The nutrition labels for all five call a serving size a spritz that is about 1/3 of a second or the equivalent of 0.25 grams.  The ingredient labels all list an oil (canola, olive, soybean, or vegetable) as the first ingredient. All have an emulsifier, usually soy lecithin, and a propellant.  Some have other flavorings and additional stuff – the baking spray has wheat flour.

For all of them:

Calories in a serving (a 1/3 second spray):  0

Total Fat:  0

How Can This Be?

How can something with oil listed as the first ingredient have zero calories and zero fat? 

In the US, any product that has less than 5 grams of fat per serving lists the fat content rounded to the nearest 0.5 grams. If the product contains less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving, the listed fat content is rounded to 0 grams. If a product contains 0.45 grams of fat per serving and the package has 10 servings, the label would show 0 grams of fat even though the entire package actually contains a total of 4.5 grams of fat.

All of the cooking sprays that I checked call a 1/3 second spray a serving size – that’s the equivalent of .25 grams of fat.  Because the serving size, as created by the manufacturers, is under half a gram, the nutrition label can show as 0 grams of fat and 0 calories.

Feel Duped?

0.25 grams of fat is the equivalent of 2.25 calories (fat has 9 calories per gram) — not a huge number.  However, how many of us spritz for only 1/3 of a second?  Can you even coat a small frying pan with a 1/3 second spray?

Most of us spray for at least three to six times as long – many of us for probably longer.  A one second spray has about 7 calories, 2 seconds has about 14 calories and and 1.5 grams of fat.  Again, not huge numbers, but 2 seconds is still awfully short.  Odds are that a lot of us spray our pans a bit longer.

An Alternative

We’re not talking about lots of added fat and calories.  But don’t be tricked into thinking that there are no calories or fat grams being added when you spray away.  Since nonstick cooking spray is not calorie free, be wary of drenching your pans and skillets if you’re trying to avoid too much added fat.  As you’re spritzing, count the seconds.  If the length and number of your spritzes are in danger of cranking up the fat and calorie count, either cut back on the spray or consider using a small amount of oil on a paper towel to coat your pan.  Using one teaspoon of olive oil adds 4.5 grams of fat and 40 calories and you’ll avoid the additives and propellant found in the spray.

The post If Cooking Spray Is Made With Oil How Can It Be Calorie Free? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

The Study

The study looked at the “health halo effect” of whether food products labeled “organic” were perceived as more nutritious and  better tasting than conventionally produced products.

144 volunteers compared what they thought were conventionally and organically produced chocolate sandwich cookies, plain yogurt, and potato chips. Everything was actually organic, but the products were labeled as either “regular” or “organic.”

They participants ranked them on taste, estimated the caloric content, and indicated what they would pay for each product.

What They Found

The results showed that organic foods fall under a “health halo” and that having supposedly healthy food – in this case the food labeled organic — within a meal, can lead to misjudging the entire meal as being healthier and lower in calories.

The participants in the study:

• preferred almost all the taste characteristics of foods labeled “organic” even though the “regular” food was exactly the same.

• thought the food labeled “organic” was lower in fat, higher in fiber, significantly lower in calories, and worth more money.

• thought the chips and cookies labeled “organic” were more nutritious than the ones they thought were not organic.

What Does Organic Really Mean?

“Organic produce and other ingredients are grown without the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, genetically modified organisms, or ionizing radiation. Animals that produce meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products do not take antibiotics or growth hormones.”

According to the USDA:

• “100% Organic” products are made with 100% organic ingredients

• “Organic” products are made with at least 95% organic ingredients

• Products labeled “Made With Organic Ingredients” have a minimum of 70% organic ingredients (with strict restrictions on the other 30%)

• Products with less than 70% organic ingredients can list organic ingredients on their side panel but not on the front

The post Don’t Let An “Organic” Label Pull The Wool Over Your Eyes appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

The same thing is true on menus, in deli cases, and the little labels perched next to the choices in salad bars.  Are the calories in the low calorie tuna salad less than the calories in the reduced calorie?  Can you even believe those calligraphied labels behind the glass cases?

Checking The List Of Ingredients May Or May Not Help

Packaged food labels list ingredients in descending order by weight, not amount. The first ingredient listed has the greatest amount by weight, the last ingredient is the one with the least amount by weight. That’s why preservatives are usually at the end of the ingredients list.  A ton of chemicals are not necessary to increase shelf life — a little bit will do it.  However, fat, sugar, and grains have more heft and usually are closer to the beginning of the ingredients list.

Fatty Labels

Labels have to include the total amount of fat, saturated fat and unsaturated fat.  This carves the way for the low, reduced, and fat free categories.

