For years, concerned consumers and watchdog organizations have been screaming that the U.S. labeling laws are full of loopholes and in need of serious revision. After years of talk, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says they’re planning to so something about it. But will it be enough?
There are many food labeling issues we could complain about, but one of the biggest problems (due to its direct relationship to the obesity crisis) is serving sizes.
I’m not just talking about supersizing. What’s worse is that the actual calories are being disguised with serving size sleight of hand.
Let me show you some examples:
Tostitos touch of lime. Calories per serving 150. Not too bad for tortilla chips eh? Not so fast. Check that serving size. 1 ounce. That’s 6 chips. There are 10 servings per container. That’s 1500 calories in the bag.
Most guys could knock off half that bag for a cool 750 calories. Ok, suppose you have some restraint and you only eat a third of the bag (20 chips). You still get 500 calories. But who stops at 6 chips?
Vitamin Water. While I could rant about how sugar water is being marketed as health food, I’ll stick with the serving size sleight for now.
The label says there are 50 calories per serving. Wow, only 50 calories! Plus they add all those vitamins. Must be good for you and perfect for dieters, right? Think again. Look at the serving size and servings per container: 8 oz per serving and 2.5 servings per container.
Excuse me, but is there ANY reason for making it 2.5 servings other than to disguise the actual calorie content?
When you see that the entire bottle is 20 ounces, you realize that it contains 125 calories, not 50. Although 20 ounces is a large bottle, I don’t know many guys who wouldn’t chug that whole thing.
Sobe Lifewater? Same trick in their 20 oz bottles.
Healthy Choice soup, country vegetable. They make these in convenient little microwavable containers with a plastic lid. Just heat and eat.
It says 90 calories and 480 mg of sodium per serving. Wow, less than a hundred calories. Wait a minute though. Turn the container around and you see the serving size is 1 cup and the servings per container says “about 2.”
Huh? It looks pretty obvious to me that this microwave-ready container was designed for one person to eat in one sitting, so why not just put 180 calories per container on the label (and 960 mg of sodium). I guess 90 calories and 480 mg sodium sounds… well… like a healthier choice!
Ben and Jerrys chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.
This infamously delicious ice cream with its own facebook fan page has 270 calories per serving.
We all know ice cream is loaded with calories and should only be an occasional treat, but 270 calories per serving, that’s not too terrible is it?
Look a little closer at the label. The serving size is ½ a cup. Who eats a half a cup of ice cream? In fact, who hasn’t polished off a whole pint by themselves? (the “comment confessional” is below if you’d like to answer that)
According to Ben and Jerry, there are 4 servings in that one pint container. 270 calories times 4 servings = 1080 calories! That’s about half a days worth of calories for an average female.
I could go on and on – crackers, chocolate chip cookies, muffins, pasta, boxed cereals (who eats ¾ a cup of cereal), etc. But I think you get the point.
What’s the solution to this mess? news reports in the last week say that the FDA may be cracking down. Count me among those who are pleased to hear this news. One of their ideas is to post nutritional information, including the calories, on the FRONT of the food labels.
The problem is, this move by itself could actually make matters worse. Suppose Tostitos started posting “150 calories per serving” right on the front of the bag. Most people would assume the chips were low in calories. Putting calorie info on the front of the label would help only if it clearly stated the amount of calories in the entire package or in a normal human-sized serving!
Ah, but the FDA says they’re on top of that too. They also want to standardize or re-define serving sizes. Sounds great, but there are critics who say that consumers would take it as approval to eat larger servings so the strategy would backfire.
Suppose for example, the government decides that no one eats ½ a cup of Ben and Jerry’s so they make the new serving size 1 cup, or half the pint-sized container. Now by law the label says 540 calories per serving instead of 270. Is that like getting official permission to eat twice as much?
I’m not against the FDA’s latest initiative, but what we really need is some honesty in labeling.
Food manufacturers should not be allowed to manipulate serving sizes in a way that would trick you into thinking there are fewer calories than there really are in a quantity that you’re likely to eat.
It would be nice to have calories for the entire package listed on the label at a glance. A new rating scale for caloric density would be cool too, if it could be easily interpreted. It would also be nice to have serving sizes chosen for quantities that are most likely to be commonly eaten. But standardization of serving sizes for all types of foods is difficult.
