What does ‘Calorie Free’ actually mean?
You have seen the food labels… you know the ones which quote the famous lines of ‘calorie free’, ‘low calorie’ or ‘fat free’.
These phrases are every slimmer’s dream when you are struggling to find nutritious, delicious foods that won’t dampen your diet, but have you ever stopped to take actually note of what these phrases mean? I know I am guilty of not paying attention to everything I buy.
The problem is look around the supermarket these days and you’ll discover that most products are falsely throwing out these terms in a bid to get your attention.
I can’t count the number of times I have spent a little more on a ‘lighter’ version of my favourite foods to only later look at the food label and discover that it isn’t as low in fat as I anticipated. It is a frustrating business and one that is getting worse with weight loss market becoming more dominant every day.
So what can you do?
Simple, use the following guidelines and make sure a product never deceives you again:
Calorie Free: this is not strictly true. What they are actually telling you is that per serving you will encounter less than 5 calories.
Okay, okay 5 calories is nothing, but mount up these ‘calorie free’ servings and you could soon be consuming a fair amount.
Low Calorie: this one is a deceptive one if you are unaware of the products normal calorie content. As a rule though when you see ‘low calorie’ what it means is that the food contains no more than 40% of the calories of the regular version.
Reduced Calorie: these traditionally contain 25% fewer calories than its regular counterpart. However depending on the products original calorie content, seeing ‘reduced calories’ doesn’t always negate that the lighter version is low in calories – it simple contains less.
Fat Free: this one is fairly accurate, but it is still important to bear in mind that ‘fat free’ actually means there is up to 0.5 grams of fat per serving.
Low Fat: fat is a tricky one to monitor as there are good fats and bad fats, but as a rule when you see the term ‘low fat’ what is actually means is that there is 3 grams or less of fat per serving.
Similar to the one above, this is only beneficial if you remember to rein in your servings and only have what is necessary.
Light: traditionally when you see the phrase ‘light’ you can expect to find half the calories. However, if the product was high in fat in the first place, this ‘lighter’ version is still essentially not that low in fat.
Reduced Fat: similar to ‘reduced calories’, in this scenario it means there is 25% less fat in this lighter version than its original.
High Fibre: this one is a good one to look out for when you are trying to lose weight. If you spot this on the label it means there are at least 5 grams of dietary fibre per serving.
Good Source of Fibre: similar to the one above, this phrase indicates that there is between 2.5 to 4.9 grams of dietary fibre per serving.
More or Added Fibre: this phrase can be misleading if you don’t look at the label carefully. At a first glance you’d assume that it is high in fibre when the reality is there is probably only a maximum of 2.5 grams of fibre per serving.
Low Sodium: spot the phrase ‘low sodium’ and you can expect to find half the sodium content of the original product.
Sugar Free: once again the use of ‘free’ has been done misleadingly. The truth is when you eat a ‘sugar free’ product you are actually having up to 0.5 grams of sugar per serving.
The lesson here is to never let yourself be misled by labels that claim to be ‘fat free’ or ‘low in calories’.
As you can see above, none of these phrases are what they make themselves out to be, so unless the original product is already low in fat/calories it is essential that you stop to read the label and see what you are really getting.
It could save you a lot of heartache later.
Rowena xx
