Food labeling can be extremely deceiving. The next time you look at lean ground turkey (Butterball) with a label reading 7% fat and think – that sounds great. Think again. Why? It’s high in protein and low in fat, right. Maybe it’s not. Be sure to take a look at the back of the packages and you’ll discover that it may be up to 43% fat. Now, you ask, “how can they do that? How can they lie? The FDA regulates what can be advertised on food boxes, right?”
Would you believe that the companies that make these claims are not lying? Tthey have just figured out what percent is fat based on the volume or weight of a product. In this case ground turkey, and what percent of the weight or volume is fat. Since much of the product is water, (which can take up a lot of space and weight) they are telling the truth. It’s just not the way most people have been taught to think, when trying to buy low fat foods. Are they purposely being misled? Yes! Would you buy a product that said 43% fat? Hopefully you would not. Is it legal? Yes. The FDA never said how they had to breakdown their percentages.
You will see this kind of misleading information with many products. Prepackaged deli meats make low fat claims. An example would be Healthy choice Deli Traditions Turkey Breast. On the package it says 97% fat free, would you believe it’s 25% fat.
How do you figure out how much of what you’re eating is fat? Take the calories of fat and divide it by the total calories, then move the decimal point over 2 spots to the left.
Example:
Calories: 60
Calories from fat: 15
15 divided by 60 = 25
move decimal – .25 = 25%