• Low fat means 3 grams of fat or less per serving (or per 100 grams of food)

• Reduced fat means the food product contains 50% (or less) of the fat found in the regular version

• Less fat means 25% or less fat than the comparison food

• Fat free means the product has less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving, with no added fat or oil

Salty Labels

• Reduced sodium means at least 75% less sodium

• Low sodium means 140 milligrams of sodium or less per serving

• Very low sodium means 35 milligrams of sodium or less per serving

• Sodium free (salt free) means there is less than 5 milligrams of sodium per serving

Sweet Labels

• Sugar free means there is less than 0.5 gram of sugar per serving

• No sugar added means there’s no table sugar added but there may be other forms of sugar like dextrose, fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, or corn syrup

The Low down On Low, Light (Lite), Lean, and Reduced

• Reduced calorie on the label means there’s at least 25% fewer calories per serving than in the regular (full calorie) version of the product

• Low calorie means 40 calories or less per serving and less than 0.4 calories per gram of food

• Light (fat) means 50% or less of the fat than in the regular, full calorie, version

• Light (calories) means 1/3 fewer calories than the regular, full calorie, version

• Lean (meat, poultry or seafood) means less than 10 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, and 95 mg of cholesterol in a 100 gram serving

• Extra lean (meat, poultry or seafood) means less than 5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, and 95 mg of cholesterol in a 100 gram serving

Confused???

Confused by the ins and outs of labeling?  You’re not alone.  Try to be as savvy as possible and do a little investigating. A product sporting a reduced fat label  just means that it contains at least 25% less fat than the original version. Unfortunately, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it ends up being a low fat product. Take a reduced fat muffin. If the fat content in the original full fat muffin is 30g and the fat has been reduced to 15g — a 50% reduction which allows it to say it is reduced fat — the reduced fat muffin still has a fat content five times higher than the 3g of fat per serving that officially qualifies as low fat.  Check the calorie count and fat breakdown on the nutrition label for more complete info.  

The post A Primer On Reduced, Low, Light, And Free! appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

It does take time.  But, you don’t have to do it for everything.  It’s particularly important to get a feeling for products that might have a laundry list of ingredients.

It’s also really important if something screams “healthy,” “loaded with fiber,”  “reduced calorie,”  “contains a day’s worth of nutrients,” and a whole host of other “you’ve got to buy me because I’m great for your health” claims.

Does The Front Of The Box Tell You The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth?

There just might be a kernel of truth surrounded by a great big blob of calories, sugar, chemicals and other stuff.

My client pulled out an Oats and Chocolate Fiber One Chewy Bar that his wife had bought for him.   She thought that with140 calories per bar and a label emblazoned with “35% daily value of fiber,” it must be a good snack.

The Facts

According to the nutrition label, each bar has 140 calories, 4 grams of fat (1.5 grams are saturated fat), no cholesterol, 95mg of sodium, 29 grams of total carbohydrates (9 grams of which are dietary fiber and 10 grams are sugars), and 2 grams of protein.

The calorie count isn’t bad, there isn’t too much sodium, there are 9 grams of fiber, but there are also 1.5 grams of saturated fat and only 2 grams of protein.

The ingredients label:  chicory root extract, semisweet chocolate chips (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, natural flavor), whole grain oats, high maltose corn syrup, rice flour, barley flakes, sugar, canola oil, glycerin, maltodextrin, honey, tricalcium phosphate, palm kernel oil, soy lecithin, salt, nonfat milk, fructose, malt extract, cocoa processed with alkali, baking soda, caramel color, natural flavor, mixed tocopherols added to retain freshness.

Hmmm:  It seems that eight ingredients are sugars or forms of sugar:   # 2 (semisweet chocolate chips), 4 (high maltose corn syrup, 7 (sugar), 9 (glycerin), 10 (maltodextrin), 11 (honey), 17 (fructose), 18 (malt extract).

Not only are there a whole lot of ingredients for a 140 calorie bar, there sure is a whole lot of sugar.  Nine grams of fiber may be 35% of the daily recommended amount of fiber, but this bar is filled with sugar – 8 of its ingredients are sugar and this measly140 calories is using up a full 10% of the recommended daily value of sugar for a 2000 calorie diet.

What Do You Think?

The 35% of your daily fiber label on the front of the package is true – BUT – with this much sugar, 1.5 grams of saturated fat and only 2 grams of protein, is this a healthy food?

The post Does The Label On The Front Of The Food Package Tell You The Whole Truth? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Trying to interpret the carbohydrates on nutrition facts labels can be downright confusing.  There’s a number for total carbohydrates but then there are subheadings for dietary fiber, sugars, and sometimes insoluble fiber, sugar alcohols, and other carbohydrates.

What Does Everything Mean?