My friends from Europe tell me that food labels over there are listed in 100g portions, making comparisons easy. But when you consider how much each individual’s daily calorie needs can vary (easily 3-fold or more when you run the gamut from totally sedentary to elite athlete, not to mention male and female differences), standardization that applies to everyone may not be possible.
I think the recent laws such as requiring calories on restaurant menus are a positive move that will influence some people’s behavior. But no label changes by themselves will solve the obesity crisis. A real solution is going to have to include personal responsibility, nutrition education, self-discipline, hard work and lifestyle change.
Changes in the labeling laws won’t influence everybody because the people most likely to care about what labels say are those who have already made a commitment to change their lifestyles (and they’re least likely to eat processed and packaged foods – that have labels – in the first place). Actually, for those who care, all the info you need is already on the labels, you just have to do a little math and watch out for sneaky label tricks.
There’s one true solution to this portion distortion and label lies problem: Become CALORIE AWARE. Of course that includes educated label reading, but it goes much further. In my Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle system, here is how I define “calorie counting”:
1. Get a good calorie counter book, chart or electronic device/software and get to know the calorie counts of all the staple foods you eat on a daily basis. Look up the calorie values for foods you eat occasionally.
2. Always have a daily meal plan – on paper – with calories printed for each food, each meal and the day. Use that menu as a daily goal and target.
3. Educate yourself about average caloric needs for men and women and learn how to estimate your own calorie needs as closely as you can based on your activity, weight, body composition, height, gender and age.
4. Get a good kitchen food scale and use it.
Keep counting calories and doing nutrition by the numbers until you are unconsciously competent and eating the right quantities to easily maintain your ideal weight becomes
second nature.
Obviously, saying that calories are all there is to nutrition is like saying that putting is all there is to golf. Calorie quality and quantity are both important. However, it’s a mistake to ignore the calorie quantity side of the game. Serving sizes matter and even healthy foods get stored as fat if you eat too much..
You can play “blindfolded archery” by guessing your calories and food portions if you want to. Hey, you might get lucky and guess right. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend depending on luck – or the government – for something as important as your body and your health. I would recommend the personal responsibility, nutrition education, self-discipline, hard work and lifestyle change…
Tom Venuto
Author, Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle
Founder & CEO,Burn The Fat Inner Circle
About Tom Venuto
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, independent nutrition researcher, freelance writer and author of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle (e-book) and the #1 Amazon best-seller, The Body Fat Solution (Avery/Penguin, hardcover). Tom’s articles have been published on hundreds of websites worldwide and he has been featured in IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Exercise as well as on dozens of radio shows including Martha Stewart healthy living (Sirius), ESPN-1250 and WCBS. Tom is also the founder and CEO of the premier fat loss support community, the Burn The Fat Inner Circle</p
I agree….food labeling needs to be completed restructured!
Sadly, it’s marketing.And every time the government tries to toss down a restriction, smart people are there to find the loopholes. Follow the money.Aside from the above (wow! education! something the average Joe doesn’t do), and doing basic math (which fails a lot of people as well, calculator or not), a few foods do have “one-size” portions/smaller scaled.Downside? Now you’re paying more per serving vs. buying that bigger/”normal” sized one.Just as the example, Ben & Jerry’s in my store has those smaller mini-cup sizes (just under 1/2 cup) for $1.25 each…or $1 if you can get ’em on sale. The pints though go for about 4 bucks. Buy 4-5 minis to make around the full pint, pay 5-6 bucks.Smart people out there. Just have to do the math and either pay a bit more for such, or be smart and DON’T eat half a pint in a sitting! :) (or whatever the food is for said “serving” times extra)
It’s true about the 100g information on all the products in Europe (at least in Poland, but I think it’s common in all the metric world). Sometimes there is also data per serving (e.g. on 650g box of cereal there’s number of calories in 50g of cereal + 250ml of 1,5% milk, on 2L Cola bottle there’s info per glass and staff like that), but information per 100g is always there, I never saw a product without one so it’s really easy to compare products and make smart choices. I hope there will be similar standard in the USA soon so it will be easier to have a sense of what you’re buying with just a glimpse for all those that don’t like to do math while shopping.
