Designs for Healthy Lifestyles

A:  Unfortunately, a food labeled "97% fat-free" is rarely ever just 3% fat. Thanks to the lax legalities of food labeling, companies are able to pull the wool over our eyes with misleading labels a lot!

A product that claims to be "97% fat free" is actually 3% fat by weight - not by calories!  The weight of a food takes protein, carbohydrates and water content into consideration.

Since fat has twice as many calories as either protein or carbohydrates (ie: 9 calories per gram compared to 4 calories per gram for protein and carbohydrates) and water has no calories, you can't judge a food by its label.  (*An ounce of dietary fat has approximately 255 calories, whereas an ounce of carbohydrate or protein averages about 100 calories per ounce.)

To make it easier to see how a label can be misleading, I'll use something labeled "75% fat free."

Let's say four (4) ounces of ground turkey contains one ounce of fat, one ounce of protein, one ounce of carbohydrates and one ounce of water.  This food would be 25% fat by weight (ie: 1 of 4 ounces is fat). 

The total calories of the ground turkey would be:

100 (protein) + 100 (cabohydrates) + 255 (fat) + 0 water = 455 calories per 4 ounces of ground turkey.

Now take a closer look at the actual percentage of calories from fat!  (255/455)  This food is actually over 50% fat!  Definitely not a healthful choice!

Word of warning: Next time you set out to purchase a "too good to be true" food based on its label - think again - it probably is too good to be true!