hot sauce has a lot of capsaicin (chili peppers) in it that helps burn fat and calories, it might be like celery where the effort it takes to digest it is more than the calories contained within. So maybe hot sauce is like that where the impact on the body makes it balance out to 0. They put capsaicin in a lot of diet pills, so I probably wouldn't worry about the hot sauce unless you were drinking gallons and gallons of it, and then you have bigger issues.
  • sun33082
    sun33082 Posts: 416 Member
    I did a little googling and found that there are .11 calories in 1 gram. It says 100 grams is 3.53 oz so that would be 11 calories for 3.53 ounces which is about 6 tablespoons.

    So again I'd say don't worry about the calories. Just keep an eye on the sodium.
  • Bikini27
    Bikini27 Posts: 1,290 Member
    Um, I say you're burning it all off.

    Just putting that out there.
  • Nopedotjpeg
    Nopedotjpeg Posts: 1,805 Member
    Stop worrying over such tiny details.
  • amaodonnell
    amaodonnell Posts: 100 Member
    I know they usually round the calories to the nearest 5 or 10, but I've seen if it is under 5 calories, they will put the correct amount on there. Take for example tic tacs put 1.9 calories on the back. They don't put 0 and they don't put 5. I've also noticed on some gums, it will be 3. So if it says 0, then more than likely, it will remain 0.

    Like someone else posted, I have also read that it things like hot sauce and etc, the spicier, the less in calories it will be because your body will burn it off because of the heat. So I wouldn't worry about it in hot sauce.
  • Jill_newimprovedversion
    Jill_newimprovedversion Posts: 988 Member
    Guess everyone else has addressed the sodium issue too- Just make sure you are drinking A LOT of water to flush the sodium out of your system- otherwise, it might affect your weight loss efforts (water retention).....

    On a side note:

    I made a batch of Buffalo Chicken Rolls- using 50 tsp ( 1 c.) .of hot sauce- and logged the recipe- ZERO calories, but
    when I saw the am't of SODIUM, I dang-near had a HEART ATTACK!- Egads........6000 mg for 12 rolls. (and that was just the sodium content for the hot sauce, the other ingredients added even more)
  • sun33082
    sun33082 Posts: 416 Member
    I know they usually round the calories to the nearest 5 or 10, but I've seen if it is under 5 calories, they will put the correct amount on there. Take for example tic tacs put 1.9 calories on the back. They don't put 0 and they don't put 5. I've also noticed on some gums, it will be 3. So if it says 0, then more than likely, it will remain 0.

    In the US companies can state that an item has 0 calories if it has less than 5. Just like they can state something is fat free if it has less than .5 grams of fat. They can list this as 0 on the nutrition label. Coke zero actually has 4 calories per serving. Yeah it's little and nothing to worry about unless you're intaking way more than the serving size.
  • KatKatatrophic
    KatKatatrophic Posts: 448 Member
    I would go with zero. They can put it on the label has 0 if it's under 5 since you burn it off just by moving your fingers I'm sure. I like hot sauce on popcorn >.< Not that it's on topic..
    Just put in 0, but hot sauce has tons of sodium...
  • DopeItUp
    DopeItUp Posts: 18,771 Member
    There are many hot sauces with no/low sodium. It's usually the hotter ones though. Tabasco is pretty low thankfully. But stuff like Frank's, Lousiana, Cholula, etc are terrible.
  • eatlessnachos
    eatlessnachos Posts: 9 Member
    I know 4 calories isn't something to worry about - but if it was 100 calories every day, I would want to track that! I am talking about a LOT of hot sauce every day, not one serving.

    I decided not to count it though, in case anyone else with a similar question was curious.
    My reasoning is that I will probably always eat the same amount of hot sauce, so I will focus on creating a caloric deficit in the other areas of my plate.

    As for water retention from sodium - I am here to lose 30lbs of fat, not 2lbs of water, so I'm not worried about it as far as the scale is concerned. I do realize of course there are medical reasons why some people need to watch their sodium.

    Edit: I drink a river of water each day, aaannd I am slightly exaggerating about how much hot sauce I'm talking about. It's for the sake of argument, since I do count other condiments like mustard, vinegar, ketchup, etc.
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