The Truth Behind Calorie Labels
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited in threads on calorie counting as a quick, visual demonstration that labeled calories can be well off.
What it is
Casey Neistat's short New York Times op-doc investigating how accurate restaurant and packaged-food calorie labels really are. He gets items from chains like Chipotle, Starbucks and Subway measured by nutrition researchers and compares them to the printed numbers.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2016 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Recommends GnarlyWhale · 2016-09 · on “What 2,000 Calories Looks Like (2014)”
Casey Neistat made a fun little video[1] that explores this a bit. Without spoilers, it was a bit surprising just how off some of the food is. [1] [this video]
Cites thesimon · 2016-05 · on “How do food manufacturers calculate the calorie count of packaged foods? (2003)”
And apparently in the US you can be off by whatever you want [this video] The video also deals with calorie count in restaurants. The NYC regulation to require calorie counts directly on the menu really seems like a good idea. Other than the people already knowing the rough calorie count, who checks the obscure and difficult tables on the website?
Cites virtuallynathan · 2022-03 · on “A beginner's guide to intermittent fasting (2012)”
Do you know how many calories you burn? Do you actually know how many calories are in your food? I have a metabolic cart, and the answer surprises me sometimes on the former - just standing at my desk all day I burn >3300kcal. I actually went to talk to the guy in the Casey Neistat video about food labels, and almost bought a bomb calorimeter. Calorie counting, while not useless, is not very helpful. [this video]