Warning for Dieters: Labels Don’t Reflect the Real Calorie Content

We’ve been told so many times that we’re to always read the labels of the food we buy (both for the ingredients and the calorie content), that most of us have probably already made it an involuntary habit each time we go out grocery shopping. Women, in general, tend to look at labels to see how many calories an item has, with the idea in mind that, as long as they stick within limits, they can have anything to eat. Not really, a new report from New Scientist says.

What we don’t know – and have not really been told in the past – is that the calorie count on each label is an approximate value, set according to a system developed in the 19th century, therefore ancient and most likely passé, the report adds. What we also don’t know is that the number of calories that goes in plays only a minor part in whether we gain weight or not, since these can be broken down in many ways by our organism, which is yet another thing labels should make clear. That is to say, not all calories act the same upon our body, and this is an aspect food labels ignore altogether.

In short, New Scientist points out, food labels can often be misleading because the calorie content is only an estimated number that fails to take into account many other essential factors. This could explain why women sticking to the recommended 2,000-calorie intake continue to gain weight, or why others fail to drop the pounds despite their best efforts. Not all calories are the same, the report explains, and the way they’re broken down by the body differs greatly from one type of food to another, which is why labels are not reliable when it comes to dieting.

“According to a small band of researchers, using the information on food labels to estimate calorie intake could be a very bad idea. They argue that calorie estimates on food labels are based on flawed and outdated science, and provide misleading information on how much energy your body will actually get from a food. Some food labels may over or underestimate this figure by as much as 25 per cent, enough to foil any diet, and over time even lead to obesity. As the western world’s waistlines expand at an alarming rate, they argue, it is time consumers were told the true value of their food. Calorie counts on food labels around the world are based on a system developed in the late 19th century by American chemist Wilbur Olin Atwater.” the publication details.

Atwater actually incinerated samples of food to determine the calorie count. We, of course, do not incinerate food, but digest it, which translates into a different kind of energy being produced, researchers share. And there are several other inconsistencies that can have a considerable impact on our diet and figure, despite our most admirable efforts. “Put into the context of real life, these relatively small errors may make a measurable difference.” New Scientist writes.

This immediately makes room for the most logical of questions: what should be done about it? As strange as that might sound, nutritionists and researchers say “nothing,” since a change would be more than we could take at this point. “While they acknowledge that the current system isn’t perfect, many argue that sticking with the Atwater system makes it easy to calculate a ballpark calorie count. They also say that overhauling such a widely used system would require a huge amount of research in both animal models and human volunteers, plus a more complicated labeling system than consumers are used to, for little real public health benefit. ‘There will be errors, but not very serious errors, and nobody can do their calories anyway so what difference does it make?’ says Marion Nestle, a nutritionist at New York University.” New Scientist concludes by saying.