I’ve been putting this on all my veggies (adding a Tbsp or so of EEVO into my tracker a day to be cautious) and if tastes like actual butter once it’s been cooked down. I’ve been putting it on asparagus and potatoes and it’s been a game changer, but I’m concerned about possible side effects. Too much sodium? It tastes too good and it’s making me nervous if I’m overusing it
I don’t wanna be another guy who gains 50 lbs from eating “zero calorie tic tacs” and I don’t understand enough about nutrition
by secr3t-tunnel
13 Comments
If you’re not using a scale to weigh your food/ingredients, I’d highly recommend doing so. You may face a rude awakening at how much oil you’re actually adding to your food. Even with the spray bottles, I find that a few seconds can easily be a tbsp of oil.
For the Kinder’s seasoning, the nutrition label says it’s 0 calories but I find that hard to believe considering the ingredients include cane sugar, milk, and sunflower oil. With nutrition labels, companies can show zero calories if it is less than 5 calories per serving. That being said, the calories are still minimal and you don’t need to worry too much but just something to keep in mind before you start dousing everything in this seasoning.
With the sprays, always weigh the can before you spray and after you spray so that you know the volume you’re using. Anything that has zero calories per (ridiculously small serving size), assume is actually 5 calories per two servings and that they’re relying on the fact that 2.444444444444 calories rounds down to 0 on the label.
Weight the bottles before and after. The oil will be 9 calories per gram and the kinders id probably count like 4 cal per gram to be safe. Get a rough idea of how much you use on average and use that as your calorie count in the future when using both
The spray is still olive oil. Weigh the can before and after you spray and track the weight in grams. I don’t know that seasoning, but if it contains sugar, I’d be tracking a couple grams of sugar for every spoonful as well
Kinders seasoning is great. I wish theyd make a sugar free version of any of their sauces or if they do I hope I find them cus I miss that honey gold bbq
A one second spray of oil is roughly 10-15 calories. Would definitely still track it
The USDA has calorie rounding rules. It’s to the nearest 10 for products over 50 calories and nearest 5 for products under 50 calories. So 0-2.4 calories per serving becomes “0” and 2.5-7.4 becomes “5”.
If I found the label correctly, a serving is 1 gram. We know it contains .4g salt (as salt is about 40% sodium by weight). That leaves .6g.
The next ingredient is dehydrated garlic, which has 350 calories per 100g. Followed by sugar, which is a bit higher at 385. This is because each is basically a pure carb.
Sunflower oil is very far down the list. But I notice nonfat butter milk, yeast and butter flavour as well. So this is basically salt-sugar-falvoring carb.
I would guess this has .6g of carb per 1g serving. If they listed the serving as 2 grams, it would then have 4.8 calories and have to be labeled as 5. Hence the weirdly low listing to get that “0”.
So a more reasonable measurement of 5g or about a teaspoon is 12 calories.
As others have said, get scale. You can also get a fine mist spray bottle and put a much better olive oil than whatever PAM is using. Look for a flavoured one, ideally.
A tablespoon of olive oil is around 120 calories. Depending on how much of this youre using youre likely overcompensating. If I do less than 1 second spray Im not counting those calories. Usually, if I am doing more I am not using the spray anyways.
I know a lot of folks like scales, but I dont carry a scale with me everywhere so I like to look at a serving by volume so I have the ability to eyeball things when im not sure. Like, after using a measuring cup, how does 1 tbsp of olive oil actually look in a pan or wherever youre putting it and does that compare to what youre actually using? Then count accordingly.
If youre trying to coat things get a bowl with a lid, measure out whatever portion you want of oil and seasoning, put it in and shake, this is also good for salad dressing – you can use so much less if youre not relying on a pour/spray to cover everything.
Using more of a volume approach and understanding how to visualize the quantity of food has helped me lose 126lbs so far, and you really only need do it a couple of times before you know things like “when my little pan has a thin layer of oil thats about a tbsp” or my most frequently used “this is the point to fill up my coffee creamer in the frother for 3 tbsp”.
The seasoning is probably not much but you could find a similar British brand and use that as the one you track. Over there they have to give calories for servings and for 100g so they have the actual calorie/carb/fat/sodium/etc info.
I had a harsh awakening with a similar spray. It says 0 calories for .25 second spray (so shady). The worst thing was that when I tested adding like 1000 servings of the spray I was using, it would still say 0 on MyFitnessPal instead of actually adding up all the 2-3 calories per .25 seconds.
The whole can could end up being around 1,500 calories (which you probably aren’t using the whole can but it can add up quickly) and tracking apps will still say it’s 0, no matter how many servings you put.
Keep an eye on what that spray says is a serving size. It’s usually something ridiculously small like a half second spray, so the calories are so small they can claim it as 0. But logically everyone would be using a 3-5 second spray (or longer) so that’s like 10x the serving size. I think it’s anything under 5 or 10 calories that they can claim as 0. So I just assume it’s really like 10, and calculate from there.
depends on ur serving size – some of the cooking sprays are good at being able to control how much oil you add compared to just pouring it on, but ik a lot of people who have made the mistake of using the serving size to calculate calories when in reality they’ve used 5 times that
seasoning for me i’m not too bothered about if it doesn’t contain flour sugar or oils in it – if it’s just plain spices i don’t stress about the difference between 0.5tsp and 1 tsp
I’m always looking for a low calorie butter flavor product. I was using kernel seasons but they changed formulas and its just salty now. is the garlic flavor of the Kinders really strong?
to answer your question, I think being consistent is more important than stressing over counting everything. counting everything isn’t sustainable long term for me st least. if you enjoy what you’ve been doing and haven’t gained then keep doing it. I don’t count popcorn seasonings, Pam spray nor non starchy vegetables and I’ve lost/maintained for many many years.