Its a weird american thing I believe, since a serving size is so small that it counts as <1 calory.
This Avocado Oil that claims to be “0 Calories” 🙄
Submitted 3 weeks ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/b9a07872-b9f1-4ae2-b545-230a731a7359.jpeg
Comments
HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Rothe@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
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.
jdr@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
EU has absurd serving size measurements too, but also 100g measuements
observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
In Canada we also have nutrition facts per serving bullshit
toynbee@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Supposedly this is why tic tacs, which are almost 100% sugar, can claim to be sugar free.
Nollij@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
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.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
In that case, they are using synthetic sweetener instead of sugar.
hhg@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
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?
Daedskin@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
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.
Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think you can round down and be off by a certain percentage.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
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.
fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
It’s still oil tho, 0.25g of product of oil has 0.25g of fat, regardless of how healthy that fat is.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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”.
notastatist@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
And who the fuck cares about calories in serving size?
What about a better standard like calories per 100g?
Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Like Europe uses?
daychilde@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And who the fuck cares about calories in serving size?
Calories per 100g would be highly misleading in a product like this. You might use a couple or few sprays, but you’re not going to use a significant amount.
That said, listing calories-per-standard-amount as a secondary requirement I could absolutely get behind.
The thing people need to remember about serving sizes is that they are 1) based on studies of what people actually consume, and 2) intended to be parts of a meal. You don’t eat “one serving” for a meal. You’d have a serving of several different things. It’s extremely unperfect, but at least it gives you something you can work with. I do specifically like them having to also provide “calories per container”, though - that’s a good attempt to help solve this problem.
Abyssian@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
The difference here is that I can reasonably believe the quarter second of spray being an accurate serving, but nobody has just one tictac.
KeithD@lemmy.nz 3 weeks ago
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.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I don’t use spray, but those that use it normally do four or five sprays. Or sometimes even more.
daychilde@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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.
fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
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.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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.
Opisek@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
One thousand five hundred and thirty-two servings
portifornia@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
🎼 “525,600 servings - how do you measure a quarter-second spray?” 🎶
~Rent, probably.
daychilde@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
How about love?
purplemonkeymad@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
If it was only 1500 then I think it would have rounded to one calorie.
False@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The FDA let’s calories under 5 round down to 0
im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 3 weeks ago
tsst
Etterra@discuss.online 3 weeks 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.
Briguy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The FDA lets anything under 5 calories to be rounded down to 0. It’s a scam
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Ah so if I just use a table spoon then is still 0! Free oil! (Don’t tell Americans.)
87Six@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
What institution in your country ISN’T a piece of shit owned by Big Coconut Oil???
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
WTF, that’s dumb. 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 silly.
femmylemmy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I could be wrong but I believe they can round to the nearest 5 calories.
relativestranger@feddit.nl 3 weeks 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.
Etterra@discuss.online 3 weeks 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.
Whirling_Cloudburst@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It does have a considerable amount of saturated fat by volume, but it is more loaded with polyunsaturated fat proportionally speaking.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
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? 🤨
BigDiction@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Why not pump-based spray? I thought we were done with aerosols…
krashmo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s pretty good stuff. Plant based, easy to apply, higher smoke point than olive oil.
Agent641@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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 per 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 matchable so I can’t hide the damage, even from myself.
Etterra@discuss.online 3 weeks ago
You’re correct, but the information they presented isn’t misleading - it’s straight up bullshit.
betelplouf@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks 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 2 weeks 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.
masterbaexunn@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Mexico does this too
farmgineer@nord.pub 3 weeks 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).
osanna@lemmy.vg 3 weeks ago
In Australia, we have per serving and per 100g/ml/etc to make it clear
logi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Fun thing is, though, that 0.25g of oil is 2.2kcal and not 0.
breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
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.
jdr@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Would it be so hard to just write it in milligrams por whatever,?
chunes@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
lmao, that’s so shameless. Avocado oil is one of the most calorie-dense food in existence.
rmrf@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
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?
Phoenix3875@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So $0 per serving, I can just get it for free, right?
Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, the miracle serving sizes. Similar to how tic-tacs are advertised as “low calorie” when they’re basically flavored sugar.
RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks 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 3 weeks 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 3 weeks ago
A quarter second is about what I do for my only use case, but I’m only covering a couple of square inches.
_stranger_@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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
sunsofold@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
You, too, are 0 calories if we eat you in small enough bites.
cdf12345@lemmy.zip 3 weeks 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
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
that’s why it should say “calories per 100g” instead.
Sheldan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Same with tic-tacs claiming 0 sugar due to serving size.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Can we talk about how Americans know the word “quarter” but constantly say “one fourth” like they are children relaying wheat yields in the 1700s
TomMasz@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
There are lots of US standards like this. You’d be surprised how much product a railroad tank car can contain and still be called “empty”. US industry has an outsized influence on the creation of standards.
Snapz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Your avocado oil is likely rancid.
mister_universe@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
One serving size seens to only 0.25 grams. It’s so small amount that those numbers makes perfectly sense. Don’t panic about calories. Focus more on sugars.
foxfell@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
The more interesting why is this in Metric, not in stones, oz, cups or other funny system they’re using.
Juviz@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
This is why they are allowed to say Tic Tacs are zero calories as well. Absolute BS
InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I’m glad that folks are in the comments factually educating others about this.
But truly sad that there’s this amount of … ignorance, particularly of the willful kind. I thought that was for the nazis, pedophiles, and their supporters.
TheFogan@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
basically all arosol’s do that as well, same for pam and just about every other spray, and yeah it’s shady as hell, it’s much like tictac’s are technically sugar free… in spite of being 90% sugar, because their serving size is 1 piece.
kewjo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
how do you measure 1/4 of a second of spray?
ironpangolin29@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Reading comprehension is a skill one can acquire. Easily.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
So it doesn’t burn then right?
athatet@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
ITT people who don’t know what serving sizes are. Although, I’m pretty sure they stopped teaching about the food pyramid so perhaps people genuinely don’t know.
Thorry@feddit.org 3 weeks 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.
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Serving size is generally speaking complete bullshit regardless. Per 100g is sufficient
jacksilver@lemmy.world 3 weeks 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.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The other day I bought a cookie that was 200 calories per serving, with a serving size being half a cookie lmfao
hOrni@lemmy.world 3 weeks 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.
k0e3@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Yes, that is what they said.
protist@retrofed.com 3 weeks 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
Thorry@feddit.org 3 weeks 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.
wolfpack86@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Op said BOTH. No math needed.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Is .25g a realistic serving size to you?
BlackRoseAmongThorns@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Going to do the math an a number that relates to 100g, as in is pretty much stated in percentage?
kungen@feddit.nu 3 weeks ago
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.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
the thing is that different people use different serving sizes. – written by somebody who pours lots of oil over salad.
daychilde@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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.
noxypaws@pawb.social 3 weeks 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.