Health  &  Fitness

Copyright ©  Eoin Franklin 2009

Percentage Fat: the supermarket con!

 

*for the purposes of this article, the word “food” relates to any product we eat or drink.

 

An unhealthy high-fat diet can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease by up to 300%.

In Ireland, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death.

 

We eat food in order to supply our bodies with the energy it needs to function. Our body produces heat when it converts food into energy. As such, every type of food; carbohydrate, protein, or fat, contains a certain amount of calories. A calorie is a unit of heat, and in order to loose weight we must watch our calorie (kcals) intake. Research has taught us that in order to maintain a healthy diet we must consume a certain balance of carbohydrate, protein, and fat. It is widely accepted that in order for a diet to be healthy we must consume less than 30% fat (calorie percentage). Any meal that contains more than 30% fat is considered unhealthy. And because we tend to eat a combination of foods during each meal. any food that contains more than 30% fat needs to be carefully considered as part of a healthy diet. If the combination of foods in any particular meal exceeds 30% fat, then this meal is considered to have unhealthy levels of fat.

 

There is currently a widespread marketing strategy, being used by food companies trying to make their products appear as healthy foods, snacks, or drinks. These are the products marketed as 92% fat-free, 87% fat-free, only 3 % fat content, etc. These ”facts” are proudly stamped on the front of many of our favourite foods. Companies aren’t directly lying to us when they use this type of “fact”, but they certainly are not marketing their foods appropriately. They are exploiting a loop hole that more often than not allows less healthy products appear lower in fat than they actually are. This is simply a marketing strategy, and unfortunately it blurs the line between what we should eat and should not eat, making informed dietary choices inconsistent.

 

When this type of marketing is used, the fat content (%fat) is calculated by the amount of fat weight (grams) present in food. As stated earlier, our bodies work on the basis of how much energy we get by burning food (calories, or kcals) and not by how heavy the food is (grams). We use the energy provided by food we eat in terms of calories and not grams. Because the amount of calories present in 1 gram of food differs between fat, protein, and carbohydrate, it is incorrect to calculate this percentage using gram weight. Calculating the fat percentage using gram weight will always produce a product that appears lower in fat than it actually is:

 

If we consumed 1 gram of carbohydrate our body would produce 3¾ kcals of energy

If we consumed 1 gram of protein our body would produce 4 kcals of energy

If we consumed 1 gram of fat our body would produce 9 kcals of energy

Clearly then, fat does not produce the same amount of calories as carbohydrate. Even though we may have the same amount of fat (1 gram) as carbohydrate (1 gram), we definitely do not get the same amount of energy from fat (9 calories) as we do from carbohydrate (less than 4 calories). In fact, when burned by our body fat will produce over twice the amount of calories as carbohydrate does! Because the human body works by burning energy (calories), we cannot solely analyse food through its’ weight (grams). This is exactly what food companies are doing. They are trying to sell their product to make money. They are advertising what we want to see: a healthy dietary choice.

 

Unfortunately, because this marketing strategy is widely used, it is impossible to select a truly low -fat food over a high-fat food masquerading as a low-fat food. However, if you take the time to turn to the nutritional information on the back of any product, perform a few simple calculations, you no longer will fall foul of this particular marketing strategy. You will be able to make an informed decision as to whether a food is indeed low  in fat or not.

 

Calculating Percentage Fat: in calories, not grams!

 

Below are two food examples. The first, a low-fat breakfast cereal that when analysed remains a low-fat food. The second, a pre-packed meal advocated by a popular nationwide “diet system”, a food that should be low in fat but clearly is not!

 

Example 1: a food that is low in fat

The above chart illustrates the nutritional information you will typically see on a packet of shredded wheat. Similar nutritional information can be found on all food products, and is generally located on the back of the packet.

 

According to the marketing strategy outlined above, shredded wheat has a 2% fat content, it is 98% fat free. This sounds like a good product to buy if you want to eat healthily. However, in order to verify that shredded wheat is indeed low in fat, we must convert this into a calorie percentage. The following calculation can be transferred to any product to provide an accurate calculation of how much fat is in any food.

As stated earlier, any product that contains more than 30% fat (when calculated as above) is very high in fat, and an informed decision needs to be made about whether or not this food is desirable as part of a healthy diet. After calculating the true percentage fat for shredded wheat as 5.9%, we can now say that shredded wheat is well below the 30% limit. Shredded wheat is low in fat.

 

Example 2: a food that appears low in fat (the con!)

 

We have just seen a clear example of a food that is marketed as low in fat and when its’ true calorie percentage fat is calculated out, it is still a food that is low in fat. Unfortunately, this marketing strategy is more often than not used to make higher fat foods appear to be low in fat. Consider our next example; a pre-packed meal advocated by a popular nationwide “diet system”, a food that should be low in fat but clearly is not! A food we could easily be fooled into thinking was low in fat, after all why would a respectable company who advocates products to help us lose weight promote high fat foods?

 

In conclusion, the only version of this marketing strategy that can be trusted is the food marked as 0% fat. Any other advertised value is inaccurate and needs to be ignored, and re-calculated as shown above. When you have calculated a true calorie fat percentage, any food that is 30% fat or more needs to be carefully considered as part of a healthy diet. The calculation above may appear slightly laborious, but we all have calculators in our mobile phones, and the ability to calculate the real fat content is a very useful tool in taking control and indeed responsibility for how you incorporate food in your diet.

 

Finally, a healthy diet is not simply based on how much fat we have. This is a very important factor, but there are many others, and not all fats are bad fats. However, the above calculation is a very useful first step in establishing a healthy diet.

 

An unhealthy high-fat diet can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease by up to 300%.

In Ireland, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death.