On a box of wheat crackers, I see the following nutritional information for one serving:
Okay, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, plus 0.5 grams of saturated fat, makes 1.5 grams total. Yet the box says that one serving contains 3 grams of total fat.
Where did that other gram-and-a-half of fat come from?!
Theres a certain amount of phantom fat in the shortning used for coating the baking surface so the bread/crackers/cookies won’t stick to it that isn’t measured as it’s not in the set recipie, but would show up in the lab test used to measure caloric value (they burn it I think).
It’s kinda’ winked at by standards and practices (along with weevle parts and mouse hairs).
Well, here we are, 10 months after I opened this thread – and I think I have finally found the answer.
From http://www.prevention.com/cooking/news/980820.news.html, an article dealing with how to find the “hidden trans fat” in pre-packaged foods:
[QUOTE]
Step 2: Check the Nutrition Facts label to see if the product lists Total, Saturated, Polyunsaturated and Monounsaturated Fats. If it does, you can figure the grams of trans fat. Here’s how:[ul][li]Add the grams of fat listed under Saturated Fat, Polyunsaturated Fat and Monounsaturated Fat.[/li][li]Subtract this amount from the grams of Total Fat.[/li][li]The remainder, if any, is the grams of trans fat.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
So that’s the secret. According to this article, trans fats aren’t treated as saturated fats, or monounsaturated fats, or polyunsaturated fats, for purposes of FDA labelling requirements. But they are considered to contribute to “total fat.”
So if this article is right, that means my wheat crackers contain … criminy! Three times as much trans fat per serving as saturated fat! And these are supposed to be “reduced fat” crackers, too! No wonder I haven’t been able to drop my weight below 220 pounds!
Thank God! He’s found it!
Mother! Mother!
He’s found it! Tracer found it!
The answer!
We’re saved! Saved!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!
[sub]er, did anybody ever suggest that you need to maybe, like, get a life?
just a thought[/sub]
Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. But when you’re dying of a trans fatty acid overdose, I’ll be looming over your deathbed dangling a tub of Crisco menacingly over your head and going, “tsk tsk tsk, he never found out how to derive the trans fat content from the food labels”. Mua ha ha ha ha!
The name Goose just “drips” fat!
Yeah, but at least geese don’t have much trans fat in 'em. (Unless you hydrogenate them, I guess. And I don’t want to think of what’s involved with hydrogenating a goose. Or two ducks.)
[[er, did anybody ever suggest that you need to maybe, like, get a life?]]
Hey, you’re the one with almost 3500 posts, DDG!
Rounding might also play an issue. If they had 1.24g of monounsaturated fat, they could put 1g on the label. If they had 0.74g for the saturated fat, that’s already ~2g. Of course, that’s a big risk if their fat content is variable. The FDA gets angry. I think the penalties might be more severe for total fat than the breakdowns. Usually, we round up by half a gram for our labels.
JillGat wrote:
Then again, I’ve got nearly twice that total.
Er … not that I’m bragging, or anything.