The FastDay Forum

After the horse meat scandal can the calorie count on supermarket foods geared towards dieters be trusted?

I look at what is in them and I do wonder - for instance fish pie with potato etc which says it is 275 cal for the whole serving.

I have only just come to calorie counting - never done it before, so complete newbie

Just be very careful as I was getting a salad from Asda noticed the calorie count was for 1/2 the tub

Looked at the Ainsley Harriot couscous tonight. It comes in 100g packets, and a packet is supposed to serve 2. So, the calories per 100g are quoted at 144. However, it says that if the whole sachet was prepared as stated with 160ml of water and without and oil or butter, a serving of 130g would contain 188kcal. Huh?

I'm hardly Hawking grade at maths but even I know that water does not contain calories, and 160ml of water should weigh approximately 160ml (depending on atmospheric pressure and temperature for any nerds out there). So how does 50g of couscous plus 80g of water come to more than 72kcal?

Which number am I meant to believe after all? The pre-cooked 100g quoted, meaning the after cooking number is wrong, or vice versa? It's just one more example that I have found recently that seems to be helpful until you look at it properly...

Here in the USA our labels are pretty standard and mostly straightforward. As jeanettewall said, you have to watch what it says a portion size is. But however, regardless of country, I get what you mean trusting it. Just because it says 300 calories, how do we know what's in that box is 300 calories worth. It might be 275, it might be 350, depending on how it packaged. I wonder at restaurants too, they tell you a plate of food is 600 calories, but that all depends on how the cook prepares it and serves it. I always feel like unless I make it from scratch and measure everything we can't know the true calorie count. That's the OCD part of me, the other part says, it's a better guide to believe the labels than to disregard them at all lol.

http://www.ainsley-harriott.com/product ... /cous-cous shows the cooked values as you describe, 260g from 100g of mix and 160ml of water does at least add up.

The 144 cals per 100g must be for for the cooked product, not the dry packet contents. As it's basically carb I would expect the dry stuff to be about 360 cals per 100g which is 180 kcal per portion so about right.

[Moogie]

Looked at the Ainsley Harriot couscous tonight. It comes in 100g packets, and a packet is supposed to serve 2. So, the calories per 100g are quoted at 144. However, it says that if the whole sachet was prepared as stated with 160ml of water and without and oil or butter, a serving of 130g would contain 188kcal. Huh?

I'm hardly Hawking grade at maths but even I know that water does not contain calories, and 160ml of water should weigh approximately 160ml (depending on atmospheric pressure and temperature for any nerds out there). So how does 50g of couscous plus 80g of water come to more than 72kcal?

Which number am I meant to believe after all? The pre-cooked 100g quoted, meaning the after cooking number is wrong, or vice versa? It's just one more example that I have found recently that seems to be helpful until you look at it properly...

Sounds to me like the 100g calories are for cooked weight too. 100g cooked serving at 144 cals would scale up to 188 cals for 130g.

Esmecat, you just made my head hurt trying to figure out your couscous calories! Up until now I've always trusted the labels but after reading this I think I'm going to pay more attention!

Biggest issue is the calories not always given for whole packet but a portion of, even yoghurts are usually per 100 g and not per pot. My biggest issue is the calorie/nutrition information is always printed so small I can't read it even with my glasses on !!

Yeah it's defo for 100g cooked. They don't make it clear. I've noticed instant noodles and couscous do this for some reason. (I think it's a conspiracy ).

What I do if I'm not sure if its for dry or cooked is add up the macronutrients and if its dry they should add up to close to 100g. But theres only about 36g of food in that 100g sample so the rest must be water.

I've looked at it again and worked out that whoever wrote the packet was simply adding 80g weight of the water to 50g of dried couscous BUT then calculated the calories based on the dried weight, if you follow. So yes, 130g would look to have 30% more calories which would explain the 188calories. It's hard to think straight in the supermarket!

I'm sure I've seen a you tube video about this recently. Not just about supermarket food but also things like starbucks and McDonalds. Most of the food was within 10% of stated calories. The item that was furthest off was some healthfood sandwich.

Calorie counts for groceries and restaurants cannot be trusted but it is better to have them than nothing. In the US they are allowed to deviate up to about 20% from the values on the labels which could be significant in some cases and lab tests that are done from time to time show even more significant discrepancies than allowed and they are typically higher, not lower.
Baked goods and particularly bread, rolls, bagels, muffins etc...vary in weight a great deal. As I am a control freak, I have a digital scale in my kitchen and I typically see that the calorie count for a bread slice is higher in 20-40% than the written value for example 110 calories instead of 80 so if you eat several slices a day or other products it adds up. Basically whatever looks like too good to be true is probably too good to be true

I try to find products that state the DRY/UNCOOKED calories because how on earth am I supposed to know how much pasta am I supposed to cook in order to get 100 grams of cooked pasta?
When I'm fasting, I keep things simple. Porridge with veggies and rice cakes with cottage are most of my meals and their calories are crystal clear.
On non fasting days, I try my best to calculate calories but since I don't have the strict 500 calories limit I don't mind if I am +/-100 calories.