Its a weird american thing I believe, since a serving size is so small that it counts as <1 calory.
Yup, the “serving size” nonsense is a US corporate lobbied loophole which basically allows them to put whatever they want on their nutrition information.
I wouldn’t have expected anything else from the US “Corporations are people too” of A.
EU has absurd serving size measurements too, but also 100g measurements
The 100g measurement is so good. Makes it extremely easy to compare foods and decide which one is healthier. Like if you see protein powder which is 31g sugar per 100g, and realise it’s literally 31% sugar, maybe don’t buy that one lol
US still has percentage of sugar/carbs/etc. So it’ll just say it’s 31% sugar.
OP’s picture shows % daily value though, not % total contents. Isn’t that based on a recommended adult daily intake or whatever? Never been to the US myself, so I don’t actually know though
In Canada we also have nutrition facts per serving bullshit
Supposedly this is why tic tacs, which are almost 100% sugar, can claim to be sugar free.
They don’t claim to be sugar-free, at least not the ones made of sugar. Instead, they claim to have 0g of sugar per serving. That is a critical difference.
My mistake.
In that case, they are using synthetic sweetener instead of sugar.
If a tictac has >200 pieces in a pack, and you claim serving size is 1, then whatever it is made of has >0,5% per serving. It could be made of radioactive waste and they could put ‘a tictac cointains no radioactive waste’ on the pack. The game is rigged.
For “calories per serving”, absolutely, but nowhere on the packaging does it say Sugar Free because that’s a completely different claim that would be completely false.
If you claim a tictac is one serving you can say a tictac contains no sugar. But you’re right, it would be in a format like this image.
You can claim it contains 0g of sugar, you cannot claim it contains no sugar. A subtle, but critical difference
Legally, yes.
But ask random people and I guarantee most welcome would think it’s the same
My mistake.
Avocado oil should have 884 kcal per 100g, therefore one serving of 0.25g would be 2.21 kcal. Why is that allowed to be rounded to zero?
It’s rounded to the nearest multiple of 10; it could be up to 5 (exclusively), and could still be listed as 0. It’s why so many lower-calorie products are listed with a zero-calorie serving size in the US. I’m not sure about the specifics of regulations — if any exist — on selecting serving sizes; this particular example feels a little fishy to me.
That’s an arbitrary rounding I’ve yet to see in packagings here. A lot of calorie numbers end in other values. Yeah the comma is usually rounded but that’s it.
I think you can round down and be off by a certain percentage.
What’s 20 or 50% between friends?
Because they are allowed to do their own testing to determine caloric quantity and there is often some flubbing in the recipe during the testing. Kinda like how VWs used to have a different engine mode for emissions tests than normal driving.
Because it is 0g fat
Edit: /s
They’re multiplying by the 0.25g serving size, then rounding the 0.25g of fat down to 0g and calculating the calories from that? I can barely imagine the apoplectic rage this would have triggered in my experimental physics professor.
It’s still oil tho, 0.25g of product of oil has 0.25g of fat, regardless of how healthy that fat is.
And legally, they are right. One serving is very, very small, and therefore, one serving is considered to have no [whatever].
Just like TicTacs. They are 100% sugar to a rounding error, but as the “serving size” is one TicTac, which weighs less than half a gram, it is legally considered “sugar free”.
Which tells a lot about the real value of “legally”.
The difference here is that I can reasonably believe the quarter second of spray being an accurate serving, but nobody has just one tictac.
Quarter of a second of spray is vastly less reasonable as a serving size, no matter how unreasonable you consider stopping at a single tictac.
I don’t use spray, but those that use it normally do four or five sprays. Or sometimes even more.
Which tells a lot about the real value of “legally”.
Maybe, but it’s also a reflection of the true usage in these cases. Okay, say they are legally required to list it as one calorie. That basically makes zero difference to how people consume these products - barring some sort of weird edge cases.
Saying that 0.25g of oil has 0g of fat is legally wrong. Or should be, why are they rounding down one number and not the other?? Numbers should legally be rounded to the same decimality or whatever as the serving size unit.
If the amount of [something] per serving size is below 0.5g, they can legally claim that the food is [something]-free.
At least with fat, protein, or sugar. Although the food industry would probably lobby for this to apply to lead or cadmium, too. Or any other chemical used in UHP foods.
One thousand five hundred and thirty-two servings
🎼 “525,600 servings - how do you measure a quarter-second spray?” 🎶 ~Rent, probably.
How about love?
If it was only 1500 then I think it would have rounded to one calorie.
The FDA let’s calories under 5 round down to 0
tsst
So according to this it has 884 calories per 100g. So 1g has 8.84 calories, and 1/4 of that has 2.2 calories.
So they can’t even pretend to have rounded down to 0 from a fraction of a calorie. Apparently it’s also loaded with saturated fats. Which tracks since it’s, ya’know, oil.
The FDA lets anything under 5 calories to be rounded down to 0. It’s a scam
Ah so if I just use a table spoon then is still 0! Free oil! (Don’t tell Americans.)
