• Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Lol now I want to make a grocery store where everything is zero calories but the servings are like 1K to 100K. Like how much could this be abused before they close the loophole?

  • farmgineer@nord.pub
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    2 months ago

    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).

  • sh.itjust.works often doesn't work @sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • portifornia@piefed.social
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

  • Thorry@feddit.org
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    2 months ago

    In civilized countries the nutrition facts need to be stated in both serving size and 100 grams. This makes it easier to compare products with different serving sizes and also prevents bullshit like this.

    • protist@retrofed.com
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      2 months ago

      I just have to disagree. On a product like this, if the nutrition facts for 100g are listed, then you’re going to have to do the math re: how much you’re actually going to use. Having it measured out in a realistic serving size makes more sense to me.

      There’s also pretty much no issue comparing products, as products in the same category usually all have the same serving sizes.

      Cooking spray just happens to be used so sparingly that its nutritional value when used appropriately is usually negligible

      • kungen@feddit.nu
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        2 months ago

        then you’re going to have to do the math re: how much you’re actually going to use

        Sure, you’re probably going to spray a couple seconds at the most, which would be like less than 30 kcal. Basically nothing that you’d really count, unless you’re on a super-strict diet.

        But the problem is that it’s misleading. Uneducated shoppers might choose that brand specifically because “I’m on a diet”, instead of buying a cheaper non-spray version. And/or proceed to put a ton on their food, without realizing avocado oil is almost 900kcal/100g.

        “usually all have the same” isn’t fully true either in my experience. Are you really going to eat just 1/3 of a candy bar? It says 100 calories in big letters, surely it’d be much healthier than the avocado oil bottle that says 120 calories per serving.

        “Serving size” numbers are bullshit and should be banned.

      • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        then you’re going to have to do the math

        Why? It’s listed in both, so you know a spray is close to zero. If you’re using more than a couple or few sprays, you’re doing it wrong, so what’s even a few sprays? 5 calories?

        Your measuring inaccuracy on other ingredients is going to be WILDLY more than the calories from the oil. Baking and spray the baking sheet? When you measured your flour, did you get it to the nearest TENTH of a gram? Because a gram of flour is like 3.5 calories, so if you were off by a single gram - or your scale doesn’t even show decigrams, then the rounding error is likely more calories than the oil you use that adds to each ‘serving’ of the thing you’re making.

        So this is extremely unimportant.

      • Thorry@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        Oh no! Imagine having to do extremely simple maths… It’s calculus, hardly maths at all.

        The whole point is the “realistic serving size” is a myth. It’s like buying a bag of 30 sweets and having the serving size be 3 sweets. You know I’m going to eat the whole fucking bag in 1 go, so I would like to know the actual nutrition facts.

        And like I said, usually both are on the packaging, but the 100 grams one is required by law.

        • _chris@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Sorry, most people in the US can’t divide. The majority stop retaining around subtraction, and that’s giving the benefit of the doubt.

          I know people who whip out the calculator for 9+13.

            • _chris@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              It’s written on the receipts. And when it isn’t, whip out the calculator.

          • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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            2 months ago

            It’s not even that the labels are sometimes cryptic. Like sure I have 400g of cheese, but how many grams is a single slice? This information is not included on the brand I buy, nor the number of slices.

            So I either have to weigh a slice of cheese or count out the number of slices. Then do the math.

            In the US it simply says 1 slice is x calories.

            I won’t understand this backwards sense of pride in shitty labeling.

            • wols@lemmy.zip
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              2 months ago

              Ideally nutritional facts would be given both per 100g and per some reasonable serving size (as well as clearly specifying the serving size), but if I can only have one give me 100g.
              Note that while only the 100g figures are required by law, most products in Europe include the ones for serving size as well, so I’m not sure what shitty labeling people are supposedly prideful of.
              Personally I would also like a section for figures per the entire package but that’s exceedingly rare.

              US labeling is perhaps more convenient more often, but it also frequently misleads/hides information from the consumer which I think is much worse.

        • False@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          If it’s in the form of a spray, and I’m spraying it onto the cooking surface rather than the food, then yeah. I’d probably spray for like 2 seconds and only a fraction of that would actually end up on the food.

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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            2 months ago

            I’d probably spray for like 2 seconds

            I’d hate to break it to you, but that’s already 8 servings according to the label…

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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              2 months ago

              and only a fraction of that would actually end up on the food.

              Further, if you’re cooking, you’re probably making more than one serving at a time. 2-4 servings in the pan, and only consuming a fraction of what was initially sprayed, 1/4-second spray per serving is about right.

      • gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        the thing is that different people use different serving sizes. – written by somebody who pours lots of oil over salad.

      • jacksilver@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Serving size has a lot of use cases, especially when looking at things individually packaged or in separate units (cookies for example).