While watching a TV commercial for a piece of exercise equipment, one of the participants in the commercial exclaimed the she could burn 800 calories in 30 minutes while using the machine. Tom who was in the room with me exclaimed, “So what? I can eat 1,000 calories in 10 minutes!”Thank you Ben and Jerry!!!
Labels’ only account for so much. It’s not a wonder that people look for government assistance to crutch – or outright replace – for personal responsibility.Do people who shouldn’t really think they’ll stop, or even slow down, eating ice cream if the nutrition labels tell the truth? That assumes people care enough about what they put into their bodies to read labels in the first place. Last trip to the supermarket I made I can assure you that the vast majority of shoppers clearly do NOT care based on the content of their basket at a glance.
Europe isn’t entirely well-behaved on this front. Sure, most products will give nutrients by the 100g, but they also list a “per serving” and usually make that much easier to find.I think the best I saw was a sugary cereal (but it has oats in, so it must be healthy, right?!) whose “serving” size actually turned out to barely fill half a small Thai dipping sauce bowl! Made me very grateful my mum raised me to make all my food from raw ingredients!
It’s a good article, As usual. But what I loved about it is your honesty. I love how you are so real about food. A pint of B&J is a serving size. 20oz is a serving size. These product sizes are lies sold in fun ways. I’d like a sunny-d commercial to have the happy volley ball players drink a real serving size instead of guzzle the stuff from the 64oz bottle. Not so fun when the recommended limit is a tiny dixie cup. Jeanie Craig displays their food on tea saucers and calls that a satisfying portion. Dieters are giddy over yogurt containers so small all 30 flavors can fit on a third of a refrigerator shelf. Priceless.
Great article Tom and I would add one more thing to those labels and that is never believe the items of food you can eat versus the actual weight of the food. I cannot tell you how many things I have weighed and found that it was less food than what the label claims is in a serving. For example, do those 6 Tostito Chips actually weigh 1 ounce? I buy dried plums and they say that one serving is about 5 of the plums. If you actually followed the number instead of weighing it you would be eating about 25 more calories. Not that much for that item but if you consistently do that throughout the day it will add up.One other sneaky thing is that they often give the weight in grams. Now how many people here in the US really know how many grams are in an ounce? Or better yet is when they say a serving is 14 grams, which is about half an ounce? Sometimes I think they use grams because it looks like you are getting a lot more food i.e. 28 grams vs 1 ounce.When you get a food scale, do yourself a favor and get a digital one where you can easily switch from grams to ounces.
As you said ” Personally, I wouldn’t recommend depending on luck – or the government – for something as important as your body and your health,” I might add do not depend on Medical Doctors either, because most of them are just as sick and out of shape as the general population. They are not taught about proper nutition in medical school. So all they know is to diagnose and prescribe a harmful chemical to put into your body. Everyone is (or should be) responsible for their own health and firness.
I hope they also put an end to that loophole with the minimum serving size to list calories on the label.Because this one doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s not just tricky to figure out for the consumer, it’s simply false to state something has 0 calories if it doesn’t (ie. Non-Fat Cooking Spray).
When I am at my goal weight and exercising regularly through the week, I don’t bother to count my calories because I learned my lesson two years ago while using Nutrisystem for five months.However, when I’ve let myself go for a bit whether due to injury or other that limits or prevents my regular exercise routine, I go back to journaling my daily diet on sparkpeople to keep me honest.I don’t really have any fight with the labels, as long as they are consistently labeled. So the fact that a 20oz bottle shows 2.5 (8 oz) servings does not bother me because nearly all drinks are done by the 1 cup std. (8 fl oz)However, the one product that needs to be slapped is the cereal industry.Some will use a cup, while others will use oz and others will use fractions of a cup, trying to pull the wool over your eyes.MAKE IT ALL ONE CUP, so you can more readily compare one cereal’s nutrition to another.All of them are ridiculously high in calories and as a result I don’t eat them anymoreI get more fulfillment from a fruit/granola bar and have a pear later in the morning ( I can have two of those fruit/granola bars and in most cases be consuming fewer calories than a bowl of cereal.)just my 2¢jimc
Hey Tom,Great post. As a nurse with an interest in nutrition your comments echo what I have been telling people here in sunny Melbourne for years. We have the exact same problem where the food manufacturers are out to manipulate and trick the consumer all in the name of profit. Hopefully any positive changes made by the FDA will be echoed here as Aus usually follows the US lead.Doing nutrition by the numbers as you describe is certainly the way to go. Something else I preach in addition to this is “don’t just count the calories, but make the calories count”.It drives me nuts when I see a dieter scoffing a Mars Bar and claiming it is ok because ‘it is only 4 points” or “an off day” or “still below my calories for the day” or some other lame excuse! Counting calories is only half the battle, making those calories nutrionally good is the other half and this seems to be the point that every unsubstainable fad diet seems to miss!!Good up the good work!Best regards,Ian.
