Well, the time has come. After two previous posts, not to mention the bonus post this week, we are finally ready to put all the information together we've learned and look at an example of one product that I find is causing more problems for individuals then they may think. I of course am talking about no calorie butter sprays. I would like to talk about this for a particular reason. A while back I had a client who was talking about their weight and how it seemed to stop decreasing, even thought they were sticking to a cleaner, calorie reduced diet. I asked them what types of flavor enhancers they were using and this type of spray came up, but at the time I was not sure what these products consisted of. After a little research and discovering that this person was literally pouring the spray out of the bottle like you would with ranch, I was able to help them understand that they were using many more calories then they imagined. They thought that zero calories meant zero calories, so innocently they poured away and thought nothing of the spray. They are the inspiration for these series of posts, because it dawned on me that many others may be falling into the same trap, so over the last few posts and at last here, hopefully we will be able to open your eyes to those loopholes I expressed in the first post.
Let us call this product "I can't believe it's not a real product". First, Let's look at the ingredients. Water is first, which mean it weighs the most out of the other ingredients, but may not make up the majority of the products volume, it is calorie free. Liquid soybean oil and sweet cream buttermilk are next on the list. We know that oils and buttermilk contain calories, many of which come from fats. Just with a simple glance we already know there must be calories in the bottle somehow, we just need to determine an estimate of how many there could be.
Now, let's look at the serving sizes. To make things easy we will use the "topping" size since it is at least a measurement we can grasp, 1 gram. That is about the equivalent of a paperclip, which is pretty light if you ask me. From knowing this, we can estimate that 5 sprays produces a minuscule amount of this product, which is probably not enough to satisfy an individual for their topping desires, so many of us will probably add more and more sprays not realizing how many we are actually adding. Also notice that in this 8 oz bottle the are 340 servings for the toppings or 340 grams. If they are suggesting that there are 340 servings per bottle than you should be able keep this bottle for months before you had to buy a new one, that is unless those sizes are so small that you had to use multiple servings to equal a true portion.
By looking at the ingredients and serving sizes you should have already determined that, by using this product, you will be adding calories to your meal. If you use just one serving it will be a very small amount of calories for sure, but it would be unlikely that most of us would only use 1 out of a possible 340 servings when you do use this product to enhance flavors.
Next, to get a better understanding of what's going on in this bottle, I did a little math to save time here. There are 8 ounces in this bottle. According to this website, Butter Spray, there are 25 sprays in 1 teaspoon.
There are 1700 one serving sprays total so, 1700/25 gives us 68 teaspoons in this bottle.
In the same website they claim that 1 teaspoon contains 20 calories and 2g of fat. 68 teaspoons x 20 kcals would equal 1360 calories per bottle and 136 grams of fat. These numbers are based purely off the information given on this bottle and website, I have heard others on a show with some big losers claim different numbers such as; 900 calories or 1100 calories, but again I'm using what was given to me, but we all can agree there are many calories in the bottle. It seems there are calories in this no calorie spray after all.
Per serving size on this bottle, we see there are zero calories per serving, but we are now educated on this subject. We know that companies can round numbers down when they are considered "insignificant". We know that ingredients such as oils, milks and sugars all have calories, so when they are included into what makes a product, there must be calories somewhere in said product. Even without the information from the site you we able to come up with that conclusion, but the evidence provided goes to show how big the loopholes are that companies can exploit to sell their products. This is only one example, there are many brands of butter sprays out there and some may be more calories friendly then the next, but in the end there are calories in plain site.
I would like to end this series with a note that, I in no way am trying to demonize these, or any other products that use the "insignificant" rounding down rule. I use butter sprays every now and then to add some flavor to my rice, but I understand that I am adding calories to my meal. I also am not pouring it all over my food, I may use more than one serving, but I still use this in moderation. There is nothing wrong with using a product such as this spray, if you use it sparingly and understand that the product dose in fact contain calories. I only wished to use this particular product for the example because of my past experience with it and it's growing popularity.
I hope this series has helped you understand, not only that there may be calories in your calorie free product, but also taught you a few tips on what a serving size/ serving size per container is really trying to tell you. Ingredients list can be a great way to help us understand what is actually in a product, but can also be a bit misleading as well, but with these posts, you now have the ability to recognize an ingredient and rationalize with the corresponding numbers on the label to determine if rounding down has occurred. In the near future we will discuss other ingredient secrets and also the ideals behind serving sizes and portions and the use of moderation.
Thank you for being a part of this blog thus far. One person may have been the inspiration for these past posts, but it's people like you that wish to educate themselves and learn new topics that has inspired me to do this blog as a whole. For that, I want to thank all of you!
"He began, like so many others, with disgust and rebuffs; but he has triumphed, for he has the genius of will" -Captain Nemo, '20,000 leagues Under the Sea' (one of my favorite quotes of all time from a fantastic book)
*I am not a registered nutritionist or dietitian. The information presented is for education purposes only and the product is fictitious in nature.
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