What institution in your country ISN’T a piece of shit owned by Big Coconut Oil???
To be fair, caloric measurement is always an approximation. No two servings will ever have the exact same number of calories. Even if they did, different gut biomes will also feed on those macronutrients to different extents. Couple that with everyone having different metabolic rates, and 2 calories is indistinguishable from a rounding error.
And the guidance from the FDA reinforces this. The reason this panel shows 0 instead of 2 is not because anyone screwed up or is trying to mislead; it’s because any serving that provides less than 5 calories is supposed to be rounded to 0 per FDA regulation.
They have some of the best accessibility regulations in the world.
WTF. Like, sure, if you say “no decimal calories needed” it would make sense at the time, and could lead to this by accident. But that’s just silly.
I could be wrong but I believe they can round to the nearest 5 calories.
that’s how ferrero’s tic-tacs are 0 calories on the label in the u.s… serving size is one mint, calories and sugar content both get rounded down to 0.
That would do it. If that is in fact how the law works then they are technically correct, if disingenuous on the calories at least.
Yeah, unfortunately, if that’s a US label, that is how the regulations work. The FDA allows rounding to the nearest five. However, if it’s less than five, they allow you to round to 0.
(1) “Calories, total,” “Total calories,” or “Calories”: A statement of the caloric content per serving, expressed to the nearest 5-calorie increment up to and including 50 calories, and 10-calorie increment above 50 calories, except that amounts less than 5 calories may be expressed as zero. Energy content per serving may also be expressed in kilojoule units, added in parentheses immediately following the statement of the caloric contentI understand the reasoning - nobody’s going to drink oil straight out of a spray bottle - but just because the law says they can round down doesn’t mean they have to or should round down.
It does have a considerable amount of saturated fat by volume, but it is more loaded with polyunsaturated fat proportionally speaking.
It’s zero calories per serving, of which there are over 1500 in that can. It’s a rounding error. If each serving has say 0.2 calories, the whole can might contain 300.
Also, “1/4 second spray”
Are you using a fucking aerosol can of avocado oil? 🤨
Sprays have their use cases for griddles and molds that need to be lubed.
Not my daily driver for fats but I don’t see the problem.
I suggest getting a reusable 2-in-1 spray/pour bottle. Saves a little money if you’re buying two things of oil. If you’re as frugal as me then you buy the oil from a discount store too.The issue I have with plastic spray nozzles and units with oil is that they get gunky even if you clean them after every use. And most heads are not supposed run through the dishwasher. Which is highly impractical for us. For a while I bought a new one every year just to replace the top part.
I also haven’t had one yet that didn’t leak everywhere…
How soon before this started happening?
My misto started doing a 50:50 spray stream after 5 years. I ran soapy water through it and it got better, does need some upkeep though. After 5 years, i might consider it worn out.
https://mistooilsprayer.com/ Mine pumps up and sprays like a can
Those clog pretty quickly
Sure, but they also clean very easily. It’s not like a clog kills them, unless you’re using a drying oil, something that turns into varnish inside the pump.
Why not pump-based spray? I thought we were done with aerosols…
It’s not aerosol. It’s just pressurized.
I see. I stand corrected.
I mean, technically it’s an aerosol since it’s a spray, but it doesn’t use the harmful chemicals that ate the ozone layer.
Then how is OP going to get enough ozone in his diet?
He leaves all of his light switches almost flipped to release the magic smoke.
It’s pretty good stuff. Plant based, easy to apply, higher smoke point than olive oil.
Avocado oil isn’t the problem, but aerosol? I’ve never even seen that
Just so happens I have some myself. It is air pressure based.
Ah, I see. I didn’t realize oil could be pressurized that way.
You must consider, the info here isn’t random, it’s legally required by the FDA or state regulator. They have to follow the guidelines for packaging labelling requirements precisely. When the serving size is very small, the numbers are misleading. But some manufacturers also use ridiculous serving sizes to fudge the numbers.
Thats why in Australia, they are required to publish two or three columns of data. Per Serving (which can be skipped if the item is clearly just one serving), per 100g (even if the whole thing is less than 100g net, it makes figureing out percentages easier) and sometimes per whole package.
I’m not going to eat 12 seperate portions over several days from this bag of chips just because it says that many on the bag. I know this. The manufacturer knows this. The regulator knows this. We all know I’m hoovering that bag clean in 20 minutes. So the manufacturer is forced to give me a number that is easily mathable so I can’t hide the damage, even from myself.
You’re correct, but the information they presented isn’t misleading - it’s straight up bullshit.
Well, what Agent641 left out is that manufacturers in the US are allowed to “round down” to 0 if the calories/amount per serving are below a certain threshold. So by claiming 1,532 serving, they can get away with saying the calories in each serving are tiny and write 0. Tick-tack uses this to claim 0 calories even though the are mainly sugar, simply by claiming a portion is 1 tick-tack. It’s just another ridiculous US regulation no one wants to fix.
It’s cooking spray.
