Fat Free the Food Industry

Fat Free

The food industry is required to provide nutritional information on products. The idea is to help consumers understand what they are eating. Individuals who rely on nutrition labels to monitor fat intake may not be aware that the food industry uses a procedure to arrive at percentage of fat that is misleading. The food industry bases its figures on the weight of the product instead of the calories it contains (Bluman, 2011, p. 286).

A gram of fat is nine calories. To calculate the fat content, one multiplies the number of grams of fat in a serving by 9 to get the number of calories. The next step is to divide the fat calories by the total calories, then multiply by 100% to get the percentage of calories derived from fat.

Following are calculations for fat content of three food products:

Breakfast:

Kashi GoLean Crunch:

One serving (1 cup/53 g) is 190 calories, with 3 grams of fat. According to the nutrition facts, 5% of calories are derived from fat per serving. According to the above formula:

3 grams of fat X 9 calories each = 27 fat calories

27 fat calories/190 total calories = 0.1420153

0.1420153 X 100% = 14.21053

Rounded to 14.2 = 14.2% calories from fat

Lunch:

Progresso Tomato-Basil Soup:

One serving (1 cup/244 g) is 150 calories, with 3 grams of fat. According to the nutrition facts,

5% of calories are derived from fat per serving. According to the formula:

3 grams of fat X 9 calories each = 27 fat calories

27 fat calories/150 total calories = 0.18

0.18 X 100% = 18% of calories from fat

Dinner:

Hannaford Flatbread Pizza with Spinach and Feta

One serving (1/2 pizza, 160 g) is 340 calories, with 15 grams of fat. According to the nutrition facts, 23% of calories are derived from fat per serving. According to the formula:

15 grams of fat X 9 calories each = 243 fat calories

243 fat calories/340 total calories = 0.7147059

0.7147059 X 100% = 71.47059

Rounded to 71.5 = 71.5% of calories from fat

The method to calculate the percentage of fat in foods is done in a misleading way by the food industry. For Kashi GoLean Crunch, the percentage of fat is actually almost three times what the manufacturer claims, 14.2% instead of just 5%. With the tomato-basil soup, 18% of calories are from fat, nearly four times the 5% claimed by the manufacturer. Finally, the pizza, at 71.5% has almost triple the percentage of fat compared to the 23% the manufacturer claims.