Each bottle of Vitamin Water has about 30g of sugar. A friend of mine is diabetic and when she has an insulin reaction (blood sugar is dropping) and needs fast acting sugar, purer than table sugar, apple juice or candy she drinks Gatorade or Vitamin Water. Oh, and she doesn’t drink the whole bottle…just a cup is sufficient to send her blood sugar soaring back up quick. And people consider this “health food”
“It’s so funny to think about, but just THREE chips is about the same calories as an entire bag of baby spinach.
The more you read labels, the more you realize you are being duped. Jazzed up on the front, no this that and the other and on the back this that and the other have another name or don’t count due to rounding down, etc. We all know whole foods are the way to go, but at times we read a label and try to justify that it isn’t so bad or it’s a cheat meal. Just don’t fool yourself too often and you’ll be ok.
I really don’t have sympathy for folks who are too lazy to look at calories per servings and do not actually then look at serving size followed by servings per container. Takes half a second to do.Tom, people live in denial. They don’t want to know how many calories they are consuming, otherwise they would take the time. Most folks don’t realize that the majority of restaurant meals would easily cover half their days allowance (or more for smaller folks, I’m a big guy).Why do I say this, because I was one of them. I ate what I wanted. I thought I was eating relatively healthy and working out occasionally. I even ran 2 marathons (weighing 255 and 275) and ran 196mile team marathon 4 times. When I ballooned to 315lbs an started having GI tract issues, I said “enough”. An stopped being lazy. I read your book and it made sense to me (where all the other stupid diets didn’t). Then I started taking that extra few seconds to scan all 3 data points. Made me realize real quick what foods I had to give up or only have on rare occasions. I still eat ice cream now and then and I eat the serving size amount (enough to feed the sweet tooth). I record it all as well on a great online site where I track everything now. Since Dec 1, 2009 I have ripped nearly 40 lbs off and feel great. I have another 46 to go to get me around 230lb, then I’m going to working on trying to swap muscle for fat (bulking and leaning). I want to be between 210-220 with 10% BF when I’m done. A long way to go from the previous 40%BF I was sporting
The only way food labeling will change to an actually productive an health informing way is if someone gets to make money off of it.For better or worse,capitalism drives everything here-retail,healthcare,and now thanks to the Supreme Court, aour political system(to a greater degree that is).
The same issue here in Europe. The “serving size” is always below the normal amount you will usally eat.