In Europe (or at least in France), it’s mandatory to put the nutritionnal informations per 100g. It avoids that kind of stupid things
The downside there is that if it’s, like, Marmite, you’ll never ever eat 100g in one sitting. So, you have to do a bunch of math to figure out how much salt is in the actual smear you’re using.
We do have both on packages, per 100g and per serving, but we don’t have anything wich is a nanogram per serving containing a couple billion servings in a bottle unless it’s anti matter
Its at least more accurate than the maths of trying to multiply by the purported zero on a can of avocado oil.
Yes. They should require a certain number of significant digits, as opposed to just the nearest integer. Although someone’s saying that they actually let you round down from as many as 5 to 0, which is insane if true.
Iirc they let you say something has 0 grams of trans fat if it’s less than 5 grams per serving.
Mexico does this too
Let’s be honest I’m guessing nearly every country does this
Canada, at least, follows the US convention on this one. IIRC serving sizes are set by the government, though, if that’s any different.
Yeah, it’s rounding. Under a certain amount, it just rounds to zero. No one is actually using the recommended serving size. There should be legal requirements to always provide the information for the full amount in the package/container/bottle/whatever as well next to the other values (some countries at least sometimes do this).
In Australia, we have per serving and per 100g/ml/etc both on the packaging to make it clear
EU as well. (the 100gr. is mandatory).
Yeah, here in Japan as well. I think really enforcing realistic serving sizes (no one is going to accurately do 0.25s) in labeling would also help the US.
help the US
The US people? Yes
The US corporations? NoWho do you think matters?
I meant help people in the US get accurate information on what they’re consuming.
I hope that for them, they deserve that just like everybody else. But I dont have high hopes for them tbh.
Definitely. It’s pretty egregious that they can get away with saying 0 kcal because their serving sizes are so incredibly small.
They aren’t just getting away with it, it’s literally required. Under FDA rules, if there are less than 5 dietary calories in a serving, the label must round down to 0, which, yes, is super misleading. Murica!
Since it’s a spray, I assume that 0.25s is just a single pump of the spray head
Fun thing is, though, that 0.25g of oil is 2.2kcal and not 0.
Then why not round the serving size?
The label is true for a serving size of zero. At 0.25g, it’s 0.25g of fat and 2.2 calories. The fat content is the exact same as the serving size and the calories should not round to zero. You literally can’t use the label to figure out any of the numbers if you use different amounts. It’s no different than not having a label at all.
Would it be so hard to just write it in milligrams por whatever,?
lmao, that’s so shameless. Avocado oil is one of the most calorie-dense food in existence.
Say “one one-thousand two one-thousand” at normal pace
Have you ever sprayed cooking oil for that long? I haven’t, and either way that’s only 18 calories
I wouldn’t consider this terribly misleading, 0.25 second spray for 1 serving of food is very reasonable. Should it really say 2 calories? Yeah, I think it should. Does it matter that much, though?
Of course it matters. It’s oil, of course it has calories, and of course it contains fat. To claim otherwise is simply lying.
And I regularly spray cooking oil for at least two seconds when prepping a sheet tray for baked goods or to roast vegetables, prepping bowls for dough, or a whole host of other common cooking tasks. Don’t try and pretend a 1/4 second spritz is the norm, or a useful serving size for something like oil.
You’re addressing half of my point. How many servings of veggies are you making when spraying for 2 seconds?
Multiple. I still want to know how many actual calories I’m adding to those veggies though, because it’s not zero.
I have the answer! It’s, as near makes no difference, zero.
Are you this concerned over the calorie content of spices like oregano, which aren’t required to report at all, as well?
Why would I be? The calorie density of spices like oregano are incomparable to that of oil.
So $0 per serving, I can just get it for free, right?
Maybe the amount of calories and fat is too small for typical measuring methods to register anything above 1 given the serving size. Of course, I don’t know how anyone can spray for 1/4 of a second with any close to accurate.
No, in US labeling, it’s all a rounding scheme designed to hide the facts thanks to junk food lobbyists.
“amounts less than 5 calories may be expressed as zero.” [Within whatever arbitrary(!!!) serving size the company elects to use for their junk.] So they just pick a serving size that, for instance would be 4 (k)cal, and then call it zero across the board to suit their desire to obfuscate the truth.
Not to mention, what they call a calorie is really a kilocalorie.
5 calories is all but meaningless. There’s a small beetle on my window right now. Less than 5 calories.
In the calorie tracking world, there’s no difference in kcal and cal.
A quarter second is about what I do for my only use case, but I’m only covering a couple of square inches.
Yeah, the miracle serving sizes. Similar to how tic-tacs are advertised as “low calorie” when they’re basically flavored sugar.
You, too, are 0 calories if we eat you in small enough bites.
So it would take like 6.3 minutes of just holding down the button to fully empty the can ?
I don’t believe it
If you did it in 1/4 second bursts it might, probably longer even as fatigue in your hands will slow you down.
2.21 Kcal per gram.
spraying it for a full second would be about 10 kcal, and overkill for anything less than a massive steak or making a 6 egg omelette, in other words if you’re using that much you’re either doing it terribly wrong or it’s a rounding error compared to what your actually making.