        Per 100g has fewer use cases in my mind as I’m not a scale and have no idea how to break down most products into 100g.

        • despoticruin@lemmy.zip
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          2 months ago

          If you are American it’s about 4oz, and if you want a visual with most foods that is roughly a cubic inch of food per ounce. It’s not exact but it’s close enough to understand when applied to stuff like oil and butter alongside cotton candy or dry crackers where the densities and amounts used dramatically differ.

        • Fushuan [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 months ago

          You do the other way around, you see the total weight of the thing, you guesstimate how much you are gonna eat and you do the math. Half of 500g is 250, so x2.5 whatever is on the 100g nutritional panel.

          It’s not about when you would use the per 100g it’s about 100g being easy to be transformed into other units so you get an easy multiplier you can apply to the values.

          • LongDickJonsson@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I always used the 100g as percentage since the rest of the nutrients is also listed as g. So if there is 9g of protein per 100g, then i can just make an easy approximation for whatever the serving is.

    • hOrni@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That’s how it is stated in civilized countries. This is American bullshit. You wouldn’t get a serving size on something like oil either.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          No it’s not, oil does not have a “serving size”.
          Thorry wrote both would be required, but when there is no “serving size” it would only be the 100g stated on the label.
          Generally here (Denmark) we never see “serving size” because it’s bullshit, and probably considered misleading.
          And misleading labeling and marketing is illegal.

          • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de
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            2 months ago

            There is a point to having both - or at least giving an idea of how much an item typically weighs. One cookie might be 200g or 50g; people may typically reach for 1-5 cookies, for example.

            A misleading serving size (eg “per 1/4 cookie”) is indeed not helpful at all, but I don’t think it’s illegal.

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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              2 months ago

              So many single-use packets which barely contain enough for half a meal, yet say “contains 2 servings” so they can halve all the numbers on the nutrition label. Yes, this is in america.

              • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                They had to stop doing this for drinks (at least). They now show the whole bottle contents and sometimes also servings for some sizes.

              • athatet@lemmy.zip
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                2 months ago

                I don’t think a serving is supposed to be a meal. Pretty sure it’s talking about like, the food pyramid. It’s not a thing anymore but you gotta get a certain amount of grains and fruit and veg and dairy and you count the amounts by serving size.

    • Noxy@pawb.social
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      2 months ago

      the first time I saw a nutrition label like that was, I think, in Ireland. Absolutely blew my mind how staggeringly useful it was in comparing different foods since there’s that common quantity across all of them.

      I really wish we had that in the US.

  • cdf12345@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    So it would take like 6.3 minutes of just holding down the button to fully empty the can ?

    I don’t believe it

  • betelplouf@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    In Europe (or at least in France), it’s mandatory to put the nutritionnal informations per 100g. It avoids that kind of stupid things

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • J92@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Its at least more accurate than the maths of trying to multiply by the purported zero on a can of avocado oil.

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          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.

      • jnod4@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        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

  • Juviz@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    This is why they are allowed to say Tic Tacs are zero calories as well. Absolute BS

  • Fleur_@aussie.zone
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    2 months ago

    Calories are the worst fucking unit ever. I’m a kilojoule man! I’ve always been a kilojoule man! And I’ll die a kilojoule man! Death to calorie! Death to kilocalorie!!

    • mirshafie@europe.pub
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      2 months ago

      I think it’s pretty neat. It’s SI-derived but scaled to an actual use-case, just like Å, eV and other specialty units.

      • Fleur_@aussie.zone
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        2 months ago

        Oh it has a use case? Really? You’re measuring the amount of energy your kettle uses in calories so that you can more quickly estimate in your head how much it costs to run which won’t even be remotely correct due to loses and fluctuating energy prices? You probably don’t even use metric to measure volume and temperature! You’re a fraud! You’re a kilocalorie using fraud and I hate youuuuu!!!

    • endbringer@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      This really has nothing to do with calories as a unit. This is all about “we’ll make a serving size some arbitrary bullshit small number so we can round down and write it has zero calories”. That’s why here it’s required by law to write calorie information per 100g. You can still write per serving size in addition to that which fools some people anyway I guess.

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    2 months ago

    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.

      • Etterra@discuss.online
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          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 content

      • relativestranger@feddit.nl
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        2 months ago

        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.

    • Whirling_Cloudburst@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It does have a considerable amount of saturated fat by volume, but it is more loaded with polyunsaturated fat proportionally speaking.

    • Briguy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The FDA lets anything under 5 calories to be rounded down to 0. It’s a scam

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        2 months ago

        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.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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        2 months ago

        Ah so if I just use a table spoon then is still 0! Free oil! (Don’t tell Americans.)

      • 87Six@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        What institution in your country ISN’T a piece of shit owned by Big Coconut Oil???

        • tmyakal@infosec.pub
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          2 months ago

          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.