• Total Carbohydrate, shown in grams, is first. It gives you the total number of usable carbs per serving. This number includes starches, complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, added sugars, and non-digestible additives.
• The subheadings under Total Carbohydrate are Dietary Fiber, sometimes broken down into Soluble and Insoluble Fiber; Sugars; and sometimes categories for Sugar Alcohols and/or Other Sugars. The sum of these numbers will not always equal the total carbs because starches (types of carbs often used as binders or thickeners) aren’t required to be listed on food labels.
• Dietary Fiber, shown in grams, gives you the amount of fiber per serving. Dietary fiber is indigestible, usually passes through the intestinal tract without being absorbed, doesn’t raise your blood sugar levels, and slows down the impact of the other carbs in a meal. Subtracting the non-impact carbs – the ones that don’t affect blood sugar (fiber and sugar alcohols) from the total carbs gives you the number of net (also called usable or impact) carbs – the ones that do affect your blood sugar.
• Sugars gives you the total amount of carbohydrate, in grams, from naturally occurring sugars like lactose (milk sugar) and fructose (fruit sugar) PLUS any added sugars like high fructose corn syrup, brown and white sugar, cane juice, etc. Added sugars are the sugars and syrups added to foods during processing or preparation.  They add calories but little or no nutrients.
• You can determine if there are a lot of added sugars by checking the product’s ingredients label. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity so if added sugars (white/brown sugar, corn syrup, etc.) are listed in the top three or four ingredients you can guess that the bulk of the sugars are added, not naturally occurring.
• Some products, although not all, separately list Sugar Alcohols. You might see mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol, and others on the ingredients label. If the package says the product is “sugar-free” or has “no sugar added” it must list the sugar alcohols in the ingredients. If more than one type of sugar alcohol is listed, there must be a line for sugar alcohol grams on the nutrition label.
• Other Carbohydrates shows the number of digestible complex carbohydrates not considered a sugar (natural or added) and includes additives like stabilizers and starchy thickening agents.

They don’t make it easy, do they?

The post How To Figure Out The Carbs On Nutrition Labels appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

The season of sugar plum fairies, ribbon candy, and sparkly cookies (and even fruit cake)  is upon us.  For about the past ten years we’ve been warned about watching how much sugar we’re eating and we still haven’t really listened.

According to the American Heart Association’s nutrition committee, Americans average 475 calories from added sugars every day.  That’s a lot more than the recommended daily max of 100 calories (six teaspoons) from added sugars for women and 150 calories (nine teaspoons) for men.  Think of it this way, that extra added 475 calories of sugar is the equivalent of 30 teaspoons a day.

A big problem with added sugars is that they both add calories and those “empty” calories displace the other nutritious foods.

Where Do Our Calories Come From?

Added sugars and solid fats account for about 35% of the calories in the average American’s diet. The recommended maximum is 5-15%.

About 36% of the added sugars come from sugary soft drinks — so cutting back on them is a good place to start trimming.

Natural vs. Added Sugars

Natural sugars are found in foods like milk and yogurt (lactose) and in fruit (fructose) as well as in many other foods. Because these sugars are found along with other healthy components in the foods, they’re considered okay.

Unfortunately, nutrition labels don’t differentiate between natural and added sugars.  Look for any form of sugar in the food’s ingredient list.

Look for all forms (typical sugars end in –ose like lactose, glucose, fructose) including brown, raw, or invert sugar and/or “syrup” including corn, high fructose corn, and malt syrup. Also look for honey, molasses, agave nectar, evaporated cane juice, and fruit juice concentrate.  Don’t be fooled by these. They sound healthy but are really just other forms of sugar.

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Examples Of Foods With Added Sugar

A 16 ounce soda has about 11 teaspoons of added sugar. Although most of our extra added sugar comes from soda, sweetened beverages like fruit drinks, sports drinks, and teas; desserts; candy; and breakfast cereals all contribute.

Here are some examples of the added sugar in some common foods. This is just the added sugar, not the natural sugar that might also be in these foods.

• Cola, 8 oz. 22 grams

• Cranberry juice cocktail, 8 oz., 20 grams

• Chocolate Milk, reduced-fat, 8 oz., 14 grams

• Tea, instant, sugar-sweetened, 8 oz., 21 grams

• Applesauce, sweetened (1 cup), 16 grams

• Baked beans, canned (1 cup), 15 grams

• Oreo-type cookies (3), 12 grams

• Cranberries, dried (1/3 cup), 25 grams

• Fruit cocktail in syrup (1 cup), 26 grams

• Granola bar (1 oz), 12 grams

• Jellybeans, (1 oz, 10 large), 20 grams

• Popcorn, caramel-coated (1 oz), 15 grams

• Fruit yogurt (6 oz container), 19 grams

The post How Much Do Americans Love Sugar? This Much: 475 Extra Calories A Day appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

I had a Portobello mushroom burger the other day.  The burger was a whole Portobello cap – not ground up stuff that always leaves me wondering what exactly is making up the brown burger shaped thing that I’m eating.