WOW, and I thought we were backwards here at the southern tip of Africa! (South Africa).Ever since I started reading food labels, and more so since following Tom’s program, I noticed that our food labels at least state the nutritional values per 100g, even if some suppliers also add a column for values per serving size. This is a great information “leveler”, especially when comparing products in the same group. Take the example of salad dressing. I know I will use the same amount of whatever I choose, so I just need to look at the values for a 100g. The serving sizes in any case varies from make to make.And you also get a feel after a while for how many grams of fat (and carbs, protien, salt, calories, etc.) out of a 100g is acceptable, good, or super!Although we scale our servings according to volume, e.g. ice-cream, the mass per volume is reasonably consistent. Where volume as a comparison method, e.g. a cup, falls flat on it’s face is for example breakfast cereal. I know I have to eat 2 to 3 times more Rice Krispies per volume vs. oats to get the same amount of nutrition in.A further point to remember (at least in my country) is that most price lables on the shelves also state a (unit) price per mass, which then make it easy to compare nutritional value vs. cost.Lastly, having the values per 100g, say 2g total fat, the 2 can be direcly translated to percentage.My recommendation? Standardize the labels per 100g. It WORKS when you are into checking and comparing lables. And the rest of the world seem to have standardized on this. Its a no-brainer!PS: Tom, this could actually be a nice addition to your book – a table of food types vs. what is a good set of values or an achievable set of values for each per 100g. That way everybody will know that if they are looking for say a very low fat mayonaise, if it doesnt meet or improve on the value in a table, to shop further, there is better products available.And everybody can contribute to update the collumn.I was amazed at how low a value is achievable for many types of product, if I just kept looking, and trying different supermarket chains, for (make of) products the others dont stock. A guide such as mentioned would have been invaluable.
yeah we have the same problem here in Germany. And thats crazy, the food companies are cheating their foods and claiming them as healthy with those ridiculous portion sizes….”
Thanks Tom, for addressing this matter. Unfortunately, business and advertising practices are fraught with intent to mislead. In my view, intent to mislead should be made illegal. It is sad when government and watchdog agencies take insufficient steps to control intent to mislead. I would like product labels that are complete, that is, no ingredient exempt from labeling.
Love the blog! I agree it all comes down to accoutability and responsibility on the part of the consumer. No matter what they change, consumers will need to do the math and know how many calories they should be consuming per meal/day.But I would LOVE to see calorie info on restruant menus! I could use a good motivator when ordering out! =)
I am from Europe, and I am very happy with our food labels, where everything is listed with 100 grams. Only if the package has less than 100 grams in it, then the calories in the package are also listed. That way there is no cheating. It comes in very handy with comparing so called fat free products where the fat is replaced with sugar.I once bought a box of American chocolates. There were 18 chocolates in the box, and there were 4 servings. Since then I prefer our system.
I see your point here, but I don’t agree with your all of your examples. Yes, with certain “to go” containers, obviously developed and marketed for convenience (such as the soup you referred to) it is ridiculous that the company would assert that there are two servings there, in the hopes that people won’t look beyond calories. And I can agree that it would be useful if serving sizes were standardized for each category of food such as chips, beverages, ice cream, cookies, etc. so that similar products could be easily compared. But I don’t necessarily agree that many serving sizes are manipulated so the consumer thinks “low calorie food.” Many of these foods seem to me to reflect what IS a reasonable serving. As an earlier poster remarked, beverage servings are typically based on an 8 oz. serving, which is the size that beverages used to be widely available in, and what size drinking glasses used to be. (Remember your grandmother’s or mother’s “orange juice glasses”, I have some in my cabinets and they must be only about 4 oz.) Growing up, when did you eat potato chips? Not as a snack or meal when you were hungry, your mom gave them to you on your lunch plate, sitting next to the sandwich – just a few to compliment it. Remember the small individual bags of chips that used to be available at the deli? People yelled “that’s not enough!” and those bags got larger due to consumer demand. The companies were still recognizing what the standard serving size was. And Tom, one-half cup of ice cream is plenty! It’s not supposed to BE the meal, it’s eaten after a meal; something sweet to finish it off. Be my guest and blame the companies’ marketing tactics for doing so, as I am no fan of brain-washing, I mean, marketing, but I dare say that it’s our perception of what a serving size should be that has changed over the years, not the serving size itself. And I tend to agree that the current serving sizes posted on these packages are the only thing keeping us in touch with the reality of what a serving SHOULD be.
