Calorie Detective: The Real Math Behind Food Labels

With the help of a science lab, the filmmaker Casey Neistat found that calorie listings on food labels can be highly inaccurate - mostly underestimating the amount of calories in food products such as muffins, sandwiches, burrito, etc.

He selected 5 items he might consume in an average day: a muffin, a tofu sandwich, a Subway sandwich, a Starbucks Frappuccino and a Chipotle burrito. Then, two food scientists tested the caloric content of each using a device called a calorimeter. It’s a precise but slow process — taking more than an hour per sample. The results were surprising.

Four out of the five items had more calories than their labels reported, adding up to 550 calories. If he unknowingly consumed those extra calories every day, in a week he would put on an extra pound of body weight.



References:

‘Calorie Detective’ - NYTimes.com http://nyti.ms/Yit3KO