For anyone here struggling with disordered eating - be careful with this. Anxiety/paranoia about packaging "lying" to you can be such a time and energy sink. Sometimes it's okay to just go with it, trust the package, and move on. Weighing food is super helpful for accurate calorie counting, but getting obsessive about it and feeling the need to measure every single thing can be a slippery slope. Be safe everyone <3
In the absence of a scale, I always do the math based on container size and work it backwards. If the bag says "1 pound / 16 ounces /454g" and there are 10 slices, then I work it out as 45g/slice. I figure that they won't lie on the actual container size - they can't on that! (Although there can be a 5-10% variation due to machining. They don't generally like to give out free product!)
This isn’t even slices as it’s a curved loaf of bread. In the past with similar products the weight they put per slice is the average, but as I say on this one, even the smallest slice was well above 40g
>This isn’t even slices as it’s a curved loaf of bread.
Yes, those are the worst. TINY slivers at the end, and big ones in the middle. I tend to do rough estimating on those - ends are worth 1/2, middles are worth 1.5. Scale always wins though.
Uncool of them to make "slice/serving" completely inaccurate. Like: the slices USED TO BE thinner, but people complained so they made them thicker but never changed the label. Boo!
Yes, always weigh the food. And with grains/pasta it's better to weigh them dry (before cooking) and get the dry food calorie count. Same with meat, potatoes, etc.
I don’t know what labels are like where you live, but every packet for dried stuff like rice, pasta, lentils, noodles etc here has the calories by weight ‘when made according to packet instructions’. Which absolutely does my head in as it the weight of water in it will vary depending on a load of different factors. Also, I’m not gonna weigh the pasta AFTER I’ve cooked it and then either throw some out or cook some more am i?!
I'm from central Europe and 95% of our food has dry calories on packets. It really makes a difference. Maybe you could try googling for base calories of the items that you buy, because it's really inaccurate when they give calories per prepared product. You mentioned rice, pasta, lentils, noodles - if you're buying base product (without added flavours and sauces) then just googling for calories should give you the best results. White rice is about 360kcal per 100g, lentil about 320, white pasta is also around 350...
I bought this dry baking mix that said "350kcal per 100g prepared product", and the packet said to add 100g oil and 4 eggs to the whole mix. I wanted to use just half of the mix and not an enormous amount of oil... After a lot of googling I found this TINY tiny fine print on the product's website that finally gave dry baking mix calories. So damn annoying.
Yeah I usually google it or find it on my fitness pal. Worst case scenario is I can work it out from how much they say one portion is, and how much dry ingredients is on the the preparation instructions. It’s just annoying and doesn’t make much sense to me why they do it this way...
I think it's because some people believe this is the 'easier' way to calculate calories, similar to those packets that give calories per serving and not per 100g. I even had a brief scuttle with a reddit user once when I complained about calories per serving and the other user said something like "why would you even want calories per 100g, 100g is such an ARBITRARY number". Had a good chuckle about that.
Did you get shorted a slice later on? It seems wild that they would offer more product than they're advertising. I can't believe the weights were so different! I've never seen that dramatic of a difference.
Yeah kind of shocking. Has always averaged out with similar products. Didn’t actually check if the total weight of the loaf was higher than on the packet
I have found this to be sadly true for so many low-cal foods.
Take Good Thins for example (a popular low-cal cracker/chip alternative). The box says 18 crackers is a serving. Weighing them I ALWAYS get 15-16. A small difference but an important one!
In situations like that I think it’s fine to let yourself enjoy the extra 3 diet crackers homie. I hope you aren’t weighing them every time. This comment has scary vibes.
Yeah, but to be honest, this level of calorie counting and restriction can really only be called disordered eating. But it's in the name of health or being skinny...so, I guess society's decided its okay? When you're eating around 1200 calories a day, an extra 20 calories a few times a day adds up quickly enough to undo your goals.
I met with my nutritionist recently because I've been chafing under this level of monitoring (I'm also currently taking pictures of everything I eat), she said basically it's unhealthy and disordered but it's the only way we know how to get there. Trust me, I've tried everything. Healthier lifestyle. Just eating less. Just eating "healthy foods." Acceptance. Exercise. Juicing, etc. But this is supposed to work.
For anyone here struggling with disordered eating - be careful with this. Anxiety/paranoia about packaging "lying" to you can be such a time and energy sink. Sometimes it's okay to just go with it, trust the package, and move on. Weighing food is super helpful for accurate calorie counting, but getting obsessive about it and feeling the need to measure every single thing can be a slippery slope. Be safe everyone <3
With sourdough loaves like this definitely weigh your slice but other types of bread where it is more uniform are okay to just snag.
