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The Truth Behind Calorie Labels

CaseyNeistat1 HN recommenders · 2016–2022
6.3M views · explainer · evergreen · Uploaded 2013-02-19

Casey Neistat's short New York Times op-doc investigating how accurate restaurant and packaged-food calorie labels really are. He gets items from chains like Chipotle, Starbucks and Subway measured by nutrition researchers and compares them to the printed numbers.

Cited in threads on calorie counting as a quick, visual demonstration that labeled calories can be well off.

Nutrition & diet scienceDocumentaries & storytelling

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3 comments from Hacker News

@thesimon2016 · in “How do food manufacturers calculate the calorie count of packaged foods? (2003)”

And apparently in the US you can be off by whatever you want [VIDEO] The video also deals with calorie count in restaurants. The NYC regulation to require calorie counts directly on the menu really seems like a good idea. Other than the people already knowing the rough calorie count, who checks the obscure and difficult tables on the website?

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@GnarlyWhale2016 · in “What 2,000 Calories Looks Like (2014)”

Casey Neistat made a fun little video[1] that explores this a bit. Without spoilers, it was a bit surprising just how off some of the food is. [1] [VIDEO]

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@virtuallynathan2022 · in “A beginner's guide to intermittent fasting (2012)”

Do you know how many calories you burn? Do you actually know how many calories are in your food? I have a metabolic cart, and the answer surprises me sometimes on the former - just standing at my desk all day I burn >3300kcal. I actually went to talk to the guy in the Casey Neistat video about food labels, and almost bought a bomb calorimeter. Calorie counting, while not useless, is not very helpful. [VIDEO]

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