PrintBy Shawn McKee
Staff Writer
Checking food labels at the grocery store has become second nature to calorie-conscious consumers, but a new study finds that the numbers reported are often wrong. For those eating on-the-go at chain restaurants and fast-food establishments, there were even greater discrepancies in reported calorie counts and the actual numbers.
A recent study in the Journal of the American Diabetic Association found that prepared foods may contain an average of 8 percent more calories than reported on their labels. Restaurant meals fared worse in the study containing an average 18 percent more calories than reported.
While diet meals manufactured by Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers, Healthy Choice and others averaged 8 percent higher than reported on labels, they fall well within 20 percent variation range allowed by the Food and Drug Administration.
“When dieting, keeping track of your calorie and nutrient intake is important,” says eDiets Director of Nutrition Services Pamela Ofstein. “If some prepared meals are providing more calories than you think you are consuming, that can affect our overall calorie intake for the day and make weight loss more challenging.”
Pam explains that small calorie variances add up — especially when they aren’t calculated into your daily total. In a day when you think you’re right on target, you could be eating an additional 200-300 calories, thus sabotaging your weight loss without even knowing it.
Consider this: For a 500-calorie entrée, 8 percent variation is 40 additional calories. If you eat two frozen entrées a day, you could gain more than 8 pounds over the course of a year without even knowing how. This may be what leads some people to the belief that they can’t lose weight.
“If you aren’t sure of the calories in a restaurant or packaged meal, your best bet is to go natural,” says Pam. “Prepare the meal yourself using fresh, whole foods. This allows you to know exactly what you are putting into the meal and the amount of calories it will contain.”
Most people won’t have time to cook every meal, but not eating at chain and fast-food restaurants is a good way to avoid the greatest variation in reported calories.
The report found that in the 10 restaurant chains studied, the greatest variations in the restaurant meals came from the side dishes, which were often not included in the total calorie counts for the main course.
Some side dishes exceeded calorie counts by as much as 200 percent. Additionally, the portion provided was often larger than the serving size listed, leading to larger discrepancies.
Until the FDA tightens its standards for prepared meals, consumers will be responsible for knowing that they may be getting more calories than they bargained for. The best bet for those trying to lose weight is to limit convenience foods as much as possible and hope companies begin to report their calorie counts more accurately.
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