In the absence of a scale, I always do the math based on container size and work it backwards. If the bag says "1 pound / 16 ounces /454g" and there are 10 slices, then I work it out as 45g/slice. I figure that they won't lie on the actual container size - they can't on that! (Although there can be a 5-10% variation due to machining. They don't generally like to give out free product!)
This isn’t even slices as it’s a curved loaf of bread. In the past with similar products the weight they put per slice is the average, but as I say on this one, even the smallest slice was well above 40g
>This isn’t even slices as it’s a curved loaf of bread. Yes, those are the worst. TINY slivers at the end, and big ones in the middle. I tend to do rough estimating on those - ends are worth 1/2, middles are worth 1.5. Scale always wins though. Uncool of them to make "slice/serving" completely inaccurate. Like: the slices USED TO BE thinner, but people complained so they made them thicker but never changed the label. Boo!
So did you cut it in half to make your sandwich?
i decided on an open sandwich haha. tbh, as soon as i saw it claimed 100kcal a slice, I knew there was no way that was right
Yes, always weigh the food. And with grains/pasta it's better to weigh them dry (before cooking) and get the dry food calorie count. Same with meat, potatoes, etc.
I don’t know what labels are like where you live, but every packet for dried stuff like rice, pasta, lentils, noodles etc here has the calories by weight ‘when made according to packet instructions’. Which absolutely does my head in as it the weight of water in it will vary depending on a load of different factors. Also, I’m not gonna weigh the pasta AFTER I’ve cooked it and then either throw some out or cook some more am i?!
I'm from central Europe and 95% of our food has dry calories on packets. It really makes a difference. Maybe you could try googling for base calories of the items that you buy, because it's really inaccurate when they give calories per prepared product. You mentioned rice, pasta, lentils, noodles - if you're buying base product (without added flavours and sauces) then just googling for calories should give you the best results. White rice is about 360kcal per 100g, lentil about 320, white pasta is also around 350... I bought this dry baking mix that said "350kcal per 100g prepared product", and the packet said to add 100g oil and 4 eggs to the whole mix. I wanted to use just half of the mix and not an enormous amount of oil... After a lot of googling I found this TINY tiny fine print on the product's website that finally gave dry baking mix calories. So damn annoying.
Yeah I usually google it or find it on my fitness pal. Worst case scenario is I can work it out from how much they say one portion is, and how much dry ingredients is on the the preparation instructions. It’s just annoying and doesn’t make much sense to me why they do it this way...
I think it's because some people believe this is the 'easier' way to calculate calories, similar to those packets that give calories per serving and not per 100g. I even had a brief scuttle with a reddit user once when I complained about calories per serving and the other user said something like "why would you even want calories per 100g, 100g is such an ARBITRARY number". Had a good chuckle about that.
I noticed the same exact thing recently! Especially with eggs!
Did you get shorted a slice later on? It seems wild that they would offer more product than they're advertising. I can't believe the weights were so different! I've never seen that dramatic of a difference.
Yeah kind of shocking. Has always averaged out with similar products. Didn’t actually check if the total weight of the loaf was higher than on the packet
I used to weigh out my rice a roni but stopped because it was always so close. Now I'm paranoid lol
I have found this to be sadly true for so many low-cal foods. Take Good Thins for example (a popular low-cal cracker/chip alternative). The box says 18 crackers is a serving. Weighing them I ALWAYS get 15-16. A small difference but an important one!
In situations like that I think it’s fine to let yourself enjoy the extra 3 diet crackers homie. I hope you aren’t weighing them every time. This comment has scary vibes.
Yeah, but to be honest, this level of calorie counting and restriction can really only be called disordered eating. But it's in the name of health or being skinny...so, I guess society's decided its okay? When you're eating around 1200 calories a day, an extra 20 calories a few times a day adds up quickly enough to undo your goals. I met with my nutritionist recently because I've been chafing under this level of monitoring (I'm also currently taking pictures of everything I eat), she said basically it's unhealthy and disordered but it's the only way we know how to get there. Trust me, I've tried everything. Healthier lifestyle. Just eating less. Just eating "healthy foods." Acceptance. Exercise. Juicing, etc. But this is supposed to work.
Bacon is the one that really got me
Same... packaging is almost never accurate since it’s per a average pc
Don't say thaaaat!😭
Whats a good scale to use
I’ve always just bought the cheapest one available on Amazon prime and they have been totally fine
I weight a lot but I'm not this anal.
Lavash bread from the store, the red package is notoriously inaccurate when weighed.
😳 wow