Misleading Labels: How ‘Zero’ Calorie Foods Contain Hidden Calories

We were having green beans and mushrooms with dinner the other night – one of my favorites. As usual, we had the no-calorie spray butter on the table and I noticed it was getting a little low. Funny, we had just bought a new bottle last week. Oh well, it has zero calories right? I grab the bottle and look at the calories. Five sprays = 0 calories. So far, so good. Then I look at the ingredients. First ingredient: Water. Second ingredient: liquid soybean oil. Soybean oil? How can something that’s 125 calories a tablespoon become zero calories?

I did a little digging on the internet and found that, according to U.S. Government regulations, any food that has less than 5 calories per serving can be rounded down to zero calories on the Nutrition Facts label. So, any product that has 3 to 4 calories per serving can be listed as zero. So, I guess in product labeling terms, 4 calories = 0.

With that in mind, let’s look at two “zero calorie” foods that contain hidden calories that can add up quickly if you use too much.

Buttery Sprays
I went to the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter®” website and found some interesting information:

• One spray has no calories or fat.
• Five sprays have about 4 calories.
• One teaspoon, or 25 sprays, has about 20 calories.
• In case you're curious, the entire bottle contains about 900 calories. (About the same as 2 cups of premium ice cream.)

So, if you have been spraying your broccoli with 10 sprays, be aware that you are adding 8 calories (not a huge deal). If you’re unscrewing the lid and pouring a tablespoon on your potato, you’ve just added about 60 calories. Put the two together 4-5 times a week and you can be consuming about 1,000 calories a month without even knowing it.

Non-stick Sprays
The first ingredient in a can of Pam® cooking spray is canola oil. Again that’s 125 calories per tablespoon. Spraying for one-third of a second has zero calories. And same as with the butter spray, the manufacturer came up with a serving amount just below the 5-calorie threshold. For those who don’t use a stopwatch when spraying your pans, if you spray for one full second, you would be adding approximately 7 calories. If you want to stir fry some vegetables and use a 5-second spray, you’ve added about 35 calories. If you are making oven fries and spray for 10 seconds, you’ve added 70 calories.

So are these ‘bad’ foods? Not by any means. I continue to use these products and think they can be a great tool for weight management. However, I’ve learned that the zero-calorie claim comes with a proviso that you use them sparingly.

Now, all I’ve got to do is find a stopwatch to time my 1/3 of a second spray.
 

by KeithVanGasken on 09/12/2011 | Share Story With a Friend

tags: Weight-Loss, Diet Tools, in the box