Health for Body Mind and Soul

Let’s start with some oil nutrition facts as explained by J. Novick, MS, RD, at a recent presentation, and then perhaps you will understand the creative marketing strategies in a lot of what we see on food packages and on nutrition fact labels.

When Oil is not Fat

No doubt many of you will have seen the ads for any number of oil sprays. From some very popular name brand ones, to the lesser known brands. One thing they all tend to have in common is their ability to creatively turn a 100% oil product into a zero percent fat product. Not bad for starters.

This means that you can spend anywhere from $3-$5 or more for a can of your favorite oil spray that is marketed as a healthy product for claiming to have zero gram total fats, zero milligram cholesterol, zero milligram sodium, zero gram total carbohydrates, and zero calories. What an excellent product!! But just what did you spend your money on? There appears to be nothing in your can of favorite oil spray! Oh, but here it is. Look closely at the nutrition fact label. You will only receive these extraordinary calorie-free and everything-free benefits if you deliver 1/3 of a second spray (.266 g) to your food/cooking. Spraying only 1/3 second will enable you to enjoy a whopping 438 everything-free servings! Should you miss the mark however, and deliver a whole one second spray don’t despair, you will have delivered less than one gram of fat to your dish. Manufacturers have taken advantage of the food labeling loopholes which allow them to round-off anything less than half a gram of fat to zero per cent fat.

So here’s to calorie-free, fat-free, everything-free oil products!