Ohhhh how they LIE!!!

Today I just didn't want to cook a real meal, just for myself.

In the cupboard I found a pack of instant chicken noodles. I quickly checked the back for the nutritional info and it said 100 grams 103 kcal. I thought great, I'll add some Philadelphia light cream cheese and some turkey chopped up.

So I ate and it was really quite nice but then I got to thinking....

Flour normally has around 380 kcals....

I ate a block of something of around 80 grams....

HOW ON THIS PLANET CAN IT ONLY HAVE 103 kcals????

So I looked up the ingredients...wheat flour 100 grams = 364 kcals (and that just burst my bubble and my kcals for the day so let's not even look and the kcals in the vegetable oils which is the next ingredient.

A meal that I thought would be around 80 noodles + 60 cream cheese + 60 turkey = 200 kcal turned into more than DOUBLE

I just really needed to vent and say, always use common sense while reading the nutritional value of food, check how big a serving is (bla bla bla) BECAUSE THEY LIE

Now...if anyone wants to tell me that actually the noodles could have only 103 kcals for 100 grams and why. I would be so, so, so, darned happy as I'm still really quite hungry and would love to eat one of the oatmeal cookies I made earlier.

Don't get me wrong--I firmly believe that food packaging is filled with lies that have barely escaped the FDA (see Splenda).

But your instant noodles probably have a ton more ingredients than wheat flour and oil. Stuff you can barely pronounce, add-ins and preservatives, you know. These ingredients may have a lower calorie density than flour and oil, thereby lowering the overall calorie density of the instant noodles.

If you're really concerned, compare the calories in the package to the calories of other instant noodle packages. If there isn't much of a difference, the packagers may not be lying to you--you may just not understand everything that goes into what you're eating. If there is a big difference, then it's just a few hundred calories for one day, so don't worry about. Next time, though, it would probably be less frustrating to just eat normal noodles.

Ja ne,
Sam

Picchi,

You should always go by an important rule of thumb that I follow: If you are hungry. Eat.

It does matter what you eat of course, but eat. You don't want your body to think that it needs to go into starvation mode and hang onto all the fat it can. Don't deprive yourself of nutrition, or calories for that matter.

I usually eat lots of vegetables, my tummy is full and I am sure it uses allt he calories I take in then goes to the reserves to pick up the slack. I eat lots of filling veggies, I'm pleasantly full but still under my maintenance calories :)

Oh cactus bob I hope you are right....

You see I live in Italy and here labeling laws are not quite as respected, as in other places... on the packet it says that the ingredients in the noodles are:

wheat flour, vegie oils and salt (seems kind of a short list O_O). Then for the flavor a bunch of salt and flavorings and maltodextins and E numbers.

I found this but I think that is just wishful thinking (especially as it's soup lol) as the majority look more like this.

infiniteinsight-I made some vegetable (stew I guess you could call it) last night. It has next to no calories but lots and lots of volume...so it's definitely on the menu for tonight =D recipe here

Thanks for listening and understanding my need to vent =D have a great evening!!!

If they were Asian, then that's probably why.  A lot of the nutritional information on Asian products tend to be bs.

100 grams of flour is almost a 1/4 lb........that seems like a lot of flour for one serving of soup. Normally 1/4 lb of flour would thicken enough soup for a small army.........just saying

Are the instant noodles supposed to be made into a broth?  Because I'll bet you anything that the package is referring to 100 g of PREPARED noodles - which will include broth in the weight (heavy with practically no calories).  So, you probably get about 3-4 100-g servings per packet.  At least, my experience of those kinds of noodlees is that they're typically about 350 cals per package.

the key to this is that the whole serving size is 100 grams-all of the ingredients combined go into this measurement.  there are not 100 grams of wheat flour alone.  check the back for calories as is, and as prepared, but my guess is that this is probably pretty accurate and that very little wheat flour is actually used, but the other ingredients add the weight.  I've been through several upper level nutrition courses and know that total weight is based on everything.  Also, just like applebee's most companies are pretty honest about labeling now, especially since they can be sued if they are not.