kathy wrote:one-half cup of ice cream is plenty! It’s not supposed to BE the meal, it’s eaten after a meal; something sweet to finish it off. Be my guest and blame the companies’ marketing tactics for doing so, as I am no fan of brain-washing, I mean, marketing, but I dare say that it’s our perception of what a serving size should be that has changed over the years, not the serving size itself. And I tend to agree that the current serving sizes posted on these packages are the only thing keeping us in touch with the reality of what a serving SHOULD be.absolutely – supersized portion sizes are part of the problem, but what happens when you COMBINE super-sized portions AND under-sized “calories per serving” on labels AND consumer’s lack of education about how many calories they require?Rest assured, these examples are only the tip of the iceberg in the way companies manipulate the labels to make calorically dense foods look like they are low calorie foods. And worse – they shrink serving sizes in order to squeeze into the label loopholes that allow food manufacturers to say a food is calorie free. For example, 1/3 of a second spray for PAM cooking spray. The ingredients: 100% olive oil How does olive oil have zero calories? What would the label say if the spray was 2 or 3 seconds? Splenda? first two ingredients are maltodextrin and dextrose. how then do they put 0 calories on the label? More loopholes. Are ALL food companies intentionally manipulating the serving sizes? No. But it does happen and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Love this post! You always take the words right out of my mouth, Tom. My friend and I were just discussing this very issue last week and I used the 3/4 cup of cereal example. And even the Vitamin Water “10” sends me on a rant every time (“NO! It’s really 25 calories you jerks!”) Thankfully I’m extremely conscious of portion sizes, but even I can’t eat just 6 chips…
Tom, I have to say that I have been following your e-mail tips, and I have lost 30 pounds since October 21, 2009, till yesterday when I met 200 lbs. I can’t wait to purchase and download your e book. Thanks for the help.Ken
Tom, great article! I just fell into the trap today. . . I bought some Crisco because it said “O grams transfat” on the nutrition data label. . . but I failed to read the ingredients (“H” word). OK, it’s my fault, but in all fairness they should be required to say “Less than 5 grams” or whatever if there is ANY of the ingredient. To do otherwise is deceitful.On a happier note, please tell your readers to check out http://www.nutritiondata.com/ for an excellent source of information on calories in foods. Plus, there are some cool graphics that show nutrient ratios, etc. A perfect adjunct to BFFM!
Frankly to me it makes absolutely no sense to use anything other than calories per ounce as the primary metric for your food if you are trying to monitor calories/weight. I have to keep a spreadsheet of calories per ounce for everything because I’m not going to waste time working out the math from those labels every single time.Thanks for the info!Chad
Chad, thanks for your feedback. I agree – some type of caloricdensity scale (calories per unit of weight) would be great, But i don’t know if the FDA is that progressive, even though caloric density has been researched for years (barbara rolls at Penn State has published a lot of work on the subject)
Fascinating discussion. All about calories that get us in trouble.Can anyone explain to me why our ancestors were not obese? Were the labels so much better? Were there the labels at all? I truly would like to know. I live in America for 16 years and I hear the complaints about the labels all the time and I AGREE WITH ALL THAT, but… Does our life style have anything to do with us being overweight? Does how the food is made have anything to do with that? Does the fact that school have no gym classes all year around have anything to do with that? Does the fact that schools do not have breaks between the classes were kids just run in the school yard have anything to do with that? Does the fact that colleges do not have gym class at all have anything to do this that? I am from Belarus. Gym was mandatory in school, college, institute, university. MANDATORY and graded!!!! To get to college, work we walked to the bus. To go to the store we walked!! Now, any time I am on vacation I never count the calories and always, ALWAYS loose weight!!!! Even on Caribbean all inclusive vacation!!! But as soon as I get back to the office – I am back to the calorie counting……………………No matter how precise the labels will ever be, until we start moving around, the problem will be there. It is pathetic that we came to the point were we need to count as precise as 50-100 cal. It will never work and we will blame the labels for that
For most people in the real wolrd one serving equals the whole packet or box.
HI TOM, I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON CALCULATING MY PERCENTAGES OF PROTEIN, CARBS, AND FATS BUT AM RUNNING INTO A BIT OF AN ISSUE. ALL BRAN, FOR EXAMPLE, SAYS THERE ARE 80 CALORIES PER 1/2 CUP SERVING. CARBS ARE LISTED AT 23 GRAMS. IF I MULTIPLY THAT BY 4 CALORIES PER GRAM OF CARBS, THAT IS 92 CALORIES FOR CARBS. THAT DOESN’T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE CALORIES FOR PROTEIN OR FAT. AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE? HOW DO I ACCOUNT FOR THIS ON MY MEAL PLANNING SHEET?