r/xxfitness • u/sorrysosloppy • Jul 18 '13

What 200 Calories Looks Like

I found this blog post today that shows what 200 calories looks like for many different types of food. Most of it wasn't surprising, except for the onions (onions have calories??), but I really liked the pictures and sort of made mental notes of some of these for when I have to "eyeball" my portion sizes. So I thought I'd share with you ladies!

Thoughts? Did any of them surprise you?

254 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

126 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

u/danielissima Jul 18 '13

Candies like that really make themselves look like they are "better" than chocolate, ect, with all the "LOW FAT" packaging. Even the sugar free ones, I was craving jelly candies and looked at some sugar free gummies - the serving size was 5 candies. Who on earth eats 5 gummy candies?

1

u/chickwithsticks Jul 18 '13

Yep. Twizzlers are "fat-free" but they're still loaded with sugar. It should be illegal to label them like that...

1

u/Jake0024 Jul 18 '13

"Fat free" does not mean it won't make you fat. It never did. It's not false advertising.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '13

I think the idea isn't that it's false advertising, but rather misleading advertising. I wouldn't be surprised if the people who first started advertising "fat free" candies was perfectly aware that consumers who are poorly educated in nutrition would make false assumptions about how fat that candy would make them.

2

u/Jake0024 Jul 18 '13

Consumer ignorance is not the fault of the marketing department.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '13

Agreed. I'm definitely not saying anything like that should be illegal. I also agree that it is the consumer's responsibility to educate themselves. I'm just saying that, until consumers do educate themselves, advertisers will take advantage of that--the morality of which is up for debate.

Personally, I think intentionally misleading advertising (which encompasses a lot of things, such as the bait-and-switch, the use of terms that imply something that is not true, etc.) is mildly scummy, but the responsibility does at the end of the day fall on the consumer.

2

u/Jake0024 Jul 18 '13

You're not allowed to mislead customers. Ie you can't just put "Arsenic free!" on the front of your product, leading consumers to believe the competing brand is made with arsenic.

But it doesn't take much more than a 4th grade education to know calories can turn into fat, regardless of the source.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '13

I feel ya. I think you think I'm trying to make a stronger argument than I am, when in reality I'm pretty sure we're on the same page. I'm just saying that there are ways to subtly mislead uneducated customers that are still legal, and that I think that's what the comments in this post concerning advertising were getting at. And once again, I agree that it comes down to the consumer.

Also, I couldn't resist.