Okay, so I've had lots of troubles with mis-labelling in the past, especially with London Lunch cafes (EAT and Itsu are worst offenders, and Pret is not far behind!) but I thought I could trust Sainsburys

My 300 gram Be Good to Yourself Spinach & Ricotta Canneloni is listed on the package as having 243 calories, and its been that way for several years (well actually it was listed as 242 for awhile - but 1 calorie doesn't make much difference!)

But on calorie count the same serving size is listed as 297 calories!

who is right?  And where does CC get it's nutrional info from?  Does it just take it from the labels, or does it actually test each food for its real caloric intake.  I can't really believe CC has the resources to do the latter, but then where does the difference arise from?

And which amount should I log? 

Thanks !!

No help from me here, but I just wanted you to know, I feel your pain. Sometimes I'll just go ahead and log the CC value to give myself some cushion but when it's way off, I log it manually.

I hope someone has the answer. Maybe the CC folks can answer that.

If CC shows more cals than what is listed on an item and I have nutritional value of what I ate, I usually add it to list, tag it and add it for my day.

Not sure if that's right, but that's what I do, I go by the label myself.

Go with the label. Calorie Count doesn't do its own food analysis (that would hardly be practical!) they just have a database of information that was given to them by the food companies... so if the food has changed since it was added to the database, then the stats won't be quite right. (eg. Kosy Shack puddings are listed at 150 cals but they changed to using 1% milk instead of 2% and it's knocked 40 calories off the serving...) They probably found a way to cut a few corners on the cannelloni to save a few pennies on the recipe, and it cut the calories with it.

Anyway, there are rules that say that the labelling on the packet has to be up-to-date and as accurate as they can make it, but there's no guarantees on the database here.

Yeah you guys are probably right - I should go with the label, it's much more likely to be accurate - or at least I hope so!!  Maybe I should build a 50 or 100 calorie buffer into my diet just to be safe, but since I try to eat 1200 (on weekdays) that would be very difficult - I'm struggling enough as is!!

On another note, I would LOVE it if a database like CC could actually do all of the nutrional analysis - totally impossible, but would mean we could actually REALLY find out what's the food we eat

I personally find Calorie King to be very accurate and I believe they do their own testing:  http://www.calorieking.com/foods/

You could also look at

http://www.thedailyplate.com/

to compare.  Not sure if this is the same database as CC or CK.

Go with what it says on the package. There are many things here on CC that have the wrong calorie or other amount numbers. I found that I was actually over estimating calories because of the wrong information being put into CC. I now type it in all myself. Yes it can be a pain in the tush but at least you know what you are really consuming.