If a can of coke has 39 grams of sugar and that amount of sugar equals 151 calories, how come the coke has 139 calories? What happens to the missing equivalent of kcal?
In: 7307
[removed]
Companies are allowed to round by like…10 to 20%. And can then round it further to the nearest 5, if they so choose.
Iirc*
Differences between sucrose (“sugar”) and high-fructose corn syrup? I can’t recall if fructose uses a little more energy in the conversion to glucose.
There are two systems that the FDA has approved for determining the caloric content for a nutrition label:
1) **Atwater General**: The Atwater General system gives a blanket caloric content of 4 calories per gram of sugar or protein and 9 per gram of fat.
The Atwater General numbers are what you generally see cited pretty much everywhere because they’re straightforward and easy to use. But they’re general approximations.
Atwater General works well when you’re mixing foods together – if you put an apple, chicken thigh, milk, and some lettuce in a blender you’ll get a disgusting mix where the calories *probably* average out to be *about* 4 per gram of carbohydrate and protein and 9 per gram of fat. But if you’re looking at a food made up of a single, pure calorie source – such as a banana or a bag of sugar – then the Atwater General numbers will end up pretty far off from the amount of calories that are actually in the thing you’re eating.
2) **Atwater Specific**: The Atwater Specific system is a *gigantic* table of caloric values for different food types. The amount of calories that you get out of a gram of carbohydrate, fat, or protein is actually pretty difficult to calculate, because what constitutes a carbohydrate, fat, or protein can vary wildly between different foods.
Even something like “sugar” can have a wildly varying composition of fructose, sucrose, glucose, and other simple carbohydrates depending on the source you get it from.
Then you have to factor in that these chemicals are all mixed together – sometimes you get more or less energy out of a gram of carbohydrate because there is something else its paired with in the food that makes it more or less likely to burn in the laboratory test they’re using to determine caloric content.
Since you’re drinking a refreshing Coca-Cola®, you’re not in the apple/chicken/milk/lettuce smoothie situation where the calories per gram are *probably* averaging out. Instead, you’re in the other situation where you have a single calorie source – high fructose corn syrup. HFCS is listed at ~3.7 calories per dry gram in the Atwater Specific table. That would put 39 grams of HFCS at 144 calories. Per FDA guidelines on rounding, that 144 would then be rounded down to 140, which is the number of calories listed on your ice cold Coca-Cola®.
And if you’re really worried about calories, try the new Coca-Cola® Zero Sugar. It has the same great taste as the Coca-Cola® Classic that you love without any of the calories or sugar.
> Per FDA guidance on rounding, that 144 would then be rounded down to 140, which is the number of calories listed on your ice cold Coca-Cola©.
This is also how a Tic Tac, which is almost 100% sugar, can be listed as “sugar free”.
Tic Tac® mints do contain sugar as listed in the ingredient statement. However, since the amount of sugar per serving (1 mint) is less than 0.5 grams, FDA labeling requirements permit the Nutrition Facts to state that there are 0 grams of sugar per serving.
Here a can of coke has 10.6 grams of sugar per 100ml which is 41 kcal. The can of coke overall has 42 kcal per 100ml which makes perfect sense: https://ibb.co/Mp8Yx7R
There’s something seriously wrong with the nutritional information in your country if this is really the case.
I was curious one day and looked at a sugar packet in a restaurant. 3 grams of sugar. Coca Cola at 39 grams is 13 sugar packets. Poured 13 sugar packets in my water.
Havent drank Coke or any sugary soda since then.
I hate how in the US i have to be skeptical about every nutritional label I see on products. Because I know you can rarely just take it at face value, and need to dig into what the fda definition of values and labels really mean.
A bottle cooking spray like Pam says that the calories per serving are 0. Some of them only contain the ingredient of oil. How can something that is purely calories say zero calories?
The serving size that is listed is 1/4 of a second. Within that serving size is most likely four calories.
Anytime you’re serving size is less than 5 calories you can say that the serving is zero calories, like tic tacs as stated by someone else.
This goes across the board on the nutrition label. 5.4 g of sugar? 5g listed. 29.6 g of protein? 30g listed. 22 calories from fat meaning 2.4g of fat? Says 2g.
Margins of errors are allowed on labeling so companies exploit them to maximum efficiency which is why I know people who think that cooking sprays that are pure oil are calorie free no matter how much they spray.
There are countries that will list things to the decimal place for more accuracy over marketing.
Basically, different types of sugar have slightly different amounts of calories. Coke actually has high fructose corn syrup because MURICA. HFCS has exactly 3.7 calories per gram. Assuming that all 39 grams of sugar are actually HFCS, that’s 144 calories. **The FDA allows rounding calories to the nearest 10, so it’s actually 140 calories on the bottle.** I’m not sure where you got 139 from but that’s how it works.
Latest Answers