Don’t get me wrong – I like veggie burgers – I just don’t like unidentified mixtures described as a veggie burger.  That could mean a whole range of ground up veggies – perhaps the ones left over from last evening’s dinner.  It could also mean almost no veggies and a whole lot of fillers and non-meat protein additives to give the burger some bulk and to make the patty stick together.

Veggie Burgers Are Everywhere

You can find veggie burgers everywhere – Burger King has a BK Veggie Burger and the frozen food aisle is loaded with them.  But are they healthier than a hamburger or turkey burger?

A regular, not a whopper, monster, or even a large size hamburger eats up a big chunk of the  recommended daily limit of 15 to 30 grams of saturated fat (depending on caloric intake).  Most veggie burgers have none to one gram of saturated fat – without the bun, cheese, mayo, etc.

Most veggie burgers weigh 2.5 ounces and have 70 to 170 calories. A “standard” meat patty is three ounces after cooking (a quarter pound of uncooked ground beef yields a 3 ounce burger). A patty made from ¼ pound of ground chuck has 193 calories, 12 g of fat (4 saturated).  Obviously, the size of the burger and the type and leanness of the meat affects its nutrition content.

Why Eat A Veggie Burger?

Some people eat veggie burgers rather than traditional hamburgers to cut calories and saturated fat, to boost their dietary fiber intake, to cut back on red meat, or for the convenience of being able to cook a frozen veggie burger in a couple of minutes.

BUT — know what you’re eating.  Shockingly, not all veggie burgers are mostly veggies.  The ones with more soy and some oil produce a more burger like texture and the ones with more grains and vegetables are less meat-like.  However, based on the ingredient lists shown below – you should question how many vegetables you are getting.

Where’s The Veggies?

Boca Burger: 120 calories, 5g fat (1.5 saturated), 380 mg sodium, 6g cars, 5g fiber, 14g protein

• Ingredients: water, soy protein concentrate, reduced fat cheddar cheese (pasteurized part-skim milk, cheese culture, slat (no typo this is from their website), enzymes, annatto (color), vitamin A palmitate, wheat gluten, corn oil, contains less than 2% of methylcellulose, hydrolyzed corn protein, wheat gluten and soy protein, slat, caramel color, cheese powder (cheddar cheese, milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), cream, salt, sodium phosphate, lactic acid, dried onions, yeast extract, natural flavor (non-meat), sesame oil, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, browned in corn oil.

Boca Grilled Vegetable Patty: 80 calories, 1g fat, 300mg sodium, 7g carbs, 4g fiber, 12g protein

• Ingredients: water, soy protein concentrate, red bell peppers, corn succhini, green bell peppers, onions, wheat gluten, contains less than 2% of asiago cheese (pasteurized part-skim milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, potassium sorbate as a preservative, low-moisture part skim mozzarella cheese (cultured pasteurized part-skim milk, salt, enzymes), dried garlic, methylcellulose, salt, caramel color, dried onions, autolyzed yeast extra ct, natural flavor (non-meat), spice, dextrose

MorningStar Farms Grillers Vegan Veggie Burgers: 100 calories, 2.5g fat, 4g fiber, 12g protein  (from website, I couldn’t find sodium count)

• Ingredients: water, textured soy protein concentrate, corn oil, contains two percent or less of autolyzed yeast extract, vegetable gum, natural flavors from vegetable sources, maltodextrin, soy fiber, salt, carrageenan, potato starch, onion powder, caramel color, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, konjac flour, sunflower oil, sesame seed oil, soy sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), concentrated onion juice, ascorbic acid, vinegar powder, citric acid, aspartic acid, modified corn starch, malic acid, succinic acid, tartaric acid, lactic acid, wheat flour, soy lecithin

BK Veggie Burger (as described on their website):  A Morningstar Farms Garden Veggie Patty, garden crisp vegetables, whole grains, and spices all topped with lettuce, red ripe tomatoes, ketchup, creamy mayo, served on a sesame seed bun

• Nutrition: 400 calories, 16g fat (2.5 saturated), 1020 mg sodium, 43g carbs (8 sugar), 22g protein

BK Hamburger: flame-broiled beef patty, crunchy pickles, yellow mustard, ketchup, sesame seed bun.

• Nutrition: 260 calories, 10g fat (4 saturated), 490 mg sodium, 27g carbs (6g sugar), 13g protein

Enough said!!!  Come back on Friday for some choices for veggie burgers with a few more veggies in the mix!

The post Are There Veggies In Your Veggie Burger? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.