Something to look out for when looking at calories written on packs

[SunsetRunner]

Something worth noting for those counting calories.. I've been caught out on this myself in the past. The calories written on the front of packs, for example a packet of crisps, will often have the calories written in fairly large numbers, but then in small print nearby will say "for half a pack" or they may be even more crafty and say "per serving" and on the other side of the pack "each serving is half a pack", even when the pack is clearly intended for one person and one serving, i.e regular sized packet of crisps. I'm noticing food is sometimes being incorrectly input by users in databases for apps like Myfitnesspal due to this. Personally I think it's criminal of these companies to be doing this, as they are obviously trying to fool people into buying the food as they think its low calories from what it says on the front of the pack, missing the small print and not realising they are consuming double what they think ! So worth checking closely !

[kaelarenee7]

I've noticed this as well and always look at the back of the package to find out how many servings there are in a package. I get some frozen veggies steamers that come in a smaller package than the typical bags of frozen veggies and on the front it has the calories and some other information for 1 serving, which is usually half a cup to 3/4 cup and each package has 2 or 2 1/2 servings in it. I end up eating the whole package and just multiplying the servings.

It's probably not as big of a deal on my veggies, but on things like chips or something else more processed, it can really add up to a lot of uncounted calories if you go by the numbers for one serving on the front and it turns out that there 2 or 3 servings or more per little package.

I agree that companies are trying to fool people into thinking something is lower in calories than it is. Companies see that fitness and health is a big deal to a lot of people and a lot of people are counting calories, so they manipulate that by putting the single serving nutrition info on the front to get people to buy their products.

[Heybales]

The other kicker when using a scan method or SKU code.

Manufacturers will change their ingredients and nutritional layout all the time - but keep the same SKU.

So calories could drop, carbs drop because sugars dropped, protein goes up, serving size changes because package size was reduced, ect.

I have so many personal items (never checked if they went public) on MFP because of those changes in packaged items I eat.

And you always have to at the least divide package weight by serving size weight - because "about 2 servings per package" is never 2 x exactly. I've seen 1.76 to 2.42 ranges for "about 2".

And if something is 150 cal per serving - that's a big difference.

And that's actually the Green Giant steamers - gotta weigh the package frozen, empty the bag, then weigh the bag and do the math.

Because calories is per gram, not cups or spoons. And the only grams they give is for frozen product before steam comes off.

Weigh what is in the package too, now you really could have a big difference.

[SunsetRunner]

It is diffucult to get the right information. For those in the UK, it's worth seeing this documentary that's just been on BBC Iplayer "The Truth about Sugar", they talk about the issues with manufacturers labeling on products. Next weeks episode is "The Truth about Calories" where they are talking about the calories labeled on food and how it can be quite inaccurate. It can be very frustrating trying to get everything accurate, I can see why so many give up. They need to sort this out. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05n2bn7/the-truth-about-1-sugar