Nutrition Journey Part 2

Welcome Back!

Last week we discovered how one product's nutrition facts can still contain the same numbers, but can be presented in totally different methods in order to make those numbers on the back of the box look a little more friendly.  This week we will take a look into how those same companies are able to actually leave some of those numbers off their products making those numbers even more skewed in their favors.

As I said in my previous post, the FDA allows companies to alter the numbers you read on the nutrition facts, if said numbers meet certain requirements.  If the serving size totals 5 calories or less the company may round the total calories down to zero.  If the total fat/protein/carbohydrate content totals .5 grams or less they may also round those down to zero.  So what dose this mean when you are reading the labels to determine which product you are planing to purchase?

FDA Rules of Rounding Down

First we must understand at a very basic level, what a fat/protein/carbohydrate break down to calorie wise. 1 gram of fat, no matter the type, yields 9 calories.  1 gram of either a protein or carbohydrate yields 4 calories.  Obviously, when you take a look at the labels and do a little math you can see how the total calorie content is reached, but there may be more calories in that box you hold in you hand then you may think.

If a company can shrink their serving size down enough to have their total fat/protein/carbohydrate content per serving size reach at least .5g or the "insignificant amount" as the FDA refers to it as, then they can make those numbers disappear.  Big deal it's only .5g of either one of those macro nutrients, what's that going to hurt?  The big deal is, when you take a look at the serving sizes and then add the "insignificant amounts" there will be a few more calories that are hiding in plain sight.

Keeping in mind the .5g of fat equals 4.5 calories and the same number for protein and carbohydrates is 2 calories we can see that this product (non-stick spray) seems to have zeros down the board.  Non-stick sprays are comprised mostly of oils which are pure fat and we know 1g of fat contains 9 calories so how can these products have zero calories?  The serving size is 0.4 seconds. Unless you are a sprinter, 0.4 seconds is a very tiny amount of time to measure and of course offers a very small amount of spray that comes out of the can, but since the serving size is 0.4 seconds all of the numbers that can fall into the "insignificant amount" range have with the company's selected serving size.  Ultimately, that means the total amount of fats/proteins/carbohydrates must have been no greater than .5g per serving, thus allowing the company to round those numbers down, which also means the calories have disappeared.

I chose non-stick spray because it is an easy example that we all have used at one point in time.  I will say that non-stick sprays are pretty number friendly when it comes to this rounding down business.  I would estimate that one solid second of spray time for most non-stick sprays would equal to about 6 calories or so, which in a single use is not that drastic of a number since most of us are not going to town with the stuff (I hope), but it still is a number that exists and if you used it 4 times a day that could wind up being 24 or so more calories than you thought you were taking in. 

Rounding down often occurs in, but not limited to; toppings, dressings, "diet" products and many other flavor enhancers.  Some companies are more open an honest than others about their use of rounding down, but again it's the sales game, so many follow suit and fight fire with fire.  I will be adding a bonus post midway through the week, which will discuss the ingredient lists and what you can take away from them when it comes to the make up of the product and also discovering if a company has rounded down their numbers.  Next weeks post will combine all the information from the past posts as we take a look at an example of one product I am discovering is a wolf in sheep's clothing; zero calorie butter sprays.

Stay tuned for more!


"Learn what you are,and be such" -Pindar, Greek poet

*I am not a registered nutritionist or dietitian. The information presented is for education purposes only and the product is fictitious in nature.