4 Hershey’s Nuggets with almonds contain a whopping 13 grams of fat. 13!!
What part of the chocolatey treat makes it so fattening? Is it the sugar? The milk? The chocolate itself? The cocoa butter? The lactose? The milk fat? The soy lecithin? The PGPR? The vanillin? The artificial flavor?
Bonus question: How come they never state the ingredients or the details about things like “artificial flavor”? They just say, well, “artificial flavor?”
Milk chocolate and dark chocolate have lots of cocoa butter, and that’s pretty fattening.
Really low-budget chocolates and “truffles” sometimes just use solidified oil.
Those 2 usually account for 90% of the fat in most chocolate.
Sugar has no fat. Milk has very little fat. Chocolate powder usually has the fat removed. Lactose is just sugar. Soy is a protein. Not sure what PGPR is. The flavourings are usually really concentrated and come in really tiny amounts.
ETA: Totally missed the almond part. Almonds have lots of fat/oils. All nuts have lots of fats. But nuts are good for you, so it shouldn’t be much of a concern.
Protein and Carbohydrate have 4 calories per gram. Fat has 9 calories per gram.
Gram is a unit of weight, the candy is mostly fat, therefore it is a calorie bomb.
Fat is necessary to support life. Fat also tastes good, and provides texture and satisfaction when eating. Because low-fat or no-fat foods don’t have the same mouth feel, companies increase the amount of carbohydrates to compensate. That’s why a “low-fat” food might contain a bazillion calories. (example only)
“Artificial flavoring” is most likely artificial vanilla. It tastes SORTA like vanilla, but is a helluva lot cheaper.
~VOW
(Lifelong dieter)
Almonds have a fair am’t of good fat.
Just because they have fat and are high in calories doesn’t mean they are ‘fattening’.
That’s pretty much the definition of “fattening.”
If eaten in moderation they are not fattening, they merely contain fat.
By that definition nothing is fattening.
If used solely as a paperweight, a block of lard isn’t fattening. But so what?
Exactly. Foods can’t inherently be fattening. It’s a dumb term, blaming the food for what the person does.
It’s not a dumb term if it’s useful - even if it is imprecise and doesn’t precisely identify cause and effect.
I think that the term “fattening” when used to describe foods simply means: Eating that food will lead to you getting fat, more than a comparable non-fattening food.
That said, a food doesn’t have to have fat in it to be fattening. Most people get fat from consuming ludicrously high amounts of sugars/carbs.
I take back my previous use of the word fattening. Chocolates are usually “fattening” because they are high in sugar, not fat.
It’s a relative term. Per unit mass, baker’s chocolate is more fattening than steamed broccoli. It’s just a shortcut for saying “x has a lot of calories.” In a non-technical discussion, it is a perfectly adequate and well-understood term.
Foods at the top of the list for caloric density are fattening.
Chocolate with almonds? Fattening.
I don’t believe caloric content alone should be used to determine if a food is “fattening”, however.
Some foods with high caloric content are also very filling.
I can eat a 500 calorie meal of fibre, fat, and protein, and not be hungry for 7 hours. But I can consume 500 calories of refined sugar and be starving within 90 minutes.
Okay. So let’s use nuts. High in fat, high in calories per ounce, but moderate consumption is associated with greater weight loss and health benefits.
Fattening or not?
Nuts are good. They are also very filling. Eating a handful of nuts might keep you full for a long time. In the long run, eating nuts might lead to lower calorie consumption.
Eating low-calorie “diet” foods that are made of sugar/refined carbs, however, may be more “fattening” since they make you very hungry - thus leading to an increase in overall calorie consumption.
“Fattening” is probably a word best avoided, in general, I agree.
Nitpick… gram is a unit of mass. Carry on.
Fattening.
Typical consumer won’t consume them moderately and/or they should only be consumed ‘moderately’ BECAUSE they are fattening. Is crabbing for King Crab dangerous? Yes, because it’s at the top of the list for dangerous jobs. But King Crabbing isn’t dangerous when done carefully and in moderation (like, in